The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Shocking (But Actually Predictable) Stupidity of ObamaCare Bureaucrats

Posted on | November 7, 2013 | 43 Comments

Ace of Spades gave the “Flaming Skull” alert to a quote from a Washington Post article about the ObamaCare botch that had been included in a summary by Megan McArdle at Bloomberg.

On Twitter last night, Ace seemed genuinely astonished by this. But really, who had any illusions that a bunch of liberal bureaucrats were competent to be trusted with the implementation of such a thing?

Here’s one quote from McArdle’s summary:

The memo [from David Cutler to Larry Summers in September 2010] is eerily prophetic: The key people were analysts with no experience in project management, technology, startups or the insurance business; responsibility was too diffused; the staff didn’t understand either the magnitude or the urgency of what they had taken on; and neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to which most of the job had been delegated, had the personnel or technical experience to manage it well. The job of shepherding the project was given to Nancy-Ann Min DeParle, the director of the White House Office of Health Reform and a very wonky wonk who happens to be married to one of my favorite writers. According to one official, the president believed that “if you were to design a person in the lab to implement health care, it would be Nancy-Ann.”

Uh, a history major with a Harvard Law degree? Look, I understand Obama has profound faith in the miraculous powers of Harvard Law graduates — he is supremely confident in his own transcendent genius — but why Nancy-Ann? Because she worked three years in the Clinton-era HHS? And another quote from McArdle:

[M]any of the bad decisions were designed to avoid Republican criticism. There was another reason that the exchanges’ architects were tucked away inside CMS: to try to stay out of the public eye. Other such decisions followed. CMS carefully obscured the unwillingness of a large number of states to build exchanges — despite the fact that this would greatly increase the complexity of the job — lest Republicans seize on that fact.

Was avoiding scrutiny — preventing Republicans from finding out what was going on — a policy decision or a political decision? And if politics was behind decision-making in what should have been a policy-oriented project, doesn’t this tell us something crucial?

Ah, but guess what? I still haven’t gotten to the quote that caused Ace to issue the “Flaming Skull” alert. Yes, it is that bad.

 

Category: Ace of Spades, Barack Obama, Health Care, Megan McArdle

LIVE AT FIVE: 11.07.13

Posted on | November 7, 2013 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Obama Offers Health Care Pep Talk In Texas

Urges Medicare expansion in Texas as he sucks up cash

Noodges Rick Perry over Medicare
Related: Obama Moves To Quell Democrats’ Dissent Over Health Care Rollout

Tea Party: Cuccinelli Was Robbed
Populists bitter with GOP Establishment

Democrats Begin The Big Smear Against The Big Guy
Thinking he’s the most likely candidate, top Dems begin painting Chris Christie with unfavorables



POLITICS
Senate Democrats Frustrated With Botched Obamacare Rollout

“You can keep your policy if *I* like it!”

Endangered Senators meet the President at the White House

Massive Navy Hooker & Bribes Scandal Grows: Third Officer Charged

Ex-Bell Police Chief Testifies In Corruption Trial

Rand Paul Raps Christie Appearance In Sandy Ads

Supremes Debate Government’s Role In Public Prayer

Biden, Wassermann-Schultz Congratulate The Wrong Marty Walsh For Boston Mayor Win

Sebelius: Yeah, We Could Have Hired Felons As Obamacare Navigators

Almost 250,000 Colorado Residents Lose Insurance Under Obamacare



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
WTI Up, Brent Down As US Inventories Shrink: NYMEX $94.96, Brent $105.10
Europe Stocks Open Lower, ECB Watched
Asian Shares Struggle, Euro Near One-Week High Ahead Of ECB
Twitter Sets IPO Price At $26
Lenovo Profits Lifted By Smartphone, Tablet Sales
Dow Hits New High At Close, NASDAQ Slips
Amazon Source Audaciously Courts Indie Bookstores As Kindle Outlets
The Truth About Google’s Mystery Barges
Pebble Boards iOS7 Train, Rolls out New SDK
Kindle Fire HDX Laps iPad Air’s Retina Screen
The Thumb is Gone: Facebook’s Like Button Gets A Makeover



SPORTS
David Ortiz Wins Sixth Silver Slugger

Big Papi

Cano, Cabrera, Mauer collect fifth awards


Dolphins’ Bullying Drama Drags On

Fan Steals, Wears Pardy’s Helmet After Jets Player Checked Through Glass


Celtics Beat Jazz 97-87 For First Win Of Season

Cubs Reportedly To Name Renteria As New Manager

Rangers Miss Nash, But Not The Net

Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch Blasts Off Aboard Soyuz Rocket

Wall Shoots Wizards Past Sixers

Predators Down Avalanche 6-4

Scherzer To The Nationals?



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Heidi Montag Downsizes Her Tupperware

Pictured here with F-cup implants

Replaces bowling balls with salad bowls, or something

ABC Anchor Elizabeth Vargas Checks Into Rehab For Alcohol Abuse

Lady Gaga To Sing In Space In 2015

Tom Cruise Defends His Parenting Skills In Court


Dwayne Johnson To Star In MGM’s “Seal Team 666”

Jennifer Lopez: “I’ve Never Had Plastic Surgery Of Any Kind”

Denise Richards Wants To Give Up Custody Of Sheen/Mueller Twins

Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” Debuts At #1 On Billboard 200

Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson Teaming For “Harry And The Butler”

Justin Bieber Faces Charges In Brazil After Being Caught Spraying Graffiti

Justin Favreau In Talks To Helm Disney Remake Of “The Jungle Book”

Rep Says Anne Hathaway Not Pregnant



FOREIGNERS
Senator Corker Considering Bill To Prevent White House Loosening Of Iran Sanctions
Mass Evacuations In Philippines Ahead Of Monster Typhoon
Tests Show Arafat Poisoned With Polonium
Greek Police Clear Former State Broadcaster’s Offices
Musharraf Granted Bail But Can’t Leave Pakistan
Embattled Toronto Mayor Vows to Stay On
Agreement On Rebels’ Political Role moves Colombia Closer To Peace
Pakistan Ready To Give Nukes To Saudis
Jailed Pussy Riot Member Shifted To Siberia



BLOGS & STUFF
The Looking Spoon: An Unbiased Diagram Of How Obamacare’s Been Working Out For America
Michelle Malkin: The White House Fable Factory
Twitchy: “Obamacare by Morning” – Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood Hilariously Mock Healthcare.gov During CMAs
American Power: NYC Takes Hard-Left Turn
American Thinker: Obama, The Most Dangerous Of Morons
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: The Ongoing Kerfuffle, 11-06-13
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Comparing Premiums, Part 1
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, November 6
Jammie Wearing Fools: “Abortion Barbie” Wendy Davis Claims In Court That She Has Mental Health Issues
Pat Dollard: Boycott! List Of Companies Pushing Amnesty For Illegals
Protein Wisdom: Congrats, Ladies! Some Of You Don’t Vote With Your Female Parts!
Shot In The Dark: Carpetbaggers – All Or Nothing, And Nothing
The Jawa Report: Guys Who Cut Off Peoples’ Heads For Fun Call US “Immoral”
The Lonely Conservative: Unions To Get Sweet Obamacare Tax Breaks
Megan McArdle: How To Put The Brakes On Consumers’ Debt


Category: Live at Five

Hit @JeffQuinton’s Tip Jar, Now

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 49 Comments

Jackie Wellfonder explains how some wretched young scoundrel evidently tried to blackmail Jeff Quinton in a fight that began over a 2014 Republican primary in Maryland. This is unacceptable.

Jeff Quinton is one of my oldest friends in online politics. I knew Jeff via the Internet for more than a decade before I ever met him in person in 2006 and, basically, Jeff was a blogger before anybody had ever thought of the word “blogger.” His extensive experience in South Carolina Republican politics has made him a valuable resource (Jeff could tell you everything he knows, but then he’d have to kill you) and he was getting links from Michelle Malkin and Instapundit way back in the misty dawn of the conservative blogosphere.

That anyone would try to smear a guy like Jeff — a married Catholic with a year-old baby daughter — is as evil as it is foolish. Jeff has too many friends who owe him favors. We’ve got his back.

Please go hit Jeff’s tip jar now — I just did.

 

Category: Quinton Report

‘How Dare You Quote Me, Haters?!’

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 51 Comments

There is a phenomenon on the Left — especially among academics and other “intellectual” types, including feminists — where they become so used to living within cocoons of like-minded sympathizers that they don’t realize how weird their ideas seem to normal people. And so, when somebody outside the cocoon takes notice and quotes their deranged gibberish, these people claim victimhood: “Those right-wing [sexists, homophobes, racists, Koch-funded Rethuglicans, whatever] are [harassing, libeling, slut-shaming, whatever] me!“

You can ask Jeanette Runyon how she has actually been reported to the police for the alleged crime of quoting some of the “Free Kate” weirdos who want to legalize sex with 14-year-olds.

See, the Left has spent so long preaching the rhetoric of “rights” that some of them have begun to believe their own propaganda, so that merely disagreeing with them makes you a criminal.

Feminists are absolutely the worst about this. When I reported rather frankly about the craziness of “SlutWalk DC,” it  spurred a berserk reaction that included not only the accusation that I was a misogynist (yawn) but also variations of the claim that my reporting and commentary constituted harassment, a sort of word-rape that traumatized the helpless victims of my hate-blogging.

Only within the progressive cocoon do people think this way, so you will not be surprised to learn about Gish Jen, a novelist who wrote a column for the Boston Globe that treated the Boston Marathon bombers as if they were victims of intolerance:

It’s hard not to recall these things and wonder: Did we fail the Tsarnaevs somehow? It’s not clear that we did. And yet for people who knew Dzhokhar especially, who had seen him at school, who had studied and partied and played sports with him, the lurking fear has been that we failed to truly open our hearts, that we accepted him, but only up to a point.

Of course: People who commit heinous crimes against the innocent can’t be held responsible for their acts. Blame society!

And when people who disagreed with Gish Jen quoted her?

Yeah, she’s a victim who was hatefully quoted by haters.

 

Category: Intellectuals, Liberals

FMJRA 2.0: Election Judge’s Blues

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The Management regrets the delay, but I think there will be some surprises in this week’s FMJRA…

The Liar-in-Chief

Totalitarian Means to Totalitarian Ends

The Drunk Sluts Rights Movement

Rule 5 Sunday: Maximum Acceleration

Sound The Collision Alarm! Yet Another Lefty Switcheroo Is CBDR!

‘Seize This Opportunity to Cripple the Tea Party’s Political Power for Good’

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.29.13

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.30.13

Elizabeth Plank (@feministabulous) Proves She Is a Special Kind of Stupid

The Going Gets Weird: Alabama Liberal Blogger Arrested on Contempt Charge

FMJRA 2.0: Floating

Legal Woes Mount for Alabama Anti-GOP Conspiracy Theory Blogger Roger Shuler

T-Mac Is A Fine Addition To The Rodeo Clown Political Class

Did Roger Shuler Violate Alabama Law by Impersonating an Attorney as ‘RogerS’?

Send Angels to Fort Bragg

U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Warns Fort Hood Troops Against Christians

Celebrity Psychopath Chris Brown Arrested on Felony Assault Charge

Roger Shuler: Another Kook Succumbs to ‘Investigative Blogger Syndrome’

LIVE AT FIVE: 10.28.13

CBS: ‘Hey, Benghazi Is a Real Scandal’

Obvious Truths of the Obama Age

‘Students for Pleasure’?

A New York Times Columnist Even Worse Than David Brooks and Paul Krugman?

Loose Cannons And Enthusiastically Violent AIs

Inmate Number 288928

‘Sooner or Later …’

Just in Time for Halloween: ‘The Evil Baby-Killing Monster From Hell’

Parents Permitted Teen Daughter’s Relationship With Sex Offender

Creepy Criminal Sex Freaks Planning Halloween ‘Wedding’ on Prison Island

Marriage, Success and Feminism

ObamaCare: The Liar-in-Chief Throws Kathleen Sebelius to the Wolves

Bill Schmalfeldt Lies to @SilverbergDave: Failure and the Exact Opposite of Truth

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 10.31.13

A Petty Criminal

IRS Leaker ID’d; Confidential Information Given to 2007 Harvard Graduate UPDATE: Gay ‘Diversity’ Program

It’s Halloween: Does the FBI Know Where Kimberlin Associate Neal Rauhauser Is?

Why Did Neal Rauhauser Lie?

LIVE AT FIVESIX: 11.01.13

Texas Appeals Court: It’s OK to Talk Dirty to Kids, Because … Shakespeare!

Does @FromaHarrop Know About Neal?

Suicidal 23-Year-Old NJ Guy Who Hated ‘Pigs’ Reported as #LAX Shooter

Top linkers this week:

  1. Dead Citizens Rights Society (39 + 4 DeRP)
  2. Rick’s Crazed World (32)
  3. Regular Right Guy (16)
  4. EBL (6 +9 BCN)
  5. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot (6)
  6. DaleyGator (5)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to this weekend’s FMJRA is Friday, November 8.


Category: FMJRA Award

Lucrative Campus Perversion: Sex Freak Gets Paid to Fist-F**k Student Minds

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 44 Comments

Dan Savage is one of the most hateful anti-Christian extremists on the planet, and the fact that this filthy degenerate creep was paid $24,000 to speak at a public university ought to be sufficient cause for outrage, even without reference to the sordid details of what Dan Savage actually said to the students, shocking as that was.

TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS!

These pep rallies for perversion are part of a Cultural Marxist agenda to destroy the basic moral understanding of American youth, and the fact that Savage postures as an advocate of “rights” and “tolerance” is central to the subversive purpose of this activity.

Wake up and smell the Emerging Awareness Doctrine, people.

What I cannot understand is why there is no organized campus opposition to this kind of deviant brainwashing. If, on a campus as large as the University of Oregon (with more than 20,000 students), there were only a dozen intelligent conservative activists determined to oppose this agenda, they could have an impact far larger than anyone might imagine. What is lacking is the kind of courageous leadership that begins with one student determined to make a difference. No one can predict where the young David will arise to stand up against the heathen giant and set the kind of example that inspires others, but I know this: There must be many hundreds of University of Oregon students who are disgusted by the decision to spend $24,000 — TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS! — to bring the anti-Christian hatemonger Dan Savage to their campus, and if any two or three of those students can get together, determined to organize in opposition to such indecency, they will find many others who will rally to their banner.

Ask yourself: How was it that a dangerous sexual psychopath like Professor Hugo Schwyzer could have been not merely tolerated within academia, but indeed celebrated as a public intellectual? If the current climate on campus is such that disturbed freaks like Hugo Schwyzer and Dan Savage are welcome — and traditional Christian morality is unwelcome, banished as “hate” — what kind of belief system is being instilled in the minds of our nation’s youth?

America’s universities have become hives of subversion, where your tax dollars are being used to teach your children to hate you.

UPDATE: How hateful is Dan Savage? This hateful:

“Population control: there’s too many Goddam people
on the planet. You know, I’m pro-choice, I believe that
women should have a right to control their bodies.
Sometimes in my darker moments, I’m anti-choice.
I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years.”

If responsible adults were in charge of our universities, deranged monsters like this would be arrested if they ever set foot on campus.




 

 

RECENTLY:

 


Category: Culture, Education, Gays, Sex

Dougherty’s Law and the Blame Game: The Truth About Cuccinelli’s Loss

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 43 Comments

In 2006, Michael Brendan Dougherty described the habitual lament of digruntled Republicans: “If it were more like me, the Republican Party would be better off. It’s failing because it’s like you.”

Whenever Republicans lose, we are forced to witness the ugly spectacle of this sectarian internecine blame game re-enacted, a tradition that dates back at least to 1948, when the “Eastern Establishment” handpicked Tom Dewey as the GOP nominee.

The sad and familiar spectacle was shamefully repeated after Barry Goldwater’s 1964 defeat which, with an eye on an approaching anniversary, reminds me of something: Years ago, I interviewed a veteran of the ’64 Goldwater campaign who pointed out that the man who made the crucial difference in that election was Lee Harvey Oswald.

The GOP had scored gains in the 1962 mid-term election and (despite the retrospective “Camelot” glamour with which the Kennedy presidency has been cloaked), by late 1963 JFK’s popularity was sinking amid a storm of controversies. The conservative backlash that would eventually elect Republicans to the White House for all but four years of the 24 years between 1968 and 1992 was already taking shape, the New Deal Democrat coalition was showing signs of stress fractures and — as the senior Goldwater campaign official told me — if John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated in November 1963, Barry Goldwater almost certainly would have been elected in 1964.

Hypothetical “what-if” alternative histories are interesting to contemplate, when we think about the extent to which America’s problems today are a direct consequence of LBJ’s disastrous “Great Society” failure, a deliberate expansion of the Welfare State that has proven almost impossibly difficult to stop, much less to roll back.

However, we must live in reality, not in hypothetical alternatives, and this is also true of Ken Cuccinelli’s heartbreaking loss in Virginia. Everybody who knows Cuccinelli swears by the guy — a brilliant policy-minded conservative and relentless campaigner who, nonetheless, got defeated by Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

The basic reasons for this loss were apparent nine weeks ago, in late August, when I started writing an article on the Virginia campaign for the October print edition of The American Spectator:

How does Terry McAuliffe, an old Clinton hand from New York, win the Virginia governorship? Simple: He talks about women’s issues and paints his Republican opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, as a dangerous extremist.
Energy policy, not social issues, was the assigned topic of the late-August event in the Washington suburb of Arlington where McAuliffe recently spoke. But polls showed McAuliffe with a double-digit lead among the commonwealth’s women voters, so the candidate stuck to his campaign’s message: Ken Cuccinelli hates women, hates gay people, and hates science too.
“We cannot be putting walls up around Virginia by attacking women’s rights, scientists or gay Virginians,” McAuliffe said in his opening remarks at the Consumer Energy Alliance forum. “This is a fundamental difference in this race.… Ken Cuccinelli has shown that he will spend his time in office fighting social, divisive, ideological battles, and those battles have defined his career.” . . .
One glance at the 2012 exit polls [in Virginia] explains a lot about Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial campaign tactics. Romney won 51 percent of the male vote, but Obama pulled in 54 percent of women. Any Democrat seeking to exploit this gender gap understands it involves basic cultural values. Romney actually won among married women (53 to 46 percent), but lost unmarried women by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, 64 to 35 percent. Religious voters favored Romney, who won nearly two-thirds of Protestants who attend services weekly, while voters who say abortion should always be legal favored Obama more than 4-to-1.
It’s no wonder, then, that Democrats spent the summer hammering away at Cuccinelli’s stance on abortion and other social issues. . . .

You can read the entire 2,500-word article, which was filed on Tuesday, Sept. 3 — the day after Labor Day — and yet fairly well summarizes what we now know: McAuliffe invested his huge fundraising advantage in early attack ads that “defined” Cuccinelli before the Republican candidate had enough money to reply effectively. By the time Cuccinelli began fighting back, he was on the defensive, and had already lost a key segment of the electorate. You should ignore any post-election analysis that doesn’t address that basic tactical problem.

Ben Domenech performed a post mortem on the Cuccinelli campaign that touches on some of these points, and I also like Steven Ertelt’s article, “Lesson From Cuccinelli’s Loss: Pro-Lifers Must Go On the Offensive on Abortion.” You cannot win an argument that you’re afraid to make. Pro-life is a winning position, if argued effectively and consistently by articulate and attractive spokesmen — and spokeswomen, I hasten to add. Most of the really outspoken pro-lifers I know are women, but unless pro-life women aggressively step forward with their message, the liberal media will always find a way to ignore them.

Whatever explanation you accept, the important thing to avoid — if conservatives are to go forward with an eye on victory in 2014 and beyond — is the kind of angry, disgruntled, self-indulgent finger-pointing that Michael Brendan Dougherty described so accurately. That doesn’t solve any problems, and tends to undermine the spirit of cooperation necessary to effective coalition politics.

 

 


Category: Conservatism 101, Election, Fear. Loathing., Virginia

In The Mailbox, 11.06.13

Posted on | November 6, 2013 | 10 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Too ragged out from yesterday’s stint as an election judge to even think about Live At Five last night, so you get this instead. Enjoy.


OVER THE TRANSOM
Dead Republican Party: What America Needs In 2016
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Rob Ford For Mayor Of Detroit
Proof Positive: Your Doctor Won’t See You Now
Michelle Malkin: Libertarian Candidate Backed By Obama Bundler
Twitchy: Genius Screenshot Sums Up McAuliffe’s Victory In Virginia


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Running Scared – Mary Landrieu Introduces The “Keeping The Affordable Care Act Promise Act”
American Thinker: I Am Now A Dissident (And You Should Be, Too)
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: The Ongoing Kerfuffle, 11-05-13
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Sally Kohn’s Most Mendacious Hysteria; also, Obamacare Watch – Less Choice, Especially In Rural Counties and Obamacare Watch – A Dip Into The Data
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, November 5
Jammie Wearing Fools: Bumbling Obamacare Website Chief Shredded By Democrats After Claiming Site Could Process Five Applicants Per Second
JustOneMinute: Lying About His Lying
Pat Dollard: 900,000 Californians To Lose Health Insurance Thanks To Obamacare
Protein Wisdom: There Isn’t Very Much For Me To Say Today, So I’m Going To Reiterate
Shot In The Dark: Hypstr Doesn’t Know History, but Lekturez The Grownupz About It Anyway
The Jawa Report: Good News – Terrorists Openly Fundraising On Twitter, Facebook
The Lonely Conservative: Conservative Parents Beware
Megan McArdle: Is Obamacare Dying Of Old Age?


The very belated FMJRA and Rule 5 posts will be up later today.
No, really!


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