College admissions told to ignore SCOTUS in this case.

http://therightscoop.com/doj-sends-letter-to-universities-telling-them-to-ignore-scotus-ruling-on-using-race-in-admissions/

SCOTUS on Obamacare, however, is written in stone.

Protesters at Grand Teton National Park –
http://county10.com/2013/10/07/photo-of-the-day-bison-protester

For the first week that the federal health-care exchanges were running … well, crawling … the Obama administration claimed that no one could get through because of overwhelming pent-up demand. Essentially it spent a week arguing that no one could have predicted that, in a country of 300 million people, 2.4 percent of those people might stop by sometime in the first seven days to check out the administration’s signature legislative achievement.

We can now dismiss that theory, because the administration has: “Six days into the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the new health-care law, the federal government acknowledged for the first time Sunday it needed to fix design and software problems that have kept customers from applying online for coverage.”

Presumably, it would not have given that interview if its efforts to fix the systems had been successful this weekend. The Hill reports that the system will go offline again late tonight for more repairs.

So prepare yourself for the next theory: This is the fault of Republicans. Had Republicans created state exchanges as they were supposed to, agreed to the Medicaid expansion and provided more funding, the reasoning goes, everything would be going swimmingly. . . .

But I do not think that the Republicans can be blamed for this particular disaster. They did not force the administration to wait until late 2011 to begin awarding important contracts for implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Presumably, they were also not skulking around the Department of Health and Human Services, writing the memos that delayed, until February of this year, the deadline for states to declare whether they’d be running their own exchanges.

I predicted in December 2012 that the exchanges would not be up and running on time with minimal knowledge of how the contracts and budgeting were being run, because the administration was being pretty closed-mouthed about those things. Was I prophetic? Hardly. I just didn’t see how the administration could make things work in the allotted time frame.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-07/republicans-didn-t-sabotage-health-exchanges-obama-did.html

Resistance to a really bad law is not…

1. futile

2. sabotage

3. “terrorism”

It is just a good idea.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-08/insurers-getting-faulty-data-from-u-s-health-exchanges.html

So much FAIL…

Were this the private sector, would anyone associated with this still have a job?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/08/fox-news-poll-majority-would-vote-against-raising-debt-ceiling/

Huh…

So…that’s kinda good, right?

Zerohedge pulling up a PDF of obama’s “principled” refusal to vote to increase the debt ceiling.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-07/debt-ceiling-humor-i-therefore-intend-oppose-effort-increase-americas-debt-limit

If employers are avoiding Obamacare by decreasing full-time employee hours from 40 to 29, then every 3 employees would work approximately 87 hours instead of the 120… meaning that for every 3 employees, a new employee must be hired to make up the shortfall… isn’t that correct? How ironic that by reducing hours to avoid the ravages of Obamacare, employers are helping to reduce the unemployment rate considerably without actually creating new jobs… Obama could wipe out the unemployment rate completely by merely mandating corporations to provide insurance for anyone working more than 15 hours…

Sen. Mike Lee —

The Obama Administration’s behavior during the first week of the shutdown has been the best argument against Obamacare anyone has ever made.

h/t “Blogs I Read” in the right margin of Legal Insurrection

Ugly polling for how Republicans are handling the budget showdown:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/07/republican-disapproval-grows-in-budget-battle-post-abc-poll-finds/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/07/atf-tries-to-block-fast-and-furious-whistle-blower-from-publishing-book/

Dodson’s book, titled “The Unarmed Truth,” provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people.

Dodson, who is working with publisher Simon and Shuster, submitted his script to the department for review, per federal rules. However, it was denied.

Greg Serres, an ATF ethics official, told Dodson that any of his supervisors at any level could disapprove outside employment “for any reason.”

Serres letter said: “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix Field Division and would have a detremental effect [sic] on our relationships with DEA and FBI.”

The national office of the American Civil Liberties Association is representing Dodson as he fights the decision. ACLU attorney Lee Rowland says the agency’s restriction is overly broad.

Rather than provide a specific objection with would allow for a line-by-line redaction, ATF used a policy that “grants supervisors the discretion to censor critical speech simply because it annoys or embarrasses the ATF,” Rowland wrote in a letter delivered Monday.

“Given the national importance of both the Fast and Furious operation and ATF practices more broadly, ATF faces an extremely high burden in demonstrating that its interests outweigh Agent Dodson’s right to speak-and the public’s right to hear-his views about Operation Fast and Furious,” she explained.”

Oh, one can imagine having the truth out here would be “bad for morale” at the highest levels…!!!

THE INCOME TAX’S UNHAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY. “Critics warned a century ago that the new tax would ultimately be ruinous. The income tax ‘will tax the honest and allow the dishonest to escape,’ the New York Times wrote. The Times warned that in any emergency the tax rates would be sure to rise and that ‘its unpopularity will grow with its life.’……..Today, the heavy burden of taxes is clearly a major drag on our country’s economy. The U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. In 1913, the total number of pages in the tax code was only 400. Today, it’s 73,954.”
—InstaPundit

So. Burn. It. Down.

Repeal the 16th Amendment. Just like we did with Prohibition. Both came from the Progressive movement, and both have been terrible errors.

ya’ll need to see this one …the money quote is this \

Why? Simply put, this objection to the president’s healthcare law is based on a falsehood, and letters that have an untrue basis (for example, ones that say there’s no sign humans have caused climate change) do not get printed.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters/la-le-1005-shutdown-obamacare-mailbag-20131005,0,3748083.story

Congressional Republicans ought to memorize, and preface their every statement with, some simple formula. “One: Make Congress and the White House obey the same Obamacare rules you do. Two: Obama let business off for a year; we want workers to be let off for a year too. That’s the GOP plan. What part don’t you like?”

—David Gelernter

That’s some good messaging, rat thar…

CBS 60 Minutes: What happens when the U.S. disability fund runs dry. A third of beneficiaries are scamming the system.

Is Obamacare’s first enrollee bogus? Hahaha… good story, and well-written. It’s been almost a week, and oddly, we have no statistics…

AmberAlert.gov is shut down but FLOTUS’s exercise harangue site letsmove.gov isn’t

Amber alert.gov has been shut down. Best I can do is put up the search engine, you’ll have to click on the link.
https://startpage.com/do/metasearch.pl

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360509/song-national-park-service-mark-steyn

“This land is our land, it sure ain’t your land
From downtown DC to the Lake Mead shoreland
From the Arctic Refuge to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is closed to you and yours”

Suckas…

Soldier murdered in Washington State may be considered a hate crime.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Joint-Base-Lewis-McChord-soldier-stabbed-to-death-226597871.html?tab=video&c=y

Shutting down food banks and, not making this up, Florida Bay.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/03/3668028/shutdown-day-3-food-distributor.html

Boehner says he’s not budging. Good. (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday that there is “no way” Republican lawmakers will agree to a measure to raise the nation’s debt ceiling unless it includes conditions to rein in deficit spending.

Blink?

American Thinker: A sign of Dem disquiet on shutdown

Excerpt: But when it comes to body language, a different story is being told. Democrats with something to lose are heading for the tall grass. Last weekend, Rosslyn Smith pointed out that incumbent Democrat office holders were completely missing from the Sunday TV talk shows, while Republicans were numerous.

Have you seen this?

KTNV Las Vegas: Lake Mead property owners forced out until shutdown ends

Who could think of vicious extortion measures like this other than mob-inspired politicians from Chicago and Las Vegas?

Pigs.

In his first inaugural, Reagan famously said that “we are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.” When the government feels free to Barrycade off large chunks of the nation — from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam — it’s telling you: it’s the other way around.
—Mark Steyn

Government by malice. The day will never come when my health care will be dictated by these pukes.

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/mrz100613dBP20131005024517.jpg

Ramirez is a treasure.

Hey Professor I really think you need to check out the comments at https://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov#…there a cheap and easy blog posting there …it writes itself and its terrific fun reading …* GRIN * …I posted one I liked below

Obama came into office wanting to be (and promising to be) everyone’s knight in shining armor.Well sometimes your knight in shining armor is really just an @sshole in tinfoil!” I think that’s what this has turned out to be….in my opinion. Just sayin’.

More on Obamacare software failure. A fatal flaw?

“now really big web sites handle millions or even tens or hundreds of millions of visitors a day. A relatively small site like PJMedia.com (sorry, guys, we’re a big news site but nothing compared to sites like eBay) still serves a million pages a day or more on big days.

So now, let’s compare that to the Obamacare exchanges. California, after reporting some fairly ridiculous numbers, had a total of 645,000 unique visitors the first day. Connecticut had 26,000 visitors.

So here’s a comparison for you. California had two-thirds the traffic of PJMedia, but at least managed to mostly stay up. Connecticut had 26,000 visitors of whom 167 managed to actually complete a purchase.”

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/10/03/cocktail-napkin-website-planning-and-obamacare/?singlepage=true

More on what may be fatal software errors in Obamacare software. There is growing buzz about this.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/04/us-usa-healthcare-technology-technology-idUSBRE99312620131004

John McAfee, who knows as much as anyone on the planet about computer security,

“This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhFbTtzG_Vk

“Part of the problem, according to a number of designers, is that the site is badly coded,”

http://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1nifc5/i_guess_a_couple_of_are_trying_to_sign_up_for/?sort=confidence

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2013/10/05/inside-the-mind-of-andrea-mitchell/

That deserves some exposition, seems to me.

Just think what our country would look like if we had a working free press…

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”
http://www.milarch.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=dwJXKgOUJiIaG&b=8486699&ct=13344123

Hmmm… What would be great is if several of these folks got arrested for holding services.

I would LOVE to see that…and the aftermath.

See, THIS is how you violate the First Amendment WHILE demonstrating how you “support the troops”.

EXCELLENT optics to show who the Collective really is.

ya’ll want some fun reading … it ain’t pretty folks and professor this might make a good story for ya …. obamacare’s facebook page …. the natives are pissed

https://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov#

Instead of erecting them literally across the country, remember when obama was about breaking down barriers…. HEYO, had to make the joke

Way to go Colorado!!! Their restarting a recall against Hudak, the dem who yelled at the rape victims when they spoke out against the anti gun bills.
http://www.recallhudaktoo.org/recall-effort-energized/

This week’s “shutdown” of government, for example, suffers (at least for those of us curious to see it reduced to Somali levels) from the awkward fact that the overwhelming majority of the government is not shut down at all. Indeed, much of it cannot be shut down. Which is the real problem facing America. “Mandatory spending” (Social Security, Medicare, et al.) is authorized in perpetuity — or, at any rate, until total societal collapse. If you throw in the interest payments on the debt, that means two-thirds of the federal budget is beyond the control of Congress’s so-called federal budget process. That’s why you’re reading government “shutdown” stories about the PandaCam at the Washington Zoo and the First Lady’s ghost-Tweeters being furloughed.
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Nevertheless, just because it’s a phony crisis doesn’t mean it can’t be made even phonier. The perfect symbol of the shutdown-simulacrum so far has been the World War II Memorial. This is an open-air facility on the National Mall — that’s to say, an area of grass with a monument at the center. By comparison with, say, the IRS, the National Parks Service is not usually one of the more controversial government agencies. But, come “shutdown,” they’re reborn as the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy. Thus, they decided to close down an unfenced open-air site — which oddly enough requires more personnel to shut than it would to keep it open.
—Mark Steyn

Same-same with various data and science web-sites the Feds have. It costs MORE to take them down than to leave them up.

So, what do the government-by-malice types do…???

And WHO hates science…???

From Gov Brewer’s facebook page:
I offered to reopen the Grand Canyon to visitors by using state money, but federal officials declined my offer.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/04/priests-threatened-with-arrest-if-they-minister-to-military-during-shutdown/

http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2013/10/03/astroturf-medias-obamacare-poster-boy-is-ofa-volunteer/

Well, of course. If it wasn’t for Potemkin villages, the Collective wouldn’t have no village at all.

Every true “independent” voter in the United States should be clamoring for the full and immediate repeal of ObamaCare after watching a few days of Barack Obama’s Shutdown Theater. Do you really think the man who vandalized the World War II Memorial with barricades to make elderly veterans suffer will hesitate a microsecond to use your health care as leverage against you, the next time you defy his commands? You’re not “independent” in any meaningful sense whatsoever if you’re comfortable with what’s going on here.

This was always a top goal of ObamaCare. Dependency is control. The Ruling Class does not fear people who rely upon it for food and medicine. Until now, the first nickel of every proposed “spending cut” – even using the ludicrous Washington definition of the term, which really means “reduction in the rate of spending growth” – has come from teachers, police, and firefighters. For the rest of history, if ObamaCare is allowed to stand, that first nickel will be coming out of health care. If Sequester Theater wasn’t enough to convince you this was coming, its big-budget Shutdown Theater sequel should have removed all doubt.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/10/03/next-time-democrats-will-take-your-doctor-hostage/

Read the whole thing.

Listened to the podcast of Mark Levin’s show tonight(10/3/2013).
All of the following is Levin’s take on the government shutdown.
There’s no transcript so I’m going to do the best I can.

What is Obama’s endgame? The clue is in Obama’s repeated use of the word ‘default’ in his recent interviews. The Dems and Obama keep repeating the story that the Repubs are crazy. That they have a ‘gun to the head’ of the country. That they are ‘holding America hostage.’ Obama is setting up the idea that “I have no choice but to take matters into my own hands to save the country.” His plan is to push the shutdown until mid October when the debt ceiling will be reached. He will then deliberately mix Authorization laws with Appropriation laws. The Senate will back him. Americans are too ignorant of the law to understand the difference and the MSM will say Obama is doing the right thing. He will then declare that it is his Constitutional duty to see that the nations bills are paid. He will issue an Executive Order increasing the debt limit. He has no authority to do this. It will be a blatantly impeachable offense but the Repubs will not be able to impeach him. The Dems will back him as a solid unit and the Power of the Purse will be transferred to the Executive branch. The MSM will say he is a hero. The Constitution will be irreparably shredded. The system of Checks and Balances will no longer exist. The Constitutional Republic will be destroyed. He will fundamentally change the United States.

Here is a link to the podcast:
http://www.stationcaster.com/player_skinned.php?s=2591&c=10771&f=1933883

You will have to listen to a 1 minute ad and then the show will start. The part I’m referring to begins at 30 mins in.
Make sure you are listening to the 10/3/2013 show.

I’d like to ask Andrew Bracca to consider writing an analysis of the self defense issues surrounding the recent motorcycle mob vs. Range Rover incident in NYC. I think it would be illuminating to hear his views on the subject.

TIA!

The latest crazy wacko Obama thingy wrt the shutdown has been done.

I regularly check http://www.noaa.gov for weather.
(For those who do not know NOAA stands for National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Administration, they are basically the national weather service. )

Today checking I find a notice that due to the shutdown the site is down and I should go to http://www.weather.gov/.

However on the second site I read this in a blurb on the top.

“Due to the Federal Government shutdown, NOAA.gov and most associated web sites are unavailable. However, because the information this site provides is necessary to protect life and property, it will be updated and maintained during the Federal Government shutdown.”

However looking around a bit it seems like the regular noaa site, except for possibly missing some research oriented site.They gave me the weather, including radar and even time looped radar.

Twenty years ago today, Delta operators Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart were killed defending downed Blackhawk pilot Mike Durant against a Somali militia in Mogadishu. Their slain bodies were desecrated and displayed on international television. Both were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Never forget.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360340/study-contra-feds-la-school-choice-program-actually-reducing-segregation-patrick

Well, of course. Obama cares about good education for poor kids like he gives a spit about kids with cancer.

Which is not at all.

He has state monopoly union teachers to make happy.

(If you want to see people who DO care about healing kids, look up Shriners.)

Today the federal government tried to block entry to Mount Vernon, George Washingtons home.

Mount Vernon is PRIVATELY owned and operated, yet the feds went to Mount Vernon and put up barricades to parking and to the bus access. The signs on the barricades blamed the “closure” on the shutdown.

But Mount Vernon was NOT closed, and is still operating, as they have stated on their website. I contacted the press person there at Mount Vernon for a status update, and her reply is as follows:

“Hi XXXXX,

Thank you for your concern. It is very touching to hear from so many other people who care about this site so deeply.

Mount Vernon is open. Our parking lots are open. The barricade was placed in front of Mount Vernon’s parking lots for a short period (less than 3 hours). Once the National Park Service realized that we own the parking lots, the barricades were removed immediately.

Anything you can do to help get the word out that Mount Vernon and its parking lots are open would be much appreciated!

Best,

Melissa”

Most of the news about the “Shutdown Theater” — unnecessary closures ordered by the Obama administration to purposely maximize the pain of the government shutdown — has focused on the Washington, DC area, but the epidemic of artificial Potemkin Suffering has now struck the West Coast as well.

San Francisco’s Cliff House, a privately owned and very profitable restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean, was suddenly and unexpectedly ordered closed today, “because” the building sits on federal land. This, despite the fact that the Cliff House racks up $11.5 million in annual sales and is one of the most profitable independent restaurants in the nation.

How does the government save money by shuttering a profitable business? And a private one at that?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/03/profitable-privately-owned-restaurant-on-federal-land-in-sf-ordered-closed-due-to-shutdown/

As David French at TheCorner said, this is government by malice.

“We’re the BarryCade we’ve been waiting for.”
– Barry Soetoro

Warren Meyer of Phoenix, AZ, is owner and president of Recreation Resource Management, Inc. RRM employs about 400-500 camp workers and managers across about a dozen states. It is one of a handful of companies that have been managing national parks and campgrounds as tenants for years, through previous government shutdowns including the last one in 1995-1996. Those previous shutdowns never closed any of the parks managed in this way, but the current shutdown threatens closure.
The campgrounds are self-sufficient and receive no federal funding. No government employees staff or manage the parks. The management companies pay the National Park Service out of the funds they generate from operating the thousands of campgrounds. So the reason for the shutdown is puzzling to Meyer.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/02/shutdown-white-house-ordering-privately-run-privately-funded-parks-to-close/

It shouldn’t be “puzzling” to anyone. This is government by infliction of pain. Meanness and contempt for the American people.

Ron Coleman
Par for the course.
34 minutes ago
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/176993/#respond

Oh Noes, the bloke is takin’ over the WORLD! LMAO

Meanwhile, interviews with health insurers, industry consultants, nonprofit groups and people trying to sign up for coverage suggested that the number was very low. Some companies that are offering plans on the federal site said Wednesday that no one had signed up with them.

Very, very few people that we’re aware of have enrolled in the federal exchange,” said one insurance industry official, who like many in the industry, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for possibly offending the Obama administration. “We are talking single digits.

A spokesman for one major Blue Cross Blue Shield plan in a southern state said that, as of Wednesday afternoon, it had not received word from federal health officials of any customers who had completed enrollment in the plan — even though a local news outlet had reported about a man who thought he had signed up. So, plan officials didn’t know whether the man’s enrollment was incomplete or whether the federal reporting of enrollment was running behind.
—WaPo

Yep. Exactly as predicted. DMV level performance.

And these people presume to know how to run one-seventh of the economy, and make YOUR decisions for you.

(Not MY decisions, because they will never have me in compliance with this crap-sandwich.)