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November 2013

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 06, 2013 13 Comments
This is an absolutely fascinating story that appeared today on ABC News (via Nightline) titled Uncovering Dying Daughter Hoax That Lured in Several Celebrities, and will be featured late this evening on Nightline.  It details the story of a woman who deceived many, including several celebrities, into believing that she had a daughter who was dying of an illness.  Also caught up in her hoax were the real families who had lost children, whose online photos the woman used to pass off as being associated with her own "dying daughter." It's a hoax not unlike some you may have heard before, but this was more elaborate than the usual fare, and far more personal.  And what's most surprising about the hoax is the reason behind it - as ABC News puts it, "it was a far cry from a financial scheme." The story emphasizes the dark side of online communication and reminds us that it's not that difficult to fall victim to such deception. Here is an introductory excerpt from the ABC News article:

Posted by New Neo on November 06, 2013 19 Comments
Well, well, well: it seems that with Obamacare, the insurers got some insurance against loss, too. Just another case of needing to pass the bill to find out what nuggets were hidden within its deep recesses:
If an exchange plan's performance varies in either direction by more than 3 percent, it either collects a subsidy from federal taxpayers via the Department of Health and Human Services to recoup part (50 to 80 percent) of further losses, or it has to kick back a similar share of the excess profit. Ideally, the money kicked back by profitable health plans can cover the subsidies for plans that lose. But unlike with the other two R's, there is no legal requirement that the numbers balance or limit on what can be paid. So imagine that we do enter a “death spiral” situation in which a large number of exchange health plans lose big and very few turn sizable profits...taxpayers potentially face a multi-billion dollar bailout of health insurers for losses outside the corridor. Insurers are therefore safe. Politicians who back Obamacare may not be. If insurers' costs do rise to the level that they require a taxpayer bailout, they will also be announcing massive hikes to their insurance premiums for calendar 2015.
This news may not get the widespread publicity it deserves unless the death spiral begins. But if it does, watch out.

Posted by Anne Segal on November 06, 2013 15 Comments

A sobering day for those of us observing the GOP's messages in the wake of Virginia and New Jersey elections. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page provides all you need to know about how the establishment is posturing Christie for President, writing that he's 1) not...

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 06, 2013 11 Comments
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified before the Senate Finance Committee this morning on the troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. Not surprisingly, Sebelius was pressed on the President's promise that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," a promise that's been repeated in various forms numerous times, including on the White House website. Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas addressed the issue with Secretary Sebelius. "We know that lying to Congress is a crime, but unfortunately lying to the American people is not," Cornyn said. "I'd just like to ask you a simple true or false question. Is that statement on the White House website true? Or is it false?" Watch Sebelius' response below. And in another exchange, Cornyn addressed with Sebelius the issue of background checks for Obamacare navigators.  Navigators can assist individuals in exploring coverage options on the Marketplace, "including completing eligibility and enrollment forms." "Isn't it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background check, even though they will receive sensitive personal information from the individuals they help sign up for the Affordable Care Act?" Sebelius calmly responded, "That is true. States could add an additional, um, background checks and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement." "So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them," Cornyn pressed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2013 43 Comments
Ace describes this as sort of true (quote from Daily Caller)
“Bobby Jindal and his political team totally blew it,” harrumphed one advisor for Ken Cuccinelli the morning after a closer-than-expected loss. Cuccinelli, who narrowly lost last night’s gubernatorial election to Terry McAuliffe, was badly outspent in the days and weeks leading up to the election. The New York Times‘ Jonathan Martin described Cuccinelli’s plight as having been “close to abandoned at the end.” He was. As Politico’s James Hohmann reported, ”The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009.” And as the Roanoke Times noted, in 2009, the Chamber of Commerce spent $973,000 on Bob McDonnell, but “[t]his year, the chamber gave Cuccinelli nothing.” But it was the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) and chairman Bobby Jindal who drew the most ire from a Cuccinelli advisor I spoke to on Wednesday morning — this, despite the fact that the RGA spent millions on the race.
The gripe against the RGA is that it spent money on ads itself, rather than giving the money to the Cuccinelli campaign directly, as the Democratic Governors Association did for McAuliffe, who used the money to hammer a war on women strategy. These are details, details, details. The bigger issue with Republicans is that it's a one-way loyalty.  When an establishment candidate wins a primary, Tea Party and others are expected to fall in line.  And that did in fact happen with the Romney presidential campaign. But it doesn't work the other way around.  When an establishment/incumbent Republican loses a primary, there is no rallying around the insurgent nominee with any enthusiasm. That's not the way it works for Democrats.  First, there are few if any insurgents in the Democratic Party.  Once in a while you'll get a true progressive, but those are dwindling.  There is a greater homogeneity of thought in the Democratic Party.  And when you do get a whack job like Alan Grayson, Democrats circle the wagons instead of creating a circular firing squad as Republicans do. https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/397915363444150272

Posted by Andrew Branca on November 06, 2013 21 Comments
Although it had been widely reported (including right here at Legal Insurrection) that the Sanford, FL police department had banned Neighborhood Watch volunteers from being lawfully armed, Police Chief Cecil Smith now says that this policy was miscommunicated to the public. It remains true that volunteers in a more thoroughly organized form of neighborhood watch--called "Citizens on Patrol"--will be prohibited from being armed.   Readers may recall  "Citizens on Patrol" from early in the Zimmerman trial.  One of the first of the Prosecution's witnesses was Wendy Dorival, a civilian employee of the Sanford PD who acted as their liaison with local neighborhood watch programs.  She testified about her interactions with George Zimmerman in that context, describing him in glowing terms.  Indeed, so impressed was she with Zimmerman that she tried to recruit him for the more substantive "Citizens on Patrol" program.  In that program Zimmerman would have been provided with a patrol car, a uniform of sorts, and generally been as close to being a "real" policeman as he had ever hoped to become. Zimmerman declined the opportunity -- one might speculate because even then the position would have required that Zimmerman disarm himself.   So, if it was always the policy that "Citizens on Patrol" were required to be unarmed, but that the "standard" Neighborhood Watch volunteers could lawfully arm themselves, why the past few days news about these issues? I expect that the only real "miscommunication" from the Sanford Police Department has been in misunderstanding how severely negative the response would be to the notion that Neighborhood Watch volunteers would be required to leave themselves fatally vulnerable to criminal aggressors preying on their neighborhood. For those who are interested, here is Wendy Dorival's testimony from the trial:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2013 17 Comments
A rare dose of sanity at Salon.com, Who will protect us? Why I’m still conflicted about guns as a black feminist:
I was 15 years old when my mother and I were robbed at gunpoint. It was 1982.... I don’t own a gun but I know plenty of educated black women who do. These are working- and middle-class women, some of them single and some with families, and  statistics support what I see. According to a National Shooting Sports Foundation report, 78.6 percent of retailers reported an increase in the number of women buying guns in 2012. Although a 2013 Pew research report reveals that gun ownership remains overwhelmingly white and male, black women made up the fastest growing purchasers of concealed handguns in Texas between the years 2007 and 2012. J. Victoria Sanders, a black Texan and journalist, reported this trend in a 2011 article detailing the increased marketing of guns to women and Sanders’ own journey toward gun ownership. This movement toward guns seems a rational decision for black women when you consider some of our experiences. Historically, black women have been left unprotected as a matter of law and custom, our bodies designated as commodities, used as “de mule uh de world” as Zora Neale Hurston wrote, and as sites for sexual violence and mockery. In an analysis of 2011 data, the Violence Policy Center reported that black women are murdered at rates three times that of white women and these murders usually involve a gun used by someone that the woman knows. Given these realities, some of us are pragmatic about self-defense. Even when we identify as feminist, as I do, we remain uncommitted to anti-gun feminism that erases our specific experience....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2013 14 Comments
Our examination of the shout-down of Ray Kelly at Brown University has moved from the events that day to examining reaction of faculty, including from Political Science Professor Marion Orr who apologized for inviting Kelly, and Biology Professor Ken Miller who issued a forceful denunciation of the shout-down. Something interesting happened along the way, as more faculty went on record supporting the protests, if not the shout down. Post doctoral fellow and instructor Linda Quiquivix, who spoke on a panel discussion in favor of the protests, turned out to be a zealous critic of Israel, to put it very mildly.  In light of Quiquivix's background, I suggested that there may be a connection between supporters of the tactics used against Israel on campuses and those used against Kelly. It turns out that another faculty member who supported the shout-down also has a background in the Israel divestment movement.  More than that, she sits on the University advisory committee on social investing, which has taken up the Israel boycott issue at the behest of Brown's Students for Justice in Palestine. Naoko Shibusawa is a professor of history, specializing in "U.S. cultural history." [caption id="attachment_69998" align="alignnone" width="436"]Naoko Shibusawa Syria Forum 3 (Naoko Shibusawa)[/caption] In the wake of the Kelly shout-down, Shibusawa wrote a Letter to the Editor of The Brown Daily Herald on November 1, fully supporting the events that took place (emphasis added):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 05, 2013 16 Comments

Pew Research recently came out with a new report titled "Twitter News Consumers: Young, Mobile and Educated," which focuses in part on the profile of those who consume news on the social media service.  It's an informative study overall, but there was a passing data...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2013 24 Comments

We have written many times before about Obama's obsession with wind power, despite the huge massacre of migratory bird populations, questionable technology, and doubtful economics. Via Tim Blair (h/t Iowahawk) come this poinent video of a German windmill falling down, and a description of the techincally...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 05, 2013 0 Comments
We have noted degree to which America's media, including Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran bureau chief for the New York Times, tells us that the most vicious anti-American statements from Iran are really expressions of admiration. Check out a few of Erdbrink's recent tweets. https://twitter.com/ThomasErdbrink/status/397332815559151616 https://twitter.com/ThomasErdbrink/status/397332340931706880 Erdbrink calls Jalili a hardliner. But in a recent article he reported on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as not being a hardliner:
With talks over Iran’s nuclear program set to resume in Geneva this week, both sides engaged in a bit of public diplomacy Sunday: Iran’s supreme leader moved to quiet hard-liners in his country by expressing support for his negotiating team, while the chief American negotiator reiterated in an Israeli television interview that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds Iran’s final word on the nuclear talks, told a group of students here that he was not optimistic the negotiations would succeed, but he also sent a negative message to the conservative clerics and military commanders who in recent weeks have attacked the diplomatic initiative.

Posted by Laurel Conrad on November 05, 2013 27 Comments
Last week, White House press secretary Jay Carney admitted that Obamacare would force around 15 million people -  5% of the US population - to drop their current insurance. This number doesn't seem like a big deal to him, however:
“That’s the universe we’re talking about, 5 percent of the population,” Carney described. “In some of the coverage of this issue in the last several days, you would think that you were talking about 75 percent or 80 percent or 60 percent of the American population.”
That number is close to some other estimates for the individual market, but does not include people whose employers drop coverage, multiplying that number several fold. But how many people is 15 million? Is it really such a small number, something we shouldn't care about? Let's put it in perspective, and visualize 15 million people:

1. The combined population of 13 states

Yes, you read that correctly. 15 million is approximately the number of total people living in Wyoming, Vermont,  North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,  Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, and West Virginia combined.  And more than all of the New England states!

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 05, 2013 3 Comments
At first I assumed this was an anti-Bush bumper sticker. From Danelle:
Seen in North Texas

Bumper Stickers - North Texas - Cowboy White House left Bumper Stickers - North Texas - Cowboy White House right

But Danelle sent this link to the song Cowboy in The White House, and an article from 2003 about the song:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 10 Comments
I had to laugh listening to the audio of the NY Times Tehran Bureau Chief explaining away the intensified and widespread chants of Death to America on the streets of Tehran as not really meaning "Death to America" (h/t Althouse):
On this 34th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, thousands of Iranians gathered outside that building to once again chant "Death to America." But New York Times Bureau Chief Thomas Erdbrink told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Monday that though the shouts were the same as they've been since 1979 and the demonstration was larger than in recent years, the people he interviewed there were not virulently anti-American. "All the people I spoke with," Erbrink said, "didn't really mind Iran talking to the United States ... [and they] admitted they want to see some sort of solution" to three-plus decades of fractured relations.
I laughed not because the subject is funny, but because it reminded me of left-wing guru Professor Juan Cole from March 2009, insisting that when they chant Death to American in Iran, they really mean "could you get me a visa, I'd really like to visit Disneyland" (video below, at 3:08):

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 04, 2013 20 Comments

Since problems first impacted the troubled healthcare.gov website, officials have repeatedly told frustrated consumers that they may turn instead to alternative enrollment options, such as paper and phone applications.  But even those applications must rely on the same portal to determine eligibility, according to ABC...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 3 Comments

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is a valuable resource on which we frequently rely for news tips and information regarding the Middle East.  I'm not sure how I ended up on CAMERA's email update list, and I'm not even sure...

Posted by A.F. Branco on November 04, 2013 7 Comments

Note: You may reprint this cartoon provided you link back to this source.  To see more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here. Branco’s page is Cartoonist A.F.Branco...

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