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LATEST NEWS

I haven't followed the Upton Bill very carefully. It seems that it is similar to Obama's "fix" except that it also allows insurance companies to sell non-Obamacare compliant policies, not just keep them in force (assuming that even is possible, which it probably is not). The Upton Bill is viewed as a mortal threat by Obamacare defenders (aka Democrats), via The Hill:
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), is coming up for a vote on Friday.... Under the administrative fix, insurance companies are permitted to continue offering existing plans to current enrollees — regardless of when they signed up for coverage, or if that coverage was recently altered. But unlike the Upton bill, insurance companies can’t offer the bare-bones plans to new enrollees.

Pew Research is out with another installment on its study of News Use across Social Media Platforms, some of which may be helpful to activists in the political grassroots movement. Facebook leads the way as a social media platform for news consumers.  64% of US adults are on Facebook, with 47% of those using the site to obtain news - this translates to 30% of the US population using Facebook as a source of news. Though in a previous Pew Research report (noted below), most indicated they do not necessarily go to Facebook seeking out news, rather, they get the news while they're there for other reasons. In contrast, only 16% of US adults use Twitter, with just over half of those using it for news, which translates to 8% of the population using Twitter as a source for news.  And while reddit's users are very active news consumers, a very tiny fraction of the US population is even using reddit at all. From the Pew Research report:
The proportions who get news, combined with the total reach of a site, show how many U.S. adults are learning about events and issues through each social networking site. Facebook is by far the largest social networking site among U.S. adults, and with half of its users getting news there, is also the largest among U.S. adults when it comes to getting news. As discussed in an earlier report, roughly two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults use the site, and half of those users get news there—amounting to 30% of the general population. YouTube has the next greatest reach in terms of general usage, at 51% of U.S. adults. Thus, even though only a fifth of its users get news there, that amounts to 10% of the adult population, which puts it on par with Twitter. Twitter reaches just 16% of U.S. adults, but half (8% of U.S. adults) use it for news. reddit is a news destination for nearly two-thirds of its users (62%). But since just 3% of the U.S. population uses reddit, that translates to 2% of the population that gets news there.
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I'll have more in the morning about the non-fix fix. I've been out of pocket all afternoon and evening. So for now, just sit back and enjoy some move Obamacare navigator fraud via James O'Keefe's Project Veritas: Project Veritas caught Obamacare Navigators counseling applicants to lie on...

In a blog post Thursday, Google said that requests from governments for user information have doubled over three years, as the search giant posted its latest transparency report which also includes added figures on other types of requests specifically from the US government. In a year...

While everyone has been focused on the Obamacare and Iranian-nuke debacles, the Kurdish region of Syria declared itself autonomous, which combined with the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq and the large Kurdish region in Turkey, may mark a significant step towards the establishment of a Kurdish state. Since the Kurds are not in conflict with Jews (and generally are quite friendly towards Israel), Kurdish national aspirations don't get much attention at the U.N. or elsewhere. No one much cares that Kurds, a truly distinctive cultural identity who number several times the "Palestinians," do not have a nation of their own. As reported by Al Arabiya:
Following a series of military gains, Syrian Kurds in the northeast of the country announced on Tuesday the formation of a transitional autonomous government. The latest declaration comes amid a general strengthening of Kurdish rights in neighboring Turkey, and increasing moves towards independence by Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. The announcement was made after talks in the mostly-Kurdish town of Qamishli, and comes after Kurdish leaders announced plans to create the temporary government in July.
Intra-Kurdish rivalries pose a major danger to the autonomy holding. Turkey, which repeatedly has taken military action against Kurdish separatists (resulting in world silence, unlike when Israel defends itself against outside attack), is not pleased:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again
Barack Obama just announced a "fix" for the private individual health insurance market broken by Obamacare. After an estimated 5 million and growing policies were cancelled due to Obamacare, Obama said "never mind" and told insurance companies to just keep selling the cancelled policies. "Insurers can extend plans" into 2014. (Transcipt here.) This does nothing to fix the problem, which is a war on plans people like but the Obama administration dislikes. Democrats -- alone and over vigorous objections from Republicans -- broke the individual health care insurance market. It can't just be put back together again under Obamacare. https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/401015479198052352 Not only that, but Obamas is doing this unilaterally as an administrative matter, without changing the law. So much for Democrats objections to prior proposals from Republicans that Obamacare was "settled law."

Immigration reform could pass easily if Democrats did not insist on holding the entire enterprise hostage to their demand for amnesty and  citizenship even for adults who knowingly and deliberately broke our immigration laws to get here.  (Does that make Democrats hostage takers and immigration reform arsonists?) Rationalizing the system by which people legally enter the U.S. so as to accomodate a variety of national objectives, including agricultural and high-tech workforce needs, is the equivalent of a 25-yard field goal. Not a gimme, but pretty close. Enforcement mechanisms are the potential gusts of wind that could throw the ball off course, but those could be overcome. The problem is that Democrats don't want reform, they want amnesty and more Democrat voters. Fundamentally transforming the electorate, not immigration reform, is the Democratic objective. John Boehner just said no to mixing reform and amnesty in one massive bill which mixes good reforms with bad amnesty provisions. The Washington Times reports:
House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday flatly ruled out even entering into negotiations with the Senate on that chamber’s immigration bill, signaling that the issue is dead for this year — and setting up major hurdles for any action before the midterm elections. Emerging from a meeting with fellow Republicans, Mr. Boehner said he won’t be bound by President Obama’s timeline on action this year, and firmly rejected the Senate’s approach, which would legalize most illegal immigrants and rewrite the legal immigration system.

Let's review some of the administration's diplomatic activity over the past week. Lee Smith:
Haaretz reports that the administration misled Israel regarding the terms of the proposed interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear weapons program. One senior Israeli official explained that on Wednesday Israel had seen an outline that the Israelis “didn't love but could live with.” Thursday morning French and British officials, and not the White House, told the Israelis that the terms had changed and were much more favorable than what they’d been shown previously. “Suddenly it changed to something much worse that included a much more significant lifting of sanctions,” said the Israeli official. “The feeling was that the Americans are much more eager to reach an agreement than the Iranians.”
Natan B. Sachs lays out some of the particulars.
On substance, the Israelis, like the French, appear very concerned about the provisions of the interim deal that: (a) permitted Tehran to continue some uranium enrichment; (b) allowed Iran to continue building the heavy water reactor in Arak (with only an Iranian commitment not to activate it), which would preserve the Iranian short-cut to nuclear capabilities via a plutonium — rather than uranium — track; and, most notably, (c) provided Tehran with incentives that the Israelis see as the beginning of the dismantling of the sanctions regime. Israel’s concern is that the proposed sanctions relief will not, in practice, be reversible, while the Iranian commitments could be easily reversed (and in the case of Arak will not even be halted).
The French objections to the deal led the P5+1 countries to demand more of Iran, so the Iranian team left without a deal to return for consultations.

Martha Robertson is the Democratic candidate challenging Republican incumbent Tom Reed in NY-23, my home district. We have highlighted Robertson many times before regarding her unsubstantiated fundraising claim that "GOP ops" tried to take down her website. Robertson's campaign never has provided proof of that claim, leading to a fair amount of negative local television coverage and even national press attention. The fundraising scandal, which I doubt is over, likely will be overshadowed by a much bigger problem: Robertson is a long-time and vocal supporter of mandates with the ultimate goal of single-payer. In light of the Obamacare debacle, and the inability of the federal government even to set up a website portal, a complete federal government takeover of the health care system is a hard sell. Some of Robertson's speeches were captured on video. Here are some excerpts where Robertson discussed her support for mandates, a government option and ultimately single payer: Nationally, Democrats are being hurt badly by the Obamacare debacle. Not surprisingly, Reed already has started to make Robertson's support for single payer an issue:

Why should the Republicans try to pull Obamacare's fat out of the fire by correcting some of its most anger-provoking consequences? DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ asks a Good question:
The GOP has to be seen doing something. That's just reality. Millions of people who played by the rules are losing their insurance and quite possibly their doctors as well. It's simply not an option for a political party to say, "Wow, that sucks for you. Should have voted for us, huh?". Campaigns are about generating future support, not punishing voters for past lack of support... Could this all go south and wind up with the GOP sharing blame for Obama's failure? Theoretically, yes. But doing nothing isn't risk free either.
I've pondered this question ever since I heard that Republicans had suggested a Keep Your Health Plan Act to undo the cancellations and make Obama stick to his promises. Why interrupt your enemy when he might already be occupied in effectively destroying himself? Then again, people are suffering, and a failure to help them will not endear Republicans to anyone except the most die-hard tough-love advocates.

Marissa Alexander's motion for bail was left undecided today, when the Judge responsible for the decision decided to delay further action on the matter until January 15, 2014. Alexander's attorney had made a request for bail in anticipation of her re-trial on charges of aggravated assault, using a firearm, against her estranged husband. https://twitter.com/SeniABC/status/400744956736061440 Alexander was granted a new trial early this year after her conviction for aggravated assault (with a firearm enhancement) was overturned on the grounds that the self-defense jury instructions were defective. Alexander's conviction was based on evidence that in the course of a heated argument with her estranged husband she retrieved a handgun from the garage, returned to the interior of the home, and fired a shot past his head and into the wall behind him (while his two minor children stood by his side). The bullet penetrated through the wall and sped across the next room until embedding itself in the ceiling. Some have sought to characterize the shooting as a mere "warning shot" or the "shooting of a ceiling," a characterization we've previously debunked here:  The Myth of Marissa Alexander’s “Warning Shot”. Alexander always seemed a poor candidate for bail given the prior disrespect she has shown the criminal courts. In addition to the core aggravated assault for which she was charged and convicted, Alexander also allegedly induced her estranged husband to submit false exculpatory testimony on her behalf (testimony he later retracted), repeatedly meeting with him in violation of an order of protection intended to keep her away from him and his children. She later assaulted him a second time, albeit this time without a weapon.

The "official" numbers have been released by HHS:
Some 106,185 people signed up for Obamacare in its first month of operation, a period marred by major technological problems with both the federal and state enrollment websites. Fewer than 27,000 Americans selected an insurance plan through the federal healthcare.gov site, which is handling enrollment for 36 states, according to figures released Wednesday by the Obama administration. The site is still far from fully operational, leaving tech experts racing to get it working by month’s end, as the administration promised. Nearly 79,400 people signed up for coverage through state-based exchanges, with California leading the way with nearly 35,400 selecting a plan. States have also been battling system errors, with Oregon having yet to accept online applications. These figures reflect people who have selected insurance plans through the exchanges, but not necessarily paid for them. Americans have until Dec. 15 to pay if they want coverage to begin on Jan. 1. Open enrollment lasts through March 31.

Hillary supporters are trying to distance her from the Obamcare debacle. Don't talk about it, she is told.  Meanwhile, Bill is stabbing Obama in the back by telling him to honor his promise to the American people that they could keep their health plan. It's all about the mandate.  Forcing people "into the system" no matter what.  Even when that means they cannot keep their health plan. Democrats who are up for reelection are running from the mandate. But remember, Hillary was more pro-mandate than Obama. Here's more:

The most sought after facial recognition in memory. The real woman behind this sadly-iconic photo from healthcare.gov was a mystery for weeks:  Healthcare.gov Girl Now she has been located by ABC News. She's a Colombian with permanent resident status who didn't get paid for the photo shoot. She complains that she is being bullied by the publicity:

I received the call in the late afternoon, “do you want to go to BDS 101 at The University of Washington tonight?”

BDS stands for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction of Israel and represents a radical movement bent on the destruction of the Jewish State. The D in BDS should stand for demographic destruction as the core demand of the BDS movement is the flooding of Israel with over five million hostile Arabs. Such an influx would mark the end of a Jewish majority in Israel and thus the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The Anti Defamation League, the American Jewish community’s central human rights and advocacy organization has identified BDS as an anti-Semitic movement .

The  BDS 101 program was held in a lecture hall filled with a mix of Muslim and Progressive students and a small handful of pro-Israel students and community members. The program  featured a four member panel anchored by Stefanie Fox of the anti-Israel group, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and included Cindy Corrie, mother of the infamous Rachel Corrie. Two co-ed hosts from the sponsoring group (SUPER-UW) opened the event by declaring their solidarity with all of the other righteous struggles on the planet “we condemn all injustice” they said.

BDS Poster U Washington

The panel members each on cue took their turn at demonizing Israel. The perky Ms. Fox educated the students that Israel is a rogue apartheid state run by war criminal olive tree killers that must be penalized until in compliance with basic civilized norms.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday morning at 9:30am with top administration Information Technology officials to examine the rollout of HealthCare.gov. You can watch below. Among the issues likely to be addressed at the hearing are security and testing of...