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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...

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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):

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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...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 04, 2013 4 Comments
As we've noted earlier, much of the media is obsessed with settlements, intent on portraying them as the main obstacle to peace. There's a tendency on the other side to take one of the most outrageous examples of Palestinian behavior and dismiss it. As Professor Jacobson noted last week, Israel, in order to entice the Palestinians to negotiate for a state of their own offered to release 104 prisoners from jail. These aren't just prisoners. Most, if not all, are remorseless murderers who are treated as heroes by all segments of Palestinian society, including their leaders. Jonathan Tobin made an apt observation about this phenomenon:
One group of people was happy as murderers went free while others wept. But the gulf here is more than emotional or merely, as the Times seemed to describe it, a difficult process that is part of the price Israel must pay for the chance of peace. In fact, the “emotional gulf” is indicative of a vast cultural divide between these two peoples that explains more about the absence of peace than any lecture about history, borders, or refugees. Simply put, so long as the Palestinians honor murderers, there is no reason to believe they are willing to end the conflict.
Consider the way the New York Times in the article cited by Tobin portrayed the Israeli reaction to the prisoner release:
In Israel, where the returnees are widely viewed as terrorists, the release on Tuesday, like the one in August, has stirred protests and anguish. Many said it was too heavy a price to pay for entering negotiations with no guarantee of a peace accord.
"[W]idely viewed?!?!" This statement is incredible. It's not only in Israel that they are "viewed as terrorists," but by definition. Only in the crazy New York Times worldview is the definition of terrorists subjective.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 64 Comments
Hey, remember when Nancy Pelosi triumphantly predicted that Obamacare would allow artists to have health insurance without worrying about their day jobs?
Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or, eh, a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance....
Nancy Pelosi Helath Care Will Give up More of... by GWHH19 It's a dream come true, and you are subsidizing it, as this NY Times spotlight piece about two artists in Albequerque who quality for free Obamacare plans demonstrates:

NYT Artists free Obamacare

Elisabeth and Mark Horst, artists in Albuquerque who earn $24,000 a year between them, qualified for a zero-premium plan.

I have nothing against the Horsts. Living and painting in Albuquerque is a dream for many people. But why should the taxpayers have to subsidize what clearly is a lifestyle choice? The Horsts are not exactly uneducated or without choices in their lives. Here's a part of Mark Horst's bio at his art website:
Mark Horst grew up in small town Minnesota. He studied pottery and printmaking in high school and college, but his encounter with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker led to years of very different work. After earning a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University, he spent time teaching and working toward neighborhood renewal in south Minneapolis. He pursued the craft of painting and drawing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the New York Studio School. He lives in Albuquerque. If paint were a means of freezing time and protecting us from the dangerous life of the spirit, I would put down my brushes. But, for me, painting is a way of breaking time’s grip and setting loose something wild and strong.
Elizabeth also is highly educated and closed her psychology practice to paint:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 18 Comments
On June 16, 2009, in the earliest days of discussion about what form Obamacare would take, I wrote, Deception and Tyranny Key To Health Care Reform:
The only way the Obama administration and Democrats can force through the types of changes they envision for the health care system is through deception and tyranny. Honesty and freedom have no place in a system of national health care.
And now the deception and tyranny is being exposed for all to see.  You cannot keep your insurance plan and doctor, and administratively Obamacare is not ready for prime time.  Worse still, the dysfunctional nature of restructuring 1/6th of the economy is having ripple effects throughout the health care industry, with patients put at risk and doctors drafting exit plans. Meanwhile, the Editors of The NY Times are trying to wordsmith away Obama's clearly knowing false statement that people could keep their insurance plans by saying Obama "misspoke." Obama and his aides knew at the time that it was not accurate -- they even kicked around whether to make the statement. At least some other outlets are not playing the game. From NY Mag, this fairly comprehensive account of how many time that promise was made (h/t Twitchy): Meanwhile, CBS News reveals this morning that despite Obama's and Kathleen Sebekius's repeated assurances earlier this year that healthcare.gov was ready to go, there were clear and present warnings otherwise, Memo reveals health care adviser warned W.H. was losing control 3 years ago:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 04, 2013 2 Comments

From Amy: I recently moved from a purple district to a much redder one, where conservative bumper stickers are not so rare. Anyway, I saw this one in the Starbucks drive-thru. It doesn't say what he IS, but at least he's not a liberal. :-)...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 03, 2013 31 Comments

I have been following various faculty reactions to the Ray Kelly shout-down, 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. So when I saw an article in The Brown...

Posted by David Gerstman on November 03, 2013 10 Comments
To read through recent news reports one could assume that the biggest obstacle to Palestinian Israeli peace are "settlements." To cement that impression the New York Times published an article, 1,500 Units to Be Added in Settlement, Israel Says. The caption of a photograph directly beneath the headline reads:
A Palestinian construction worker at a building site on Wednesday in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem.
If there is an official "East Jerusalem," I am unaware of it, but perhaps the paper meant "east Jerusalem." However if you read down a few paragraphs you learn:
The 1,500 new apartments are to be added to Ramat Shlomo, a largely religious neighborhood of 20,000 on the city’s northern edge. They were originally announced during a 2010 visit to Jerusalem by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, causing a diplomatic crisis that dampened Israel’s relationship with the White House and Europe for months.
So actually, Ramat Shlomo isn't in the city's east but in its north (or northeast) and it's not a settlement but a neighborhood. And while the announcement led to a major diplomatic blowup, it was of the administration's making. The Vice-President, Secretary of State and President could have remained silent. Everyone expects sections of Jerusalem, even those illegally occupied by Jordan from 1948 to 1967 to be part of Israel in any final agreement with the Palestinians. The announcement had occurred during an Israeli ban on settlement building outside of Jerusalem. That settlement ban brought about no serious negotiations. (The PA returned to the table only a few weeks before the end of the freeze and, when the freeze expired, walked away.) If settlement freezes were so important to the Palestinians, why didn't they negotiate then? So "settlements" provide a convenient excuse for a Palestinian refusal to negotiate or concede anything to Israel. But should they?

Posted by Mandy Nagy on November 03, 2013 12 Comments
Heritage came out with a disturbing report on its blog last night that highlighted another security concern with the Obamacare website, in which a user evaluating his health insurance options was presented with downloadable letters that contained insurance eligibility information about other people. https://twitter.com/Heritage/status/396796928949620737 From The Foundry:
[Justin] Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September. After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina. (Screenshot below.) Marketplace-eligibility-download-heritage The letters, dated October 8, acknowledge receipt of an application to the Health Insurance Marketplace and the eligibility of family members to purchase health coverage. One of the letters was addressed to Thomas Dougall, a lawyer from Elgin, SC.
Both Hadley and Heritage spoke with Dougall about the situation.  Dougall had apparently registered on healthcare.gov in early October but had decided not to sign up for a plan.  He had not seen the aforementioned letter until Hadley had shown it to him. Not surprisingly, Dougall said, “I want my personal information off of that website.” Hadley and Dougall have both contacted various representatives with healthcare.gov and HHS, but neither seems to be making much progress in rectifying the situation.  Both have also reached out to their elected officials, according to Heritage.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 03, 2013 42 Comments

Kirsten Powers in Christianity Today: Just seven years ago, if someone had told me that I'd be writing for Christianity Today magazine about how I came to believe in God, I would have laughed out loud. If there was one thing in which I was completely...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 03, 2013 69 Comments
The Revolt of the Kulaks Has Begun, February 22, 2009, just over a month after Obama's first inauguration:
In the end, as must all economic redistributors, Obama either will have to resort to repressive measures, or he will have to abandon his redistributive plans.
The great Obamacare reform is turning into the great thrust of tens of millions of people onto Medicaid. The problem is, fewer and fewer doctors are willing to take Medicaid patients because the reimbursements are so low. I have met numerous doctors who tell me they either refuse Medicaid patients or restrict them because the reimbursements do not cover their costs.  They also double and triple book, because so many Medicaid patients who make appointments don't show up.  As to Medicare the payments currently are bearable, but only because private insurance payments for other patients make up the shortfall. Increasingly, doctors are abandoning the government payment train wreck, and going all cash or some hybrid.  This all was foreseeable and was foreseen. The millions of new Medicaid patients will have insurance, just no doctors to see them.   That is a feature, not a glitch, to those who want single payer.  Obamacare is proceeding accordingly to plan. So this report (via @SissyWillis) is no surprise, Virginia Democrat Calls For Forcing Doctors To Accept Medicare And Medicaid Patients:
.... here is Kathleen Murphy, Democrat running for the House of Delegates against Barbara Comstock, telling a forum in Great Falls that she believes it should law to force doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. Forced by government decree, mind you. A birdie sent me this:
FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted. She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors' costs. She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.
Kerry Picket at Breitbart.com notes:
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