Well, folks... back on a roll! Nine separate newsbites yesterday (including one directed specifically to "He Whose Name Dare Not Be Mentioned") and a stand-alone!
So... what's new today? More "knock-out" attacks in Philly I see...
(Of course I'm sure there's nothing "racial" about... er... what seems to be exclusively or near-exclusively black on white, black on Asian unprovoked attacks...
(Hey... it's just a "game," right?)
(*SNORT*)
(*SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Oh... let's see... what else...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Oh... this might be of interest to some of you: Harry Reid has just staged a coup!
Well... not literally. All ol' Harry has done is overturn nearly 225 years of precedent...
(*SHRUG*)
Hmm... today should be a good day of newsbiting!
9 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_print.html
The partisan battles that have paralyzed Washington in recent years took a historic turn on Thursday, when Senate Democrats eliminated filibusters for most presidential nominations, severely curtailing the political leverage of the Republican minority in the Senate and assuring an escalation of partisan warfare.
* "PARTISAN BATTLES," HUH? AND WHERE DID "BI-PARTISANSHIP" GET US? TARP? YEP. THE IRAQ WAR? YEP. THE NEW "AMERICAN SECURITY STATE?" YES...
* FOLKS... THINK ABOUT THE LAST 12-PLUS YEARS. WHETHER BI-PARTISANLY OR SIMPLY PARTISANLY OUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN DRAGGED FURTHER AND FURTHER LEFT... OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING... OUT OF CONTROL DEBT... OUT OF CONTROL EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT...
* ANYONE WANNA TRY AND MAKE THE CASE I'M WRONG...???
The rule change...
(*SNORT*)
* "RULE CHANGE," HUH...?
* FOLKS... REMEMBER WHEN REPUBLICANS CONTROLLED THE SENATE AND CERTAIN MEMBERS MADE NOISES ABOUT THE SAME EXACT "RULE CHANGE?" REMEMBER HOW IT WAS THEN PORTRAYED AS "THE NUCLEAR OPTION?" REMEMBER HOW REPUBLICANS BACKED OFF...?
...means federal judge nominees and executive-office appointments can be confirmed by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote super majority that has been required for more than two centuries.
* MORE... THAN... TWO... CENTURIES...
The change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But the vote, mostly along party lines, reverses nearly 225 years of precedent...
* WOW... NOW WE'RE TO "NEARLY 225 YEARS OF PRECEDENT."
...and dramatically alters the landscape for both Democratic and Republican presidents, especially if their own political party holds a majority of, but fewer than 60, Senate seats.
Many Senate majorities have thought about using this technical maneuver to get around centuries of parliamentary precedent, but none has done so in a unilateral move on a major change of rules or precedents. This simple-majority vote has been executed in the past to change relatively minor precedents involving how to handle amendments; for example, one such change short-circuited the number of filibusters that the minority party could deploy on nominations.
* FUNDAMENTALLY... CHANGE... AMERICA...
(*SHRUG*)
Reid’s move is a reversal of his position in 2005, when he was minority leader and fought the GOP majority’s bid to change rules on a party-line vote. A bipartisan, rump caucus led by Senator John S. McCain (R-AZ) defused that effort.
At the time, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the No. 2 GOP leader and helped push the effort to eliminate filibusters on the George W. Bush White House’s judicial selections. Eight years later, McConnell, now the minority leader, has grown publicly furious over Reid’s threats to use the same maneuver.
* IS ANYONE SURPRISED THAT REID - AND MCCONNELL - ARE BOTH HYPOCRITES...?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-health-plans-sold-through-exchanges-not-accepted-at-some-prestigious-nyc-hospitals/2013/11/20/7538dbb4-5235-11e3-9ee6-2580086d8254_story.html
New Yorkers buying a health plan on the state’s new insurance exchange should read the fine print if they’re interested in getting care at some of the city’s top hospitals. Not all are participating in the new plans created by the Affordable Care Act.
* HMM... I DETECT UNDERSTATEMENT!
(*SNORT*)
As of this week, not one of the plans for sale on New York’s health benefit exchange would cover treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s largest and most respected cancer hospitals.
* NOT ONE...
That could mean that the 615,000 individuals and 450,000 small business employees expected to eventually get their insurance through the exchange would have to go someplace else for treatment, or pay the bill out of their own pockets.
NYU Langone Medical Center has signed agreements with four of the 19 insurers doing business on the exchange.
* FOUR OF NINETEEN...
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which oversees the city’s biggest hospital system, has signed agreements with six insurers.
* SIX OF NINETEEN...
President Obama promised when the Affordable Care Act was enacted that people who liked their doctors could keep them, but the reality of the law both in New York and around the country is that the new, lower-cost policies it is creating sometimes have smaller provider networks than Medicare, Medicaid, or the plans people typically get through their employers.
* "PROMISES" vs. "REALITY"...
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/sebelius-asked-to-explain-2b-in-obamacare-loans/
Several leading Republicans in Congress are asking Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is overseeing the disastrous Healthcare.gov website rollout, to explain the $2 billion loaned to various interests to launch health insurance CO-OPs and whether any of that taxpayer money will be recovered.
* TWO QUESTIONS: 1) WHAT $2 BILLION IN LOANS...?!?! 2) WHY AREN'T DEMOCRATS ASKING THE SAME QUESTIONS...?!?!
Just when it seems the ObamaCare experience couldn’t get any worse – the website malfunctions, millions of policies have been canceled, only thousands are able to sign up and premiums are skyrocketing – come the questions about loans.
“Out of the $1.98 billion awarded to CO-OPs, what amount does HHS expect to be repaid? What is the period of time by which HHS expects these funds to be repaid?” were among the questions presented to Sebelius.
* WHAT CO-OPs...?!?! WHAT THE HELL ARE WE TALKING ABOUT...?!?!
The questions were raised in a letter from Sens. Orrin Hatch, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee; Lamar Alexander, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Michael Enzi, ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee on Children and Families; Tom Coburn, ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee; and Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Oversight.
It’s not the first time members of Congress have asked for information about the HHS program called Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, which has loaned money to non-profit health insurance issuers that offer qualified health plans in the individual and small-group markets.
* HAVE YOU EVER HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THIS...??? (I HAVEN'T!)
Two dozen of those groups have been loaned the money...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
An inspector general’s report, for instance, said “11 of 16 CO-OPs reported estimated start-up expenditures … that exceeded the total startup funding ultimately provided,” producing a “risk that CO-OPs could exhaust all start-up loan funding before they are fully operational or before they earn sufficient operating income to be self-supporting.”
* WHAT THE F--K HAS SEBELIUS DONE...?!?!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/under-obama-disability-trust-fund-runs-record-5-straight-yrs-deficits
In the fourteen fiscal years that preceded President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, the tax receipts coming into the federal government’s Disability Insurance Trust Fund exceeded the benefits paid out, and the trust fund ran a surplus.
* PLEASE RE-READ.
In each of the five fiscal years Obama has served as president, the trust fund has run a deficit as the number of people receiving disability benefits has surged.
* PLEASE RE-READ.
The Disability Insurance Trust Fund has never before run five straight years of deficits.
* PLEASE RE-READ.
In fiscal 2013, which ended on Sept. 30, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund ran a record deficit of $31.494 billion, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.
* THIRTY-ONE AND A HALF BILLION... JUST IN THE LAST YEAR ALONE... SUPPOSEDLY A "RECOVERY YEAR" FOR THE ECONOMY..
That followed deficits of $8.462 billion in fiscal 2009, $20,831 billion in fiscal 2010, $25.264 billion in fiscal 2011, and $29.701 billion in fiscal 2012.
* NOTICE A TREND THERE FOLKS...?
In 1957, the Disability Insurance Trust Fund took in $709 million and paid out only $59 million in benefits — or 8.3% of total revenues. A surplus of approximately $649 million was deposited in to the Trust Fund.
* YEAH... ABOUT THAT "TRUST FUND"... (KEEP READING!)
In reality, that means the government took that "surplus" and used it to pay for other government expenses, giving the Trust Fund an IOU to pay the money back later.
* THAT'S GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING FOR YOU, FOLKS.
In the 57 fiscal years that the federal disability program has operated, it has run deficits in only 11 years - with five of those years coming under Obama.
Prior to the last five fiscal years, the longest run of deficits in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund was the four-year span from fiscal 1962 trough fiscal 1965, when John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were president.
The trust fund also ran three straight years of deficits from fiscal 1975 through fiscal 1977, when Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were president.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
When President Obama took office in January 2009 - which was the fourth month of fiscal 2009 - there were 7,442,377 workers on disability, according to the Social Security Administration. As of October 2013, there was a record 8,936,932. That means the number of people on disability has increased by 1,494,555 while Obama has been in office--a jump of 20%.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
In addition to the 8,936,932 workers collecting disability in October, there were also 157,676 spouses of disabled workers who collected additional benefits, and 1,871,127 children of disabled workers who collected benefits.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
At the end of fiscal 2008, there was a net balance of $216.239 billion in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund — meaning the Treasury owed $216.239 billion in IOUs to the trust fund for surplus disability insurance tax receipts it had taken in previous years and used for other government expenses.
At the end of fiscal 2013, the net balance in the Disability Insurance Trust Fund had dropped to $100.486 — a decline of $115.753 billion.
* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS: O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
That $115.753 billion, the cumulative five year deficit of the disability insurance program, equals the amount of money the Treasury had to borrow from other sources to pay disability benefits during that time.
From the last day of January 2009 through the last day of September 2013, the total debt of the federal government climbed from $10,632,005,246,736.97 to $16,738,183,526,697.32 — an increase of $6,106,178,279,960.35.
* O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
That equaled approximately $53,091 in additional debt for each of the 115,013,000 households that the Census Bureau now estimates there are in the United States.
* GEEZUS...
Since the last day of September, the federal government’s total debt has continued to increase, hitting $17,200,725,370,597.56 as of Tuesday — or approximately $149,555 per household.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/24005083/could-knockout-game-be-spreading-to-dc#axzz2lHODML41
Washington D.C. police say they are investigating the two women punched in the head in Columbia Heights on Thursday and Friday as simple assaults. But the victims wonder if they were targets of the Knockout game.
It's a game being played by teens in some cities where groups of people attack innocent victims, with the intention of knocking them out with one sucker punch.
* FOLKS... NOTE NO QUOTES AROUND THE WORD "GAME." ALSO NOTE THAT IN PRIOR NEWSBITES AND STAND-ALONES WHERE I'VE ADDRESSED THESE VICIOUS ATTACK I HAVE BEEN THE ONE TO PUT QUOTES AROUND THE WORD "GAME." APPARENTLY THE LIBERAL MEDIA THINKS THIS IS ALL JUST IN FUN...
The most recent assault in the District occurred Thursday night. Phoebe Connolly, in town from Vermont, was riding her bike up 11th Street NW near Cardozo High School. She encountered a group of several teens standing on their bikes in the street. When she tried to ride by, one of them punched her in the nose. A friend told Connolly it sounded like the Knockout game. Connolly googled and discovered another woman had been a victim Thursday night on 14th Street in Columbia Heights.
Fox 5 spoke to that woman, who doesn't want to be identified. She says she's convinced it was the Knockout game, and that the assailants just aren't practiced enough to knock their victims out in one punch.
Connolly says police told her there had been several reports of similar assaults to hers on Friday night.
The public is being urged to be aware of their surroundings and to report suspicious people and behavior to police
* WOW... NOT ONE SINGLE WORD ABOUT COLOR... ETHNIC IDENTITY. THIS MEANS YOU CAN BET IT WAS BLACK ON WHITE CRIME.
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/364394/jarrett-file-andrew-stiles
In the fall of 2012, when New York Times reporter Jo Becker was working on a profile of longtime Obama confidante and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, the White House press office circulated a list of talking points to ensure that potential sources would be on the same page regarding “The Magic of Valerie.”
The memo, whose existence was first reported by Mark Leibovich in his bestseller "This Town," described Jarrett as “an incredibly kind, caring and thoughtful person . . . the perfect combination of smart, savvy, and innovative,” with “an enormous capacity for both empathy and sympathy.”
* HMM...
Jarrett...has been variously described by her critics within the Obama administration as the “Night Stalker,” on account of her general ruthlessness, as well as her tendency to follow the president into the White House residence after hours; “She Who Must Not Be Challenged”; and Obama’s “Rasputin.”
Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who clashed often with Jarrett, likened her and senior aide Peter Rouse to Saddam Hussein’s maniacal sons, Uday and Qusay.
(*SNORT*)
Over the past several years, a clearer picture of Jarrett’s role has emerged thanks to the plethora of books and articles published about the inner workings of the Obama White House. She is equal parts fan-girl and enforcer, inspiring fear and envy in her (many) detractors, a true believer who was in on the ground floor of the Obama Cult and will be the last to leave.
Jarrett’s personal friendship with the president and first lady dates back more than two decades, before the couple was married, and before Barack Obama launched his political career in Chicago. The president has said he views her “like a sibling” and trusts her “completely.” As result, she enjoys “unlimited, almost mystical access” to the president, write Politico’s Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, and is known as “The Keeper of the Essence,” the “defender, protector, and avenger” of all things Obama. She is always “mindful of being more than just an aide,” as one senior White House adviser told Leibovich.
(Former adviser David Axelrod, on the other hand, described Jarrett’s closeness to the president as a “manageable problem.”)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Jarrett’s official job description is “somewhat vague,” Becker writes, noting that at least part of her role is to serve as “chief liaison to the business community, state and local governments, and the professional Left,” but her influence is undeniable. She commands a staff of nearly three dozen and has a hand in decisions ranging from the invitation list to state dinners and what gifts to give foreign leaders, to who should be nominated to the Supreme Court, appointed to a vacant ambassadorship, or awarded the President Medal of Freedom.
When Warren Buffett visits the White House for lunch, the table is set for three.
White House memos are littered with references to what “VJ thinks” or “VJ says.” When Standard & Poor’s downgraded the country’s credit rating in August 2011, she was among a select few invited to Camp David to discuss how to manage the fallout. She is “effectively the chief of staff,” in the words of one White House adviser, which likely explains her problematic relationships with actual chiefs of staff such as Emanuel and his successor Bill Daley, who did not appreciate the fact that Jarrett went behind his back (and Vice President Joe Biden’s) to help orchestrate the administration’s controversial contraception mandate, along with her “good friend,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Tellingly, despite presiding over one of the greatest political disasters in recent memory, Sebelius remains at her post, whereas Jarrett’s enemies rarely stick around for long. The White House reportedly went to great lengths last month to out a senior official — Jofi Joseph of the National Security Council — who had been operating an anonymous Twitter account, @natsecwonk, which was highly critical of the administration.
(Among Joseph’s offending tweets: “I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me.”)
(Joseph was fired immediately after his identity was discovered in a sting operation coordinated by the White House and State Department.)
Jodi Kantor’s "The Obamas" revealed a September 2010 clash between Jarrett and former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. When Jarrett informed him that Michelle Obama was not pleased with his work, Gibbs went ballistic, telling Jarrett she didn’t “know what the f*** you’re talking about,” and that if Mrs. Obama did not like it, “f*** her too.” Gibbs told Kantor that after the episode, he no long took Jarrett seriously “as an adviser to the president.” He left the White House six months later. "Double Down" authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann note that other senior staffers who witnessed the exchange were fairly certain that Gibbs “had just sealed his doom.” According to Leibovich, Jarrett exuded a “hint of smugness at having outlasted her detractors” during an interview earlier this year.
Jarrett’s actual record as an “adviser,” or whatever you want to call it, is marred with blunders. In 2009 she boasted about how “delighted” she was to have recruited Van Jones for the position of White House “green czar.” Jones served only a few months before resigning amid allegations that he had dabbled in 9/11 Trutherism. She reportedly urged President Obama to personally address the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland on behalf of Chicago’s bid for the 2012 Summer Games, which was swiftly rejected. Jarrett also met with chief Solyndra investor George Kaiser at the White House, and despite warnings about the solar company’s failing financial health, signed off on a scheduled appearance by the president at Solyndra’s headquarters in California.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Larry Summers, former head of the National Economic Council, thought having Jarrett represent the White House was a mistake. Business leaders “felt patronized and offended by Valerie,” Summers told Woodward, largely due to her tendency to insist that she spoke for the president, and an approach to problem-solving that involved little more than scheduling multiple lunch meetings.
(One CEO complained to Alter that “when we go to the White House, we talk to people we wouldn’t hire.” Alter himself has likened Jarrett’s role in the White House to “the CEO putting his sister in charge of marketing.”)
Ironically enough, Jarrett has considerably more experience as an executive than her boss. Before joining the Obama administration in 2009, Jarrett was president and chief executive officer of the Habitat Company, a Chicago real-estate firm founded by Daniel Levin, a major Democratic donor.
(In 2009, Obama appointed Levin’s daughter, Fay Hartog Levin, ambassador to the Netherlands, a move that drew criticism from government accountability activists.)
Jarrett was able to parlay her position at Habitat, which during her tenure oversaw the development of some of the most notorious public-housing slums in the country, a number of which required federal intervention to salvage, into an 11% equity interest in Kingsbury Plaza (a luxury high-rise in downtown Chicago), which interest is valued between $1 million and $5 million.
* NICE... (PARLAY...)
Before that, she served three years as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development under Mayor Richard Daley, and served as chair of the Chicago Transit Board from 1995 to 2005.
* AND HOW DID THAT WORK OUT FOR THE CITY OF CHICAGO...???
Jarrett got her start in politics in 1987 when she left her job at a prestigious law firm to become a legal staffer for Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. She described the transition — to “a cubicle . . . with a window facing an alley” — as “a little jarring,” but that felt that her devotion to the cause was such that “I can get used to this cubicle.”
* UH-HUH...
By all accounts, she has since grown accustomed to the trappings of life as a senior adviser to the president, apparently being among the first Obama staffers to survey the West Wing for office space, much to the annoyance of Rahm Emanuel. (She was ultimately given Karl Rove’s old office.)
In June 2009, David Axelrod received a security detail after the FBI found evidence that the white-supremacist perpetrator of a fatal shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., had considered Axelrod a target. Jarrett received one as well, although the impetus was unclear. Aides suspected a simple case of “earpiece envy,” and even confronted Jarrett about the poor optics of the arrangement, but were politely rebuffed. In 2011, she famously tried to order a drink from a four-star general she mistook for a waiter, which presumably isn’t the kind of mistake made by your average cubicle dweller.
* NOT FUNNY...
Richard Wolffe describes a scene in which Obama and Jarrett arrived via helicopter in Chicago for the president’s first visit home after the inauguration in 2009. Obama looked down at the bumper-to-bumper traffic generated by his arrival. “We shouldn’t have come here in rush hour,” Obama remarked, but Jarrett shot back: “You may not be enjoying your new life, but I am.”
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