Republicans Didn’t Sabotage Health Exchanges, Obama Did

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Photo Credit: Ken James/BloombergFor 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.

I blame the Republicans for a lot of things, from their support for atrocious farm policies to the counterproductive showdown theater that is: 1. Wreaking havoc on everything from government data websites to the Smithsonian; 2. Not saving any money, because we just agreed to pay furloughed workers; 3. Not noticeably advancing the cause of repealing Obamacare; and 4. Grinding down the public’s opinion of the Republican Party from a stump to a hole.

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Justice Scalia: ‘I Even Believe in the Devil’

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Photo Credit: AP/Jessica Hill,Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said he believes in the Devil as a living entity, “a real person,” and that the Devil is “smart” and “successful” in today’s world by convincing people to not believe in him or in God.
The topic came up in an interview with New York Magazine’s Jennifer Senior, which was published on Oct. 6.

“Hey, come on, that’s standard Catholic doctrine,” said Scalia, who is Catholic. “Every Catholic believes that…”

When asked by Senior, “Isn’t it frightening to believe in the Devil?” the Supreme Court justice said, “You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels. You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.”

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John McCain Slams GOP’s ‘False Premise’ of Repealing Obamacare

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Photo Credit: AP/Susan WalshInfuriated that the government shutdown has delayed the payment of death benefits to the families of fallen American soldiers, Sen. John McCain railed against the “false premise” offered by some of his fellow Republicans that it is possible to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“To somehow think that we were going to repeal Obamacare, which would have required 67 Republican votes [in the Senate] was a false premise, and I think we did the American people a great disservice by convincing them somehow we could,” McCain, R-Ariz., said. “We started out with a false premise on this side of the aisle.”

The 67-vote margin is what Senate Republicans would need to overturn a presidential veto of any measure that delayed or derailed Obamacare — an unlikely achievement given that Democrats run the Senate and White House and Republicans hold just 46 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, passionately criticized Congress for its failure to negotiate a compromise that would end a government shutdown that on Tuesday was entering its second week.

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AFL-CIO Teacher Union Head Randi Weingarten: ‘Women Actually Have to Work to Feed Their Families’

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Photo Credit: CNSNews.com/Penny StarrRandi Weingarten, feminist, lesbian and head of the American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO labor union, said at a press conference Tuesday that the poor economy in the U.S. and lower wages for females is forcing women to work.

“We have a war in this country, and it happens when you are in sometimes the worst of the economic issues,” Weingarten said at the Feminist Majority’s Women, Money, and Power Summit in Washington, D.C. “We have huge income inequality where women actually have to work to feed their families.

“Forget about taking a vacation,” Weingarten said. “But just to put shelter up and to feed families.”

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‘I Felt That God Was With Me,’ Says Hero Who Saved SUV Driver, Wife From Bikers Helmet Brawl (+video)

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Photo Credit: SCREEN GRAB VIA NY1Father of 10, Sergio Consuegra, saved the life of SUV driver Alexian Lien, 33, and his family in a wild biker confrontation in Manhattan, N.Y., two Sundays ago.

A churchgoing father of 10 has emerged as the only undisputed hero in the aftermath of a wild high-speed brawl between a group of bikers and a wealthy SUV driver along the West Side Highway in Manhattan, N.Y., two Sundays ago after it was revealed that he saved the driver and his wife from the bikers’ fury.

The father, Sergio Consuegra, told NY1 that he was on his way to church in Washington Heights when he came across the group of bikers beating Manhattan executive Alexian Lien, 33, after a confrontation and four mile high-speed chase along the West Side Highway that had left a biker from the group, Edwin Mieses Jr., 32, with a crushed spine.

He explained that what he saw and the “intense danger” that he felt forced him to intervene to stop the beating. “I say to them, ‘that’s it guys. Let it go, man. Let it go. That’s it. Just go, man. That’s it,'” Consuegra said. “So we stood at each other, looking at each other’s faces, and somehow, they stopped right in front of me.”

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GCHQ Leaks have ‘Gifted’ Terrorists Ability to Attack ‘At Will’, Warns Spy Chief

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Photo Credit: MI5/PAAndrew Parker, the director general of the Security Service, said the exposing of intelligence techniques, by the Guardian newspaper, had given fanatics the ability to evade the spy agencies.

It comes at a time when the UK is facing its gravest terror threat, including from “several thousand” Islamist extremists who are living here and want to attack the country, Mr Parker said.

He used his first public outing since taking over at MI5 to launch a scathing attack on the Snowden leaks.

It is feared around Whitehall that the revelations have resulted in a “guidebook for terrorists” while there is frustration that the American is being heralded as some kind of heroic whistleblower.

Sources find it incomprehensible that exposing spy agency techniques for tracking terrorists has been argued to be in the public interest.

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Pan-African Magazine: Africa has 55 Billionaires

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Photo Credit: APA pan-African magazine says Africa has many more billionaires than previously reported, 55 of them worth more than $143 billion including a Nigerian said to be the richest black woman in the world.

“Move over, Oprah!” Ventures Africa says in its latest edition published this week.

Editor-in-chief Uzodinma Iweala said Tuesday the magazine’s estimates are “on the conservative side.”

The report predictably identifies Nigerian manufacturer Aliko Dangote as the richest African worth $20.2 billion, among 20 Nigerians listed.

Africa Ventures put the average net worth of Africa’s billionaires at $2.6 billion and their average age at 65. The oldest billionaires are Kenyan industrialist Manu Chandaria and Egyptian property tycoon Mohammed Al-Fayed, both aged 84. The youngest billionaires are Mohammed Dewji of Tanzania and Nigerian oil trader Igho Sanomi, both 38 years old.

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US Adults Score Below Average on Worldwide Test

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Photo Credit: APIt’s long been known that America’s school kids haven’t measured well compared with international peers. Now, there’s a new twist: Adults don’t either.

In math, reading and problem-solving using technology — all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength — American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.

Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.

Not only did Americans score poorly compared to many international competitors, the findings reinforced just how large the gap is between the nation’s high- and low-skilled workers and how hard it is to move ahead when your parents haven’t.

In both reading and math, for example, those with college-educated parents did better than those whose parents did not complete high school.

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Senate Democrats Plan Maneuver to Allow Obama to Raise Debt Ceiling

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Photo Credit: abangbay @ MalaysiaSenate Democrats say they’ll advance a bill giving President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling unless two-thirds of Congress disapproves, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

The issue of increasing the borrowing limit and avoiding an unprecedented default is fast becoming a central focus in Washington — and comes as ordinary Americans say they’re deeply dismayed with the week-old government shutdown, and are finding blame with both Republicans and Democrats.

“It looks like there is more than enough blame to go around and both parties are being hurt by the shutdown,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

An initial test vote on the proposal, described by the aide on condition of anonymity, could occur as soon as Oct. 11, just six days before federal borrowing authority is set to expire.

Democrats have been pressing for a one-year increase in the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt ceiling without any of the spending cuts of policy changes Republicans are demanding.

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Obama Admin will Allow Amnesty Rally on National Mall During Gov’t Shutdown

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Photo Credit: APThe Obama administration will allow a massive rally for comprehensive immigration reform on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall, even though it is supposed to be closed due to the federal government shutdown.

Open-air spaces like the World War II Memorial have been barricaded since the federal government shut down last week, but an organizer for the rally told the Washington Examiner that the National Park Service will allow the rally and march.

As Breitbart News reported, immigration activists have called for volunteers to get themselves arrested at the rally in acts of civil disobedience.

The event will be a culmination of rallies across the country over the weekend in which immigration activists demonstrated in 41 states demanding amnesty.

A variety of immigration activist organizations, along with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, are organizing the event, which they claim will attract 10,000 people.

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