Press Secretary Jay Carney to ABC News Reporter: “I Give Up” (+video)

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Photo Credit: APFresh questions about whether the White House deceived Americans with claims they could bypass the broken HealthCare.gov website by using the phone or mailing in an application provoked an exasperated response Monday from White House press secretary Jay Carney.

“I give up,” Carney told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, accusing the White House reporter of speaking “in tones of dramatic revelation” to inflate a story.

The exchange centered around documents released by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday.

Meeting notes from the administration “war room” handling the rollout of ObamaCare showed that consumers who called the ObamaCare hotline or applied for insurance would still have their information eventually entered on the glitchy HealthCare.gov website, which has been plagued by technical problems since its launch on Oct. 1.

“The paper applications allow people to feel like they are moving forward in the process and provides another option; at the end of the day, we are all stuck in the same queue,” one official wrote.

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Mark Begich’s Lie Costs 5,360 Alaskans Their Insurance

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Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, Alaska’s Largest Health Insurer, Is Cancelling More Than Half Of Its Individual Policies Due To ObamaCare. “The largest health insurer in Alaska has sent cancellation notices to more than half its individual members in the state because their existing policies do not meet requirements of the new federal health care law. Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield spokeswoman Melanie Coon said Friday that of its more than 9,000 individual members in Alaska, fewer than 3,800 were on “grandfathered” plans. Those are plans that were in existence before March 23, 2010, and have changed very little.” (Becky Bohrer, “Premera Sends Alaskans Health Policy Cancellation Notices, Will Offer New Plans,” Anchorage Daily News, 11/1/13)

5,360 Alaskans Will Lose Their Existing Plans. “Coon said discontinuation notices have gone to about 5,360 other members, who have been told they will be matched to new plans that are closest to what they had before in an effort to keep anyone from losing coverage.” (Becky Bohrer, “Premera Sends Alaskans Health Policy Cancellation Notices, Will Offer New Plans,” Anchorage Daily News, 11/1/13)

BEGICH PROMISED ALASKANS THEY “CAN KEEP” THEIR CURRENT PLANS; BUT REFUSED TO HONOR THAT PROMISE WHEN GIVEN THE CHANCE

On July 27, 2009, As Health Care Reform Was Being Debated, Begich Promised Constituents That “If You’ve Got A Doctor Now, You’ve Got A Medical Professional That You Want, You Get To Keep That.” BEGICH: “If you got a doctor now, you got a medical professional you want, you get to keep that. If you have an insurance program or a health care policy you want of ideas, make sure you keep it. That you can keep who you want. That we keep that patient-doctor relationship very strong.” (Sen. Mark Begich, Remarks At iTownHall, 7/27/09)

After Voting To Pass ObamaCare, Begich Claimed “Alaskans Who Have Health Insurance Now, And Are Happy With It, Can Keep It.” “Alaskans who have health insurance now, and are happy with it, can keep it. While the thousands of Alaskans who do not have health insurance, or have insurance they can’t really afford, will have access to an insurance exchange offering affordable health insurance choices. An estimated 52,000 Alaskans will quality for tax credits to help purchase affordable health coverage.” (Press Release, “Sen. Begich Statement On Passage Of Health Reform Bill,” Sen. Mark Begich, 12/24/09)

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Gingrich: GOP Must Stop ‘Stumbling Into Next Crisis’

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreNewt Gingrich urged House Republicans to stop “stumbl[ing] into the next crisis” and instead seize the policy initiative by seeking “breakout” policies in healthcare, education, and other major policy areas.

Although the 2014 midterm elections already look to be fought over raising the debt ceiling or defunding ObamaCare, the former Speaker said Republicans must look in a different, more future-oriented direction.

“Instead of sitting around, passively waiting to stumble into the next crisis, we ought to be out there looking at new ideas,” Gingrich told The Hill in an interview.

These new ideas, said Gingrich, cover everything from promoting regenerative medicine to the potential benefits of online schooling and self-driving cars.

Gingrich’s new book “Breakout,” published Monday, argues that America is on the cusp of major technology-driven innovations in most major policy areas. But such a “breakout” requires overcoming the political and bureaucratic “prison guards of the past” who benefit from stagnation, Gingrich says.

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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Sets Record for Annual Spending by a Federal Agency

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Photo Credit: APThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the federal government’s major health-care programs as well as the Obamacare insurance exchange, spent $1,113,178,000,000 in fiscal 2013, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement for September, which was released last week.

That sets a record for the most money ever spent by a federal agency or department in a single year.

It also means CMS spent more in inflation-adjusted dollars than the entire federal government spent in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation creating the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

In 1965, the entire federal government spent $118,228,000,000 in 1965 dollars, according to the Office of Management and Budget. That converts to $878,824,380,000 in 2013 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.

In 2010, CMS became the first federal agency to spend more than a trillion dollars, when it spent $1,035,783,000,000. In 2011, CMS spent $1,095,406,000,000; in 2012, it spent $1,052,799,000,000; and, in 2013, it spent a record $1,113,178,000,000.

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Tuesday’s Elections Will Serve as Battleground for the Competing Ideological Groups Struggling for Control of Republican Party

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Photo Credit: Ivan Couronne /AFP/GettyHours before its biggest political test since defeat in the 2012 national election, the Republican party is praying that voters in Virginia’s election for state governor on Tuesday prove more like the enthusiastic crowd gathered recently just outside the town of Norfolk.

Aging, overwhelmingly white – despite being hosted by the local Filipino cultural centre – and surrounded by the world’s largest naval base, the core supporters turning out at last-minute rallies like this for conservative candidate Ken Cuccinelli are as loyal as they come.

The problem is, there aren’t enough of them. Shortly before the opening prayer, organizers patrol the back of a half-empty room, gently prodding the elderly campaigners to stand closer together so they appear a tight throng before the watching television cameras. The stark math is mirrored by multiple opinion polls showing that the once-dominant Cuccinelli has slipped more than six points behind his Democratic rival Terry McAuliffe.

Both sides have spent the final few days preaching to the converted in similar small rallies up and down this swing state. Both camps are increasingly more pre-occupied with ensuring turnout among the political base than persuading any last-minute floating voters.

At recent McAuliffe rallies, even Barack Obama and his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton have warned that the Democrats’ biggest danger lies in a low turnout, a particular problem in the “off-year” votes that follow presidential elections.

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Radiation from Japan Nuclear Plant Arrives on Alaska Coast

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Photo Credit: CBC News Scientists at the University of Alaska are concerned about radiation leaking from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear plant, and the lack of a monitoring plan.

Some radiation has arrived in northern Alaska and along the west coast. That’s raised concern over contamination of fish and wildlife. More may be heading toward coastal communities like Haines and Skagway.

Douglas Dasher, a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says radiation levels in Alaskan waters could reach Cold War levels.

“The levels they are projecting in some of the models are in the ballpark of what they saw in the North Pacific in the 1960s,” he said.

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New Twist in Benghazi Account: Mystery Man with Slain Ambassador

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Photo Credit: WND A four-page incident report written by a private contractor that provided security to the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, adds yet another layer of intrigue to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack.

The report, for the first time, claims that another American aside from Ambassador Christopher Stevens was being treated at the Libyan hospital reportedly controlled by the Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist group.

The American was described in the report by the private Blue Mountain Group as being “black” and shot in the hand. The report says the man was presumed to be “one of the ambassador’s close protection team as both were black.”

The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report, or ARB, detailed what it claimed was the official version of events during and after the attack. The ARB report does not mention any other American at the hospital with Stevens.

The ARB report states only that Stevens’ body was transported from the hospital to the Benghazi airport. The ARB does not describe how Stevens’ body was released from a hospital said to be under Ansar Al-Sharia’s control.

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CIA Made Govt Doctors Torture Suspected Terrorists After 9/11

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Photo Credit: 9/11 photos/flickrA national task force’s review of post-9/11 actions by medical professionals working with U.S. military and intelligence agencies concluded doctors violated their code of ethics by torturing detainees suspected of terrorism.

The 19-member Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers found medical doctors and psychologists, heeding instruction from the Department of Defense and the CIA, waterboarded and force-fed suspects, as well as deprived them of sleep, The Guardian reports.

“The American public has a right to know that the covenant with its physicians to follow professional, ethical expectations is firm regardless of where they serve,” said Dr. Gerald Thomson, a member of the task force and a professor emeritus at Columbia University in New York City.

The report, “Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror,” said government-hired healthcare workers “designed and participated in cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and torture of detainees” after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The report further states military and intelligence officials told the workers the “first do no harm” clause in the Hippocratic Oath was to be disregarded because the subjects were not patients.

“It’s clear that in the name of national security, the military trumped that covenant, and physicians were transformed into agents of the military and performed acts that were contrary to medical ethics and practice,” Thomson said. “We have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again.”

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Avista Corp. to Acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company

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Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanAvista Corp (NYSE: AVA) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Alaska Energy and Resources Company (AERC), a privately-held company based in Juneau, Alaska. When the transaction is complete, AERC will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avista Corp.

The purchase price at closing will be $170 million, less the assumption of debt and other customary closing adjustments. The transaction will be funded through the issuance of Avista common stock to the shareholders of AERC. The transaction is expected to close by July 1, 2014, following the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions. We expect that the addition of AERC to Avista Corp. will be slightly negative to earnings in 2014, and that it will contribute positively to earnings in 2015.

The primary subsidiary of AERC is Alaska Electric Light and Power Company (AEL&P), the oldest regulated electric utility in Alaska. In 2012, AEL&P had annual revenues of $42 million and a total rate base of $111 million. AEL&P, with 60 fulltime employees, serves approximately 15,900 customers in the city and borough of Juneau. The utility has a firm retail peak load of approximately 80 Megawatts (MW) and serves nearly 100 percent of its load with 102.7 MW of renewable hydroelectric generation capacity. The utility has 93.9 MW of diesel generating capacity to provide back-up service to all firm customers when necessary.

In addition to the regulated utility, AERC owns the AJT Mining subsidiary, which is an inactive mining company holding certain mining properties.

“AEL&P’s 120-year culture of service and community partnership is a great long-term fit with Avista Corp. We have found the company to have similar cultural values and focus on providing safe, reliable service to its customers that Avista has held dear for nearly 125 years. We look forward to working with AEL&P’S highly skilled and dedicated management and employees, and to being part of the Juneau community,” said Avista Corp. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Morris. “This agreement reflects Avista’s strategy to expand and diversify energy assets and deliver long-term value to the customers, communities and investors we serve.”

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Pastor Saeed Abedini Reportedly Moved to More Dangerous Prison

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Photo Credit: Fox News The Iranian-American pastor being held in Iran has now been transferred to a more dangerous prison where he faces life-threatening conditions, according to his family and attorneys.

When a member of Saeed Abedini’s family went to visit him at Evin Prison, a facility in Tehran where he has been kept for over a year, he was told that the pastor had been moved about an hour and a half away to Rajai Shahr Prison in the town of Karaj.

The family member then travelled to Rajai Shahr Prison and was told that the pastor is being kept there, but is not permitted to have any visitors, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, the pastor’s U.S.-based attorneys.

According to inside sources, this new prison in Karaj is an even more dangerous facility, where violent prisoners, typically imprisoned for murder and rape, are held.

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