Maryland’s ObamaCare Exchange has Been Directing Customers to a Seattle Pottery Store

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Mary Katharine mentioned the other week that Maryland’s state-run ObamaCare exchange — which crashed the first day it was launched last fall and has been stuck in an interminable loop of fail ever since — had been accidentally directing Maryland insurance-seekers in search of help to other states’ ObamaCare navigators. Apparently, however, that was hardly the least facepalm-worthy of the website’s proffered misguidance, via the Baltimore Sun:

Critics said Saturday that the latest problem to hit Maryland’s online health exchange — an incorrect help-line number that directed hundreds of callers to a Seattle-based pottery business — was another symptom of the poorly operating website.

“You can’t make this stuff up, and I guess if it wasn’t so serious, it could be funny,” said Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican.

The website mistakenly listed a 1-800 number that sent some Marylanders attempting to pick a health insurance provider to Seattle Pottery Supply instead of Maryland’s call center. The number appears under the words “State Advantage” and “call a representative.” The correct number for help shows up multiple times on the site before the incorrect number appears…

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Will it Ever Stop? Another Obamacare Provision for Employers Delayed

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Photo Credit: AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB

Photo Credit: AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB

The Obama administration plans to delay enforcement of yet another Obamacare provision, according to a New York Times report.

This line in the law would ban employers from discriminating “in favor of highly compensated individuals” when it comes to health insurance eligibility or benefits. Effectively, the provision prevents employers from providing their top executives cushy health benefits while low-level employees are given less optimal health insurance options.

The IRS will not enforce the provision in 2014 because they simply haven’t yet gotten around to actually writing the regulations that employers must follow, even though the Affordable Care Act was signed into law almost four years ago.

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Sean Hannity to Leave New York After Andrew Cuomo’s Anti-Conservative Rant

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

In a radio interview last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) made some disparaging comments about pro-life conservatives, stating they had “no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

Those remarks drew the ire of conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, who on his Monday radio program declared he had enough and was abandoning his home state, where he hosts his widely syndicated radio show and his high-rated Fox News Channel television program.

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The Coming GOP Amnesty Sellout Push

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Photo Credit: M. Ryder

Photo Credit: M. Ryder

Lobbyists, on the march! The coming weeks will see the formal start of the GOP House leadership’s attempt to sneak an immigration amnesty through the Republican caucus and into law. We don’t know the exact details of the proposals, but we know enough:

1) There will be some form of legalization (conditional amnesty) for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. It won’t give them a “special” path to citizenship, but they will likely be able to pursue citizenship through regular old channels. Either way, the message sent to potential future immigrants will be, “If you come here illegally, you’ll get to stay legally.” Plus, once the bill has passed the Democratic campaign to paint the GOP as racist for not granting general citizenship to the whole group will begin.

2) There will be an attempt to describe Speaker Boehner’s “piecemeal” collection of immigration bills as an “enforcement first” arrangement that will prevent another, future illegal wave despite the incentive created by what will be two successive amnesties. Since Democrats and Latino groups would never go for an actual “enforcement first” approach–e.g., enacting universal E-verify, an exit-entry system, building a fence and waiting a few years for legal challenges to peter out**–this claim will necessarily be a fraud, the framing of which will be a key challenge for Boehner & Co.. Presumably just saying “Hey we passed the enforcement part of the bill a week before we passed the amnesty part” won’t do, nor will letting President Obama decide when the enforcement mechanisms are sufficiently “in place.” That means a convoluted debate over “triggers,” the traditional playground for legislative legerdemain.*** Legalizers will try to make the prequisites look tough when they aren’t — certainly nothing that can’t be easily dismantled once the undocumented get their documents. Do not count on the press to correct this misimpression. They’re in the “fool the rubes” camp too.

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Liberal Icon Urges Obama Impeachment

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Worse than Richard Nixon. An unprecedented abuse of powers. The most un-American president in the nation’s history.

Nat Hentoff does not think much of President Obama.

And now, the famous journalist says it is time to begin looking into impeachment.

Hentoff sees the biggest problem as Obama’s penchant to rule by executive order when he can’t convince Congress to do things his way.

The issue jumped back into the headlines last week when, just before his first Cabinet meeting of 2014, Obama said, “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone … and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions.”

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Poll: 73 Percent Say Obama NSA Reforms Won’t Boost Privacy

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

A poll released Monday found more Americans disapprove of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, and more than seven in ten say President Obama’s announced reforms will do little to address their privacy concerns.

The new USA Today/Pew Research poll found Obama’s Friday speech failed to make a mark with the public. Nearly half of those surveyed said they heard nothing about the speech, with 41 percent saying they had heard a little about Obama’s reforms and 8 percent saying they heard a lot.

Seventy-three percent who knew of Obama’s proposals said his NSA changes won’t do anything to increase privacy protections, with 21 percent saying the reforms will work.

The poll found that by a 70-to-26 percent split, Americans said they should not have to give up their privacy to prevent terrorism.

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House Democrat’s Response to Obama NSA Overhaul Plan: ‘Trust but Codify’

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

With his newly announced overhaul of National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance activities, President Obama has once again hit a nerve with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.

The president, as he often does when facing a nettlesome problem, used his executive powers to implement changes. In his address on Friday, Obama said he’s approved a “new presidential directive for our signals intelligence activities both at home and abroad.”

The directive, Obama said, would strengthen oversight of intelligence and ensure trade and investment relationships are taken into account when spying. The president also went on to order a transition away from the bulk data collection program in its current form — and restrict the ability of analysts to access that database during the transition.

Some House Democrats said executive actions alone were not enough.

“It is now time for Congress to take the next step by enacting legislation to appropriately limit these programs,” Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., said in a statement, adding that Congress must “trust but codify” when it comes to the president’s promises.

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Cops Bloody Old Man — for Jaywalking

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Photo Credit: G.N. Miller/NY Post

Photo Credit: G.N. Miller/NY Post

Cops bloodied an 84-year-old man and put him in the hospital Sunday when he jaywalked at an Upper West Side intersection and didn’t appear to understand their orders to stop, witnesses said.

Kang Wong was strolling north on Broadway and crossing 96th Street at around 5 p.m., when an officer told him to halt because he had walked against the light.

Police were targeting jaywalkers in the area following the third pedestrian fatality this month around West 96th Street.

Wong, who lives a block away, appeared to not understand the cop, the witnesses said.

“The guy didn’t seem to speak English. The cop walked him over to the Citibank” near the northeast corner of 96th and Broadway, said one witness, Ian King, a Fordham University law student.

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Investigators Believe Snowden May Have Stayed with a Russian in Hong Kong

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Investigators do not believe Edward Snowden stayed at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong as he travelled from Hawaii to Russia last summer, but rather at the residence of a non-Chinese national, possibly a Russian, who is suspected of facilitating his travel to Moscow, a source familiar with the case tells Fox News.

The new allegation about Snowden’s contacts in Hong Kong comes as the leadership of the House and Senate intelligence committees also claimed the NSA leaker may have had help.

On the Sunday talk shows, the CIA’s former deputy director, Mike Morrell, along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for the first time publicly weighed in on that possibility — though neither pointed to specific evidence.

“The disclosures that have been coming recently are very sophisticated in their content and sophisticated in their timing, almost too sophisticated for Mr. Snowden to be deciding on his own,” Morrell told “Face the Nation.”

“And it seems to me he might be getting some help.”

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Victim Goes after Each Viewer of Child Pornography

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

The Supreme Court will delve into the sordid world of child pornography this week with a case that could break legal ground in the fight to curb juvenile porn — whether victims can seek full damages not only from their abusers but also from the people who produce, distribute and possess the illegal images.

The case, which the high court will hear Wednesday, has the potential to rock the secretive world of child pornography. Few people’s fortunes could withstand rulings that require multimillion-dollar payouts to dozens, even hundreds, of victims.

Forcing offenders to pay full restitution to a victim “does nothing but good,” said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough is Enough, one of the anti-pornography advocates closely watching the case. It is well-known, she said, that every time child pornography is viewed, “the victim is re-victimized.”

But most federal courts have ruled that a defendant can be held responsible only for specific harms caused by his or her specific conduct, greatly limiting the liability of many of those who must pay damages.

The case centers on “Amy Unknown,” an unidentified woman who is seeking $3.36 million in lifetime restitution from Doyle R. Paroline, a Texas man who was caught with two of Amy’s images in his child pornography collection.

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