Cruz Closes High-Profile Year by Standing Tall; If You’re Trying to Change Washington, the Establishment Will Push Back

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz — on a host of short-lists for top 2013 news makers — on Sunday defended himself and his push to defund ObamaCare despite it resulting in a partial government shutdown.

“If you’re trying to change Washington, that’s the Washington establishment pushing back,” the Tea Party-backed Cruz told ABC’s “This Week.”

In October, after barnstorming the country to garner public support for the defunding effort, Cruz helped convinced Republicans not to fund the federal government unless the deal was tied to big changes for President Obama’s signature health care law.

“You’ve got conservatives that stood strong and said ‘Let’s stop the train wreck that is ObamaCare,’ ” said the first-term senator and potential 2016 presidential candidate.

He also put the blame on Democrats by saying they wouldn’t negotiate.

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Expert’s Predictions About ObamaCare Coming True; Another Says ‘Utter Chaos’ To Follow

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Photo Credit: Kansas Policy Institute

Photo Credit: Kansas Policy Institute

“HHS maintains they’ll have these [Exchanges] up and running by October 2013. I don’t know anyone who is confident about that and I’m ready to predict that they will not.” — Michael F. Cannon, December 2012

“In my opinion, what’s going to happen is utter chaos.” — Cato Institute senior fellow Jagadeesh Gokhale, February 2013

“With no clarity as to when people should sign up and who they should pay and when, it’s a virtual certainty that many consumers will find themselves uncovered for a period of time through no fault of their own.” — Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), December 2013

My December 2012 prediction that ObamaCare’s health insurance “exchanges” would not be ready on time proved true by July 2013, when President Obama unilaterally delayed the law’s employer mandate for a year. It proved painfully, obviously true when the Exchanges crashed upon takeoff on October 1, just as ObamaCare was throwing millions out of their current health plans.

My colleague Jagadeesh Gokhale‘s February 2013 prediction of “utter chaos” (audio here, at 48: 25) arguably proved true in October, and is now evident in President Obama’s decision to exempt from the individual mandate those millions whose plans Obama himself cancelled.

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National ID Headed for Your Wallet, Purse

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Shades of Big Brother.

Just as you were wrapping your mind around the idea that under Obamacare and the accompanying changes in the health-care system, your medical records will be floating around in some online repository, available to far too many people, you’re being told you’ll soon have a National Identity Card and a Western Hemisphere-compliant travel document whether you want it or not, if you plan to drive in the United States.

The federal government says it soon will be enforcing its demands that state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards comply with Department of Homeland Security standards.

DHS announced just before Christmas a final schedule for the full enforcement of the REAL ID Act of 2005.

That was set for a phased implementation beginning in January 2014 and full-scale enforcement planned no later than May 2017, at which time the federal government will no longer accept state-issued driver’s licenses and ID cards that do not meet the minimum security standards set by DHS.

For many Americans, the full implementation of the REAL ID act is certain to trigger unfortunate memories of World War II and the modus operandi of fascist, totalitarian states, where travelers and ordinary citizens on the street are stopped by authorities and demanded, “Your papers, please!”

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The World Braces for Retirement Crisis

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Photo Credit: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

Photo Credit: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

A global retirement crisis is bearing down on workers of all ages.

Spawned years before the Great Recession and the financial meltdown in 2008, the crisis was significantly worsened by those twin traumas. It will play out for decades, and its consequences will be far-reaching.

Many people will be forced to work well past the traditional retirement age of 65 — to 70 or even longer. Living standards will fall, and poverty rates will rise for the elderly in wealthy countries that built safety nets for seniors after World War II. In developing countries, people’s rising expectations will be frustrated if governments can’t afford retirement systems to replace the tradition of children caring for aging parents.

The problems are emerging as the generation born after World War II moves into retirement.

“The first wave of under-prepared workers is going to try to go into retirement and will find they can’t afford to do so,” says Norman Dreger, a retirement specialist in Frankfurt, Germany, who works for Mercer, a global consulting firm.

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Brainlike Computers Learn from Mistakes

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Photo Credit: Erin Lubin/The New York Times

Photo Credit: Erin Lubin/The New York Times

Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head.

The first commercial version of the new kind of computer chip is scheduled to be released in 2014. Not only can it automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

Designers say the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world, though a thinking or conscious computer, a staple of science fiction, is still far off on the digital horizon.

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Kelly Clark, Lawyer Who Won Boy Scouts Abuse Case, Dies at 56

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Photo Credit: O'Donnell Clark & Crew LLP.

Photo Credit: O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP.

Kelly Clark, a lawyer whose successful child molestation lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America in Oregon led to the release of a trove of documents containing thousands of accusations of sexual abuse, died on Tuesday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was 56.

The cause of death had not been determined, said Paul Mones, his co-counsel on the suit against the Boy Scouts.

Mr. Clark argued child molestation cases before the Oregon Supreme Court more than a decade before his 2010 lawsuit against the Boy Scouts. Two of those cases resulted in decisions that established a far longer statute of limitations for molestation and allowed for institutions to be held liable when individuals under their authority commit abuse.

The plaintiff in the 2010 lawsuit was Kerry Lewis, who said he had been molested by an assistant scoutmaster, Timur Dykes, in the early 1980s. Mr. Dykes, who had served time for child abuse, had admitted to a Mormon bishop that he had molested several scouts. The bishop alerted the families of Mr. Dykes’s victims but did not warn the other boys in the troop or the authorities. Mr. Dykes was soon able to volunteer with the Scouts again.

“They knew that their charismatic assistant scout leader Timur Dykes, to whom kids flocked like bees to honey, had admitted to molesting 17 scouts, including Cub Scouts,” Mr. Clark told NPR shortly after his closing arguments in the case.

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Wall Street Tycoon Robert Wilson Gives Away $800 Million Fortune Before Jumping to his Death

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A renowned Wall Street tycoon gave away his entire $800 million fortune before falling to his death in a suicide jump this week. Hedge fund multi-millionaire Robert W. Wilson, 87, leapt from the 16th floor of his luxury San Remo apartment building, a prestigious address in New York’s Upper East Side which has been the residence of Steven Spielberg, Demi Moore, Glenn Close, Dustin Hoffman, Bono, Steve Martin, Bruce Willis and Steve Jobs in the past.

According to the New York Police Department, he left a note at the scene. He had suffered from a stroke just a few months before.

“He always said he didn’t want to suffer and when the time came, he would be ready,” close friend Stephen Viscusi told the New York Post.

“His plan was to give all his money away. He told me recently, ‘I only have about $100 million to go.'”

He has since been praised as a “legend” by his peers, after pledging his entire worth to charity some years before he ended his life.

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Karl Rove’s Crossroads Reloading Against Tea Party

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Even though Karl Rove’s American Crossroads brand has been damaged after the group declared war against conservative candidates, the group will reportedly try to influence the 2014 midterm elections by bullying campaigns and creating groups that, on the surface, do not seem to be affiliated with them.

According to the New York Times, Crossroads “appears to be testing” its “new approach” in Kentucky. The Conservative Victory Project, the group formed to take on conservative candidates, has stayed out of Kentucky’s Senate primary between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Tea Party challenger Matt Bevin. Instead, a group called “Kentuckians for Strong Leadership” is curiously backing McConnell while getting most of its cash from Crossroads donors. It is “legally separate from Crossroads;” but Stephen Law, the president of Crossroads, sits on its board, and the two groups share a treasurer.

Crossroads may set up “similar groups in races in which its brand may be less appealing to voters or donors.” The Times notes that this is an approach Crossroads may have to take because Rove’s organization has been so tarnished among the conservative base that candidates fear donors will not contribute to any group associated with him.

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Silence of the Lambs: GOP Establishment Remained Neutral on ‘Duck Dynasty’ Controversy

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) emphatically defended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson from the moment he was suspended by A&E for supposedly anti-gay remarks. The suspension provoked a relentless outpouring of support online, which pressured A&E to reinstate Robertson on Friday.

Palin, Jindal, and Cruz’s support was in contrast to the silence of the Republican establishment, its leadership, and the Republican National Committee. The latter focused instead on Kwanzaa and promoting amnesty, which the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of working class Americans, many of whom make up the bulk of the Duck Dynasty audience.

Palin took to Twitter on December 18–the night Robertson was suspended–saying A&E had caved to the “‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion.” Palin said “free speech is an endangered species,” and those “intolerants” are “taking on all of us.”

The next morning, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said, “I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment.”

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DNC Sends Email Defending Obama from Impeachment Possibility

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a paranoid email Saturday evening urging supporters to vote for Democrats so that Republicans can’t impeach President Obama.

The email, subject line “Impeachment,” was sent to Obama for America supporters, imploring them to contribute to the DNC’s 2014 efforts. “What do these people all have in common?,” the email asked, featuring quotes from Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas discussing the possibility of impeaching Obama for one of his numerous instances of presidential misconduct.

The DNC email discussed the “I-Word” and said that “Republicans are actually excited about the idea.”

Read more from this story HERE.