Titanic Obamacare Hits Iceberg of Reality

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Photo Credit: A Train/flickrThe first reviews are in, and so, far, Obamacare is a lot like “new” Coke. Few product roll-outs in history have had more problems.

Even some of its strongest supporters are the most scathing critics of the way Obamcare has been introduced to the public.

When President Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius compared the Obamacare website problems to a glitch in an Apple product roll-out, Washington Post columnist Ezra Kelin responded, “But the Obama administration doesn’t have a basically working product that would be improved by a software update. They have a website that almost nobody has been able to successfully use.

“If Apple launched a major new product that functioned as badly as Obamacare’s online insurance marketplace, the tech world would be calling for (Apple CEO) Tim Cook’s head.”

Klein’s column was titled “Obamacare’s website is really bad.”

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Obama to Nominate Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve Chairman

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Photo Credit: AP/Eugene HoshikoPresident Obama will announce Janet Yellen as his nominee to replace Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve system on Wednesday afternoon, White House officials said Tuesday evening.

The 67-year old Yellen, the current vice chairman of the Fed, would become the first female leader of the central bank.

Yellen has been viewed as the favorite for the job since former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration in September.

Previously, Summers’ candidacy had drawn an unusual amount of attention to the nomination process, which usually is a relatively muted affair. He was forced to exit when a number of Democratic senators, including members of the Senate Banking Committee that approves Fed nominations, announced that they would not support him.

Yellen is expected to face a much easier path to confirmation. A number of Democrats took the unusual step of endorsing her for the post as an alternative to Summers when he was rumored to be Obama’s preferred pick.

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Why America Wants Drones That Can Kill Without Humans

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Photo Credit: defenseone.comScientists, engineers and policymakers are all figuring out ways drones can be used better and more smartly, more precise and less damaging to civilians, with longer range and better staying power. One method under development is by increasing autonomy on the drone itself.

Eventually, drones may have the technical ability to make even lethal decisions autonomously: to respond to a programmed set of inputs, select a target and fire their weapons without a human reviewing or checking the result. Yet the idea of the U.S. military deploying a lethal autonomous robot, or LAR, is sparking controversy. Though autonomy might address some of the current downsides of how drones are used, they introduce new downsides policymakers are only just learning to grapple with.

The basic conceit behind a LAR is that it can outperform and outthink a human operator. “If a drone’s system is sophisticated enough, it could be less emotional, more selective and able to provide force in a way that achieves a tactical objective with the least harm,” said Purdue University Professor Samuel Liles. “A lethal autonomous robot can aim better, target better, select better, and in general be a better asset with the linked ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] packages it can run.”

Though the pace for drone strikes has slowed down — only 21 have struck Pakistan in 2013, versus 122 in 2010 according to the New America Foundation — unmanned vehicles remain a staple of the American counterinsurgency toolkit. But drones have built-in vulnerabilities that military planners still have not yet grappled with. Last year, for example, an aerospace engineer told the House Homeland Security Committee that with some inexpensive equipment he could hack into a drone and hijack it to perform some rogue purpose.

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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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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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Third Colorado State Senator May Face Recall

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Photo Credit: Evie Hudak/FacebookEnergized by historic recalls of two Colorado state senators last month, activists have begun collecting signatures to oust state Democratic Sen. Evie Hudak from office.

Hudak, who represents Westminster, a suburb northwest of Denver, is a favorite target of the GOP for her liberal voting record and a propensity to attract bad PR for herself.

Under Colorado election law, those wishing to prompt a recall election must collect 18,900 signatures from district residents – 25 percent of the total votes cast in the last election. Hudak was initially elected to the state Senate in 2008 after two terms on the state Board of Education.

In both senate elections, Hudak has won by narrow margins; in 2008 she topped Republican Libby Szabo with 51 percent of the vote. In 2012, she won with only 47 percent, narrowly edging out Republican Lang Sias by 0.7 percent. Sias’ defeat was blamed in Republican circles on the presence of Libertarian Lloyd A. Sweeny, who garnered nearly 7 percent of the vote. GOP analysts believe a majority of those Libertarian votes would have otherwise gone to Sias.

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WSJ Economist Stephen Moore: The US Will Not Default, Constitution Explains Why

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Wall Street Journal economist Stephen Moore stated the United States will not default. He told Pat Robertson in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club on Monday, “There will be no default. In fact, anyone who is watching this show, who owns a government bond, the chances that we will have a default on that debt and you won’t get paid is very, very close to zero.” He added, “The real danger to our credit rating and our status as a world economic superpower is if we are going to continue to borrow a trillion dollars a year.”

Moore went on to further explain why he believes the government will not default stating, “The Constitution guarantees that the full faith and credit of the United States government will be assured. That means that if we had a shut down, that doesn’t mean the government can’t spend money, it means it can’t borrow more. So I would make the case and most constitutional scholars would agree with me that the first people who would get paid [from incoming revenues] are the people who own the bonds…I think it’s highly irresponsible for this President to be running around saying we are going to have to default on the debt. Telling people to sell their stocks. Can you imagine, Pat, if a CEO of a company started talking down their stocks and their bonds?”

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Reid Blasts Media For Being Too Conservative

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Photo Credit: Western JournalismIf anyone still needs proof Harry Reid is completely disconnected with reality, recent comments he made about the state of mainstream media should suffice. The Senate majority leader and bitterly partisan Democrat unbelievably complained today’s press is not leftist enough.

Speaking to Politico recently, he identified a “real shortcoming” within the media, saying journalists “are trying so hard to be fair that [they] are unfair.”

With countless newspapers, networks, websites, and other outlets dedicated to carrying the Obama administration’s water on a daily basis, Reid’s argument falls flat in the face of facts. The mainstream leftist media are, for the most part, not interested in presenting a balanced reportage of the news. While Reid accurately describes the press as “unfair,” most Americans understand that bias is in favor of the leftist cause.

Nevertheless, he sticks to his irrational diatribe by placing the blame for our current federal government shutdown squarely on the shoulders of his political adversaries.

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