ACA for Idiots ~ Obama Explains it all Again to Bill and the Demo-Rats

First the Republicans demonized Obamacare as "Death Panels" and "Socialism."

They even tried to shut down the government in order to "repeal it." Didn't work.

It's true there have been problems with the website, but what website in history didn't have glitches? The poutrage from all sides on social media is astonishing since Twitter and Facebook have their own share of problems from hackers and spammers to the KoobFace virus.

But Obamacare has to be held to a higher standard. Why? Because of Obama Derangement Syndrome. This is ridiculous. People on the Left - especially in the media - have whined because the website didn't have Muzak, and whined because the roll-out was a "dismal failure."

The New York Times even compared the bad rollout of the ACA website to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which killed thousands and left thousands more stranded without food and water. Really, New York Times?

Obama even apologized on TV to Chuck Todd of MSNBC in a cringeworthy interview which never should have happened. There's no reason to apologize to media shills since Obamacare hasn't even taken effect yet, and people are still mostly shopping for plans. I have no doubt these kinks in the system will be worked out by January. Millions have already gotten new coverage under the program, including young adults who can now stay on their parents healthcare plans until age 26. Like my daughter for instance, who stayed on the family coverage while in Law School and who now has to buy her own plan as a practicing attorney. Her financial adviser just told her today her best bet for coverage in the coming year is . . . wait for it . . . Obamacare.

Apparently President Bill Clinton didn't get the memo. You remember Bill, the guy who wasn't able to pass his own healthcare initiative while in office, but has now decided to babble about Obama's failure to launch. This has been another moment of chagrin for most Democrats who want to keep our party together in 2014. The hotter heads among us are already saying they will not vote for Hillary in 2016 if Bill is going to attack Obama. That can't be good.

From The Week

President Obama can thank Bill Clinton for the psycho-drama.
Instead of putting some steel into the spines of wavering Democrats, Clinton this week took the opportunity to rebuke the White House for its broken promise that no one would lose their health insurance under ObamaCare. The comments unleashed a no-holds-barred Democratic freak-out, pushing Obama to announce on Thursday a plan to make good on that vow.
. . . As one of the Democratic Party's most respected figures, his word still carries weight among the party faithful, particularly in red states where Obama is kryptonite. So when Clinton publicly chided the administration, it gave congressional Democrats acres of cover to do the same.

Yesterday it all came to a head as there was a revolt among Blue Dog House Democrats like Mary Landrieu of Louisiana who are trying to assauge angry vociferous voters in their districts whose health plans have been cancelled. This has actually affected a small number of Americans but you would think it was happening to every single person from the way the media is covering the story. The Emoprog media, Clinton and these turncoat-Demo-Rats apparently don't even understand what the whiners are whining about, or how ACA Obamacare works.

Why were the plans cancelled by these companies? Because their plans were craptastic to begin with, with high deductibles and almost no hospital coverage. The insurance companies who did this to customers weren't in compliance with the new law, so therefore had to cancel these ridiculous plans. Shall I add that any of those plans could have been cancelled for ANY reason even without Obamacare. Now that we have a "marketplace" of plans, all those policy owners have to do is go search out a new plan instead of whining to Fox and to their local Congressman.

And Bill Clinton needs a course in "ACA for Idiots."
Here's one good explanation of the whole deal from New Republic.



But of course President Obama, who is the nicest and most patient President this country has EVER had, at least in my lifetime, explained it all again in terms even an ex-President can understand. And he said if those silly people want an extension on their horrible coverage, they can have it. I'm not as nice as Barack Obama, so I say to them: Good luck with that. See you next year when you smack your head and sign up for Obamacare.

I'll let the President have the last word - Listen, People!!!

“I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, ‘This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity’ a week before the Web site opens if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.”
. . . And you know, buying health insurance is never going to be like buying a song on iTunes. You know, it’s just a much more complicated transaction.”

Law Links ~ SCOTUS: Filming the Cops, Gay Marriage, Facebook Copyright, Jindal and School Vouchers

I'm starting a new weekly feature called "Law Links" to alert readers to legal actions here and around the world. This has always been an interest of mine, and even more-so now that my daughter is a new attorney who just passed the Bar Exam and is in court every day.

SCOTUSBlog Gears Up for Supreme Court Rulings Next Week

Editor's Note: On Tuesday, December 4, we expect one or more opinions at 10 a.m. We will be live blogging.
On Friday, the Court has granted two new cases, Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. v. Bartlett (12-142) and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. (12-398 ). The Court did not act on the same-sex marriage cases. Additional orders are expected Monday at 9:30.

Bloomberg: A Free Market Fix for the Copyright Racket

Even as digital technology has made reproducing, remixing and repurposing creative works easier -- with potentially enormous benefits for consumers and producers of new works -- the monopoly privileges of copyright have expanded. The result is a bizarre combination of rampant copyright violations, frequent encroachment on legitimate fair use, suppression of new technologies and business models, and the ever-present threat of draconian penalties.

Ars Technica: Supreme Court Backs 7th Circuit Over Filming Police

The United States Supreme Court rejected a request from a Chicago-area prosecutor to review a recent ruling that the First Amendment protects a right to record the actions of police officers as they perform their public duties.
. . . The Supreme Court's decision to let the Seventh Circuit's ruling stand is a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which spearheaded the case. The ACLU's chapter in Massachusetts also had success vindicating a First Amendment right to record the actions of public officials. The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled police violated the rights of a Boston man when they arrested him for using his cell phone to record the arrest of a suspect. In March, the city agreed to pay $170,000 to settle his civil rights lawsuit.

Louisiana Judge Rules Against Bobby Jindal's School Voucher Program

The Associated Press said that (Judge) Kelley’s 39-page ruling concluded that the voucher program violates provisions in the state constitution regarding the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP, which determines how public schools are funded. “The MFP … was never meant to be diverted to private educational providers,” Kelley’s ruling said.
What Jindal’s team has been doing is implementing a voucher program, potentially the country’s largest, as a result of a new law that in part allows the state to offer vouchers to more than half of its students, or some 450,000 students. About 10,000 have applied, with most of the slots given to Christian schools, some of which didn’t really have the resources to handle the influx. They also use curriculum that promotes Young Earth Creationism, the belief that Earth is no older than 10,000 years old — and that human beings lived alongside dinosaurs — despite definitive scientific consensus that it is billions of years old.

Wired: Magical Copyright Hoax Debunked by Facebook

A silly copyright notice is sweeping Facebook . . . with users attaching pseudo-legalese to their status updates in a misguided effort to prevent Facebook from owning or commercially exploiting their content. The notice incorrectly implies that Facebook has recently changed the copyright provisions of its user agreement. It then unnecessarily asserts a user’s copyright over his Facebook posts (you retain such copyright without posting a notice) and cites the “Berner Convention,” an irrelevant international treaty properly spelled “Berne Convention.” The notice then instructs Facebook to get written permission to make commercial use of the user’s content, which is pointless as Facebook users agree to let the social network make money off their posts when they sign up for the service.
Popular hoax-debunking site Snopes addressed this copyright notice in the spring and updated their refutation today. Also, Facebook has taken the further step of putting out a statement of its own:

There is a rumor circulating that Facebook is making a change related to ownership of users’ information or the content they post to the site. This is false. Anyone who uses Facebook owns and controls the content and information they post, as stated in our terms. They control how that content and information is shared. That is our policy, and it always has been.

Etch-A-Sketch Junior: Gov. Bobby Jindal Wants GOP to be Smart Now

Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana wants the GOP to stop being the "Party of Stupid."

Washington Post

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized the Republican party as too anti-intellectual and too beholden to the wealthy.
He said that “offensive, bizarre” comments have damaged the party’s brand. “We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism,” he added. “We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

Not so fast, Mr. Etch-A-Sketch Junior.

This is the guy who made his debut on national TV by making fun of money spent on volcano monitoring. Just after Jindal made that remark, Redoubt Volcano in Alaska shut down air traffic for days so that even Sarah Palin and family couldn't get back home. Then we had the huge shut-down all over Europe from the Icelandic Volcano, which could certainly happen again. And we see the damage from the Japanese Tsunami caused by a massive earthquake, yet the U.S. hasn't kept up with warning buoys near Hawaii that might protect even more people - because of anti-science people in Congress who won't provide money. 

Scientific American

...“Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.,” Jindal said.

What was that all about? Well, Congress authorized some of that $140 million to be spent on volcano monitoring, but not all of it, ProPublica notes in a blow-by-blow of the economic recovery package. That line, ProPublica says, is directed to “U.S. Geological Survey facilities and equipment, including stream gages, seismic and volcano monitoring systems and national map activities.”

Critics writing in The New Republic and elsewhere say Jindal’s jab at volcano monitoring was disingenuous. The USGS is charged with working to “reduce the vulnerability of the people and areas most at risk from natural hazards,” including volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and wildfires which it says cost hundreds of lives and billions of dollars annually in disaster money. Between 50 and 70 volcanoes erupt each year, according to the Smithsonian's global volcanism program. And between 1980 and 1990, they killed at least 26,000 people and caused 450,000 people to flee their homes, the USGS says. “Why does Bobby Jindal think monitoring volcanoes is a bad thing for the government to be doing?” Nick Baumann writes in Mother Jones. “There doesn't seem to be any immediate way for private enterprise to profit from monitoring volcanoes (maybe selling volcano insurance?), but there is obviously a huge public benefit from making sure volcanoes are monitored: warning people if a volcano is going to erupt. Isn't that obvious?”

Jindal is also a fan of charter schools, in which taxpayer money is given to religious institutions for whatever unscientific beliefs they want to teach.

Article from Slate

...he made a bargain with the religious right and compromised science and science education for the children of his state. In fact, Jindal’s actions at one point persuaded leading scientific organizations, including the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, to cross New Orleans off their list of future meeting sites (PDF).

What did Jindal do to produce a hornet’s nest of “mad scientists,” as Times-Picayune writer James Gill described them? He signed into law, in Gill’s words, the “Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which is named for what it is designed to destroy.” The act allows “supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials” to be brought into classrooms to support the “open and objective discussion” of certain “scientific theories,” including, of course, evolution. As educators who have heard such coded language before quickly realized, the act was intended to promote creationism as science. In April, Kevin Carman, dean of the College of Science at Louisiana State University, testified before the Louisiana Senate’s Education Committee that two top scientists had rejected offers to come to LSU because of the LSEA, and the school may lose more scientists in the future.

And now Jindal is poised to spend millions of dollars of state money to support the teaching of creationism in private schools.

Flood Devastation in Louisiana

Videos from flooded areas in Louisiana swamped by Hurricane Isaac. :(

Mitt has Forrest Gump Moments in Louisiana Flood

source: facebook

Just when you think Mitt Romney couldn't possibly sound more clueless than he has in the past, he surprises us with new depths of confusion. He left the Republican Convention and went straight to Louisiana to see the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. He could offer no help to the victims since right now he holds no office, but he probably thought it would be a good photo-op for himself and Governor Bobby Jindal.

Well, the pictures are pretty good, but Mitt's responses - not so much.

Washington Post

“We really appreciate you coming here,” Jindal said.

“I appreciate the chance to be here,” Romney replied. “I have a lot of questions for you.” The two discussed evacuation procedures and the contributions of the Red Cross, Salvation Army and other organizations.

“Did the water come from the sky, or the rivers, or the ocean?” Romney asked. Jindal’s response was not audible to reporters.

Well, that quote is worthy of Forrest Gump right there. I would love to know Jindal's response, LOL.

We've been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stinging rain...and big old fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night.
~ Forrest Gump


I think this is another example of surrogate fail, since one of his advisers could have shown him a map or explained the difference between rain and storm surge. Maybe a Google Earth Map of Lake Ponchatrain. And that big river over thar? That be the Old Man, I mean, the Mississippi. You can imagine him saying "Oh, it's so big! Are you sure that's is a river? In Michigan rivers are the right size."

*sigh*

And unfortunately Mitt had some mind-numbingly bad advice for victims:

From AFP

There, with the world's media looking on, he met 22-year-old mother-of-two Ashley Vegas, whose home was destroyed by a 12-foot (four-meter) wall of water, and whose bare feet contrasted oddly with Romney's suede loafers.

His advice for the suddenly homeless family? Seek a bailout from the US federal government's disaster agency FEMA by calling its 211 emergency hotline.

Vegas was thankful for the lifeline, open to many in Louisiana since Romney's opponent President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency there earlier this week, freeing up government rescue funds for beleaguered communities.

"I think he's a very good man," Vegas volunteered. "He's here to help everybody and do what he can."

Yeah, call FEMA - if they haven't been defunded by the Republicans led by Paul Ryan. LOL. (sorry, that's not really too funny) But notice that Obama was the one who freed up the funding for Louisiana at the request of Bobby Jindal, which is ironic in itself, since Jindal's tendency has been to turn down "hand-outs" from the Federal Government.

Romney gave his bad advice to more than one person:

Mediaite quoting AP

When faced with one of the victims of the flood, however, Romney came up well short in the empathy department. From The Associated Press:

Romney and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) spent close to an hour meeting with first responders and local officials. Romney shook hands with National Guardsmen outside the U.S. Post Office and talked with a local resident, Jodie Chiarello, 42, who lost her home in Isaac’s flooding.

“He just told me to, um, there’s assistance out there,” Chiarello said of her conversation with Romney. “He said, go home and call 211.” That’s a public service number offered in many states.

Chiarello said she will likely seek some other shelter because her home was submerged in the flooding.

In Romney’s defense, at least he didn’t offer her a quarter for the payphone.
For a candidate whom voters already don’t think understands their struggles, who is on an already cynical-looking tour of a disaster area, and whose party has a famously bad record of helping people during natural disasters, this is not a great headline. You could say, in fairness to Romney, that at least he was trying to help, but when someone tells you their house just got submerged in a flood, telling them to go home isn’t actually all that helpful.

source: Reuters

Reid Sees Hypocrisy in Romney Louisiana Trip

In his speech to the Republican National Convention last night, Mitt said:

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise...is to help you and your family.

This line got a big cheer from the anti-science crowd in Tampa, but the appalling irony is what all those nice dry overfed people weren't thinking about ~ the devastation of New Orleans in Hurricane Isaac going on simultaneously to the Republican Convention. We can assume they were just glad the storm went west and didn't flood their little get-together. Who cares about Louisiana, right?

But today in a strange turnaround, Mitt Romney visited Louisiana to commiserate with his little buddy, Governor Bobby Jindal. Nice photo-op for both of them - just ignore that rising water, ha ha ha.

Official Honey Badger of the Democratic Party, Harry Reid is calling them out on their hypocrisy.

Huffington Post Story

"It is the height of hypocrisy for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to make a pretense of showing sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Isaac when their policies would leave those affected by this disaster stranded and on their own," Reid said in a statement.

Romney visited Lafitte, La., Friday to meet with Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and first responders to the hurricane. "I'm here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what's going here,” Romney told Jindal, according to a pool report. "So that people around the country know that people [down] here need help."

But Reid didn't see it that way. He used the visit as an opportunity to bring up Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget, which he said would "gut disaster funding, making it much harder to get aid to our fellow Americans in their time of need."

"This is yet another example of Mitt Romney's extreme right wing agenda, which asks middle class families to sacrifice in order to protect millionaires and billionaires from paying their fair share," Reid said.

Levees Overtopped in Louisiana ~ "Worse than Katrina"

Last night Hurricane Isaac came ashore in New Orleans, then enigmatically bumped right back out to sea where it went stationary for many hours. That means that it has rained, and rained, and rained all night over one area with band after band of rain and wind. So the levees are being overtopped, and some places that didn't flood in Katrina are underwater now. This could be a total disaster, and my heart just breaks for the people of New Orleans!!! This is only a Category One storm, but the rain amounts are astronomical - 20 inches or more.

Governor Bobby Jindal Puts the "NO" in NOLA

I don't like to brag, and I'm not always correct, but I got one prediction right this past week when I told my husband and daughter that I was absolutely sure of one thing: Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana would be the very first politician to say that he didn't want any stinkin' Obamacare for his state.

And sure enough . . .he's been saying "NO" all over the place. Anyone who has ever taken child psychology or had a toddler in the house remembers "The No Stage in which a child who wants independence suddenly reacts to every question with that word. Governor Jindal wants his state to be so independent that he says to "NO" without even thinking of the consequences, much like a half-awake toddler with no responsibilities. Frankly, if I had a Governor like that I would be planning a move to another state.  

(Oh wait . . . sometimes he says yes - remember the Gulf Oil Spill? And if there's a hurricane, he'll be right there criticizing Obama for not helping them enough. Oy. But the rest of the time it's "NO!")

If Jindal is just saying "NO!" to win friends and influence people in the Republican Party, that isn't really working either. On Friday, the day after the Surpreme Court gave the green light to the President's healthcare plan, Bobby Jindal flubbed up on a Republican Party Conference Call by calling the program "Obamneycare," a slur left over from the primary that fuses together Obama's plan with Romney's in Massachusetts (on which Obamacare is based).

Really I think Mr. Jindal needs to say "NO" next time a microphone is shoved into his face.

From Nola.com

"It really raises the question of what's next, what's allowable," Jindal said. "Taxes on people who refuse to eat tofu or refuse to drive a Chevy Volt ... this whole ruling I think is ridiculous. It's a huge expansion of federal power."

and

 "We're not moving forward with the exchanges," Jindal said. "Instead, we're going to do everything we can to defeat President Obama, get rid of ObamaCare."

From Huffington Post

 Here in Louisiana, we've not applied for the grants, we've not accepted many of these dollars," Jindal said. "We're not implementing the exchanges. We don't think it makes any sense to implement Obamacare in Lousiana. The next opportunity we have to get rid of this law is to get Governor Romney elected, and I absolutely believe that he will be elected in November, and one of his first actions will be to repeal and replace this law."

Washington Post gives Jindal a reality-check:

The Affordable Care Act requires states to have exchanges. A state has several options: It can build the exchange itself, or it can collaborate with the federal government to build it, or it can let the federal government run it. The state has to tell the feds what path it has decided to take by mid-November. If the state does not want to run its own exchange, or collaborate with the feds to run it, the feds will begin setting up the exchange themselves in January.
If Jindal is serious about not implementing an exchange, the latter course is what will happen under the law, says Kathleen Stoll, the deputy executive director at the pro-Obamacare Families USA.
“If the state hasn’t moved forward, at that point, the feds have to come in to run the exchange to protect the citizens of Lousiana,” Stoll says. “The irony is that Jindal has made a choice to waste time and available federal dollars he could have used to build a state exchange uniquely tailored to his vision and the needs of the people of Louisiana.”
Of course, Jindal is probably banking on Obama losing the election, and Romney fulfilling his promise to repeal Obamacare on day one of his presidency. But that’s a pretty big gamble.