This is actually Major Scandal 3, because it broke yesterday. Drew's post about the general being asked to change his testimony to help a donor's company is Major Scandal 4.

3:

In the thick of the debate over President Barack ObamaÂ’s health care reform bill, administration officials ignored warnings that one of its most controversial provisions was financially unsustainable and could leave taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars.

According to a report released Thursday by a working group of congressional investigators, officials inside the Department of Health and Human Services ignored numerous red flags about the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program (CLASS) — and in some cases the officials went to work figuring out how to hide them.

...

When the Congressional Budget Office scored the program, analysts said it would account for $70 billion in deficit reduction over ten years. However, that was because those enrolled in the program wonÂ’t be able to start receiving benefits until five years into that ten-year period.

The programÂ’s architects assumed it would take in more money than it paid out. And the $70 billion in savings became a crucial selling point that helped secure the billÂ’s passage.

The congressional working group, however, found that since the program is voluntary it would likely see more unhealthy participants than healthy ones. That means more payouts and less revenue. In the long run, that imbalance puts the CLASS program on a path to financial disaster.

I don't want to steal everything from the Daily Caller, but Medicaid's chief actuary wrote this problem would result in "an insurance deaths spiral."

Thanks to JohnE.

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (139)
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Memo to Democrats, if you think the lesson of the NV and NY special elections is that you should move even more to the left...be my guest.

It’s open season on President Barack Obama [Drew- I hope someone sends this to Attack Watch]— and that’s just from members of his own party.

With frustration and disappointment mounting from defeats in TuesdayÂ’s two special elections and over ObamaÂ’s jobs plan, the media is filled on Thursday like never before with Democrats on the record publicly questioning and doubting the president and some of his policies, and a few even unleashing biting criticism.

...

Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, told the paper he would not vote for more tax cuts, saying Obama “is in a box.”

“We have the economy that tax cuts gave us,” DeFazio said. And it’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it? The president is in a box.”

Democrats also predicted more trouble for Obama if he offers up changes to Medicare or Social Security in his new deficit-reduction proposal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland told the Journal that “discussion of raising the age for Medicare eligibility would be very disturbing to me” and said the idea “should be taken off the table.”

So in this round up of Democrats angry at Obama, Politico couldn't find one from a swing state that's scared out of their mind because of Obama's hard left policies? All the Democrats in swing states where Obama is getting trounced just want him to be more fighty-fighty and spend even more? The reason Harry Reid has put Obama's "Pass this bill" jobs act on the shelf is it's just to darn moderate? That's the story you guys are going with? Fine by me.

Everyone knows baring some major unforeseen shakeup in the world as we know it, Obama is done. The presidency built on talk is simply being tuned out. He got no bump from his big jobs speech and none of the cable nets even carried his latest pitch for it yesterday. If Obama can't fall back on "just words" he's got nothing. Well, he's got a 3+ year record of declining economic performance but I don't think that's what he's looking for.

The media is going to jump ship soon. Oh, they won't support the GOP and they'll run the usual hit pieces but there will be nothing like the full on embrace of Obama we saw during the '08 cycle. Presidents like Obama come and go but their power to shape The Narrative and liberalism itself muse be saved. They will start to distance themselves in small ways, like covering the Attack Watch debacle and scandals like Solyndra. In that way they can lay the blame for the four years of the Obama administration on a failed vessel and not the underlying policies. Obama with his inexperience and corruption plus a helping of obstructionist Republicans will have been the cause of the failure of the Great Liberal Hope.

Just watch, come the 2014 midterms when there are strong majorities in both Houses for the GOP and a Republican in the White House, the cry from the media will be..."Give liberalism one more chance! This time we have a better champion than that corrupt and awful Obama guy none of us ever liked anyway."

It's always the message with these guys, never their policies.

Added: How hacktastic is Politico? Even the NY Times and NBC realize the opposition is from the "middle", not the left.

“I think the American people are very skeptical of big pieces of legislation,” said Sen. Bob Casey. “For that reason alone I think we should break it up.” Here’s Sen. Mary Landrieu: “I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry.” Rep. Peter DeFazio: “I have been very unequivocal: No more tax cuts.” Sen. Joe Manchin: “I have serious questions about the level of spending that President Obama proposed.” And Rep. Heath Shuler: “The most important thing is to get our fiscal house in order. Then we can talk about other aspects of job creation.” (Um, didn’t Congress just pass some serious budget cuts back in August?) The Democratic griping is well under way, and it undercuts the White House’s message -- no matter how good the politics are. Republicans never panic the way Dems do. Just look at how Republicans handled the Ryan budget plan.

Those guys are Obama's problems, not hard lefties or even Boehner.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:51 AM | Comments (151)
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Oh really?

Now the Pentagon has been raising concerns about a new wireless project by a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared, whose majority owner is an investment fund run by Democratic donor Philip Falcone. Gen. Shelton was originally scheduled to testify Aug. 3 to a House committee that the project would interfere with the militaryÂ’s sensitive Global Positioning Satellite capabilities, which control automated driving directions and missile targeting, among other things.

According to officials familiar with the situation, [Gen. William] SheltonÂ’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the PentagonÂ’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, the officials said.

“There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said in an interview. “The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Office Management and Budget.”

It's not like GPS is important to the military or anyone with a SatNav system in their car or anything. Minor trifles compared to helping out a friend, especially when it's going to take a lot of campaign money to smear the GOP for the next year plus.

The administration says OMB reviews all proposed testimony and resolves any issues with the person giving it beforehand and that politics didn't play a role in this.

Now, I can get that there's a general review of all testimony within the administration and that tweaking takes place but...leaking the testimony to the company involved? I'm not involved in defense contracts so maybe that's not unheard of but it seems to have pissed off a lot of people in this case.

Given what we know of how this administration likes to work hand in glove with politically connected companies *cough*Solyndra*cough* and the fact that Shelton and Turner spilled the beans, this goes beyond the norm.

Well, it's the norm for a Chicago hack pol like Obama.

Remember all the calls from the left to prosecute Bush era officials? I think we're going to hear a lot of that from the right over the next 16 months or so.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:42 AM | Comments (214)
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Mortgage default notices surge 33% nationwide. Expect an untick in foreclosures to follow. (Fallout from the "robosigning" debacle?)

You think inflation isnÂ’t a problem? Check out this chart. Inflation isnÂ’t low; itÂ’s hidden (for now). And in some countries, it's already out in the open.

Timmah says there wonÂ’t be a Lehman-style event in Europe, but then again, Timmah says lots of things. Other (smarter) people are saying that a Lehman-style event is not only possible, but more likely than not. From Willy the Shake: The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

The slow-motion collapse of the “blue model” welfare state continues.

Tax policy gives me a headache and makes me want to sleep for ten days, but Rep. Paul Ryan has some good ideas which he shares here.

Herr Obama, liebchen, can I have $1 Trillion from your stash? I know I said I didn’t need any more money, but I was telling a schmutzige Lüge.

Funny how it's the Greeks who are going bankrupt, but it's the Germans who are drawing the most anguished attention. I think the frustration regarding Germany boils down to: "Either fish or cut bait."

How would a Greek ejection from the Euro *work*, in a nuts and bolts sense? Given the problems Tyler discusses in this piece, any transition is going to be a real mess.

ItÂ’s almost as if ObamaCare was thrown together as a purely political ploy, with no thought given as to how to actually pay for any of it. Pass the bill to find out what's in it! (F**k you, Nan-nan. Right in your Botoxed ear.)

Speaking of ObamaCare: The specter of this looming government disaster is part of why businesses aren't hiring.

What will the so-called “Supercommittee” be able to accomplish? If history and common sense are any guide: very little.

We get our very own "lost decade". I think I'm turning Japanese! I really think so!

Thomas Sowell: "Don't just do something! Stand there!"

We're not the only ones who have noticed that all of Obama's jobs schemes seem to target "blue" states.

In short, the bond market has concluded that the more unionized the state and the bluer its political coloring, the riskier it is to hold bonds marketed by that state.

Louis Woodhill of Forbes agrees with me: electric cars are a really stupid idea.

Sauron speaks from Mount Doom: The can has reached the end of the road.

Voters in Hollywood, Florida vote to cut pensions of cops, firefighters, and city employees. Expect a court fight from the various unions, of course.

UPDATE 1: Has the great Chinese bond sell-off begun? Like I said earlier in the thread -- it might be a good time to rebalance your portfolio.

UPDATE 2: Yeah, we're in hock up to our ears and have no prospects of higher growth going forward, but what the hell...let's bail out the rest of the world! If we're gonna go down, let's make a big splash while doing it! Plus, this'll make everyone love us, right? Right? (From mcat in the comments.)
more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:07 AM | Comments (177)
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Off-script, and fumbly.

(also, I wouldn'ta said "fed up". Just sayin)

I haven't seen a performance this bad since Matt Damon in The King's Speech

via Breitbart TV

More stutterin inspiration via John E.

Either Congress gets it done, or if Congress doesnÂ’t get it done, people know exactly whatÂ’s holding it upÂ…

This is Super O's plan to avoid blame for the economy. A last ditch, 47 yard pass flung into the air while he's being knocked ass over teacup, a super good "oh I tried" fairy tale.

Go play some golf. You suck at acting too.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:09 AM | Comments (131)
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We are far from daylight.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:08 AM | Comments (170)
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Take the Political Compass Test

Okay this has made the rounds in years past but it's always entertaining to take the Political Compass test at (where else) politicalcompass.org and see where you fall on the Left/Right, Authoritarian/Libertarian axes.

Now one thing I noticed is that a lot of the statements you're asked to respond to are expressed in the strong form such as this:

In a civilised society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.

I also suspect that a lot of variance among conservatives gets squeezed into a relatively small area of the chart. But all these quibbles aside I do think the test captures broadly where you would fall on many policy questions.

And of course it's de rigueur in these kind of posts to show your own score - so here ya go:

Since I describe myself primarily as a libertarian-ish conservative, I was sure I'd end up more in the lower right quadrant. But a lot of the strong-form Libertarian statements they presented I just couldn't honestly mark agree with (mainly due to practical concerns and knowledge of human nature). But hey that still puts me somewhere between Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher and I can live with that. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:48 PM | Comments (813)
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I tried to goad @jaketapper the other day, saying his network would cover it for thirty seconds, with twenty seconds of that "context" about Enron.

Not what they did though.

Not the longest report, but the questions were properly framed -- "Did the White House rush a half billion of your dollars to a company certain to fail?"

And more at Hot Air, as Mark Levin interviews an employee who said everyone knew Solyndra was going to fail.

From an ABCNews print article:

Department of Energy officials said the rates for all of its green energy loans were set by the bank using a formula, and SolyndraÂ’s favorable terms were not the result of special treatment.

“All borrowers under the [government loan guarantee] program receive the same treatment,” Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera wrote to iWatch and ABC News in response to questions.

Um, no. What happens is that all borrowers in equivalent situations with equivalent risk and equivalent likelihood of repayment may get the same treatment.

But the whole point of analyzing these companies is to define them, categorize them in terms of risk and such.

That's why it's important to know how these "models" came to the incorrect conclusion that Solyndra would be fantastically profitable.

Note in the below video, at 3:36, Congressman Morgan Griffith tries to find out why all the models predicted that Solyndra's profits would -- are you ready? -- double the year following the loan.

How did they come up with that? What detailed economic model suggested a doubling of profits (during a horrendous global economy, with a business model doomed to fail) in a year?

Why, they based it on... projections provided by Solyndra CEOs. Just accepted those claims, and then, based on this stuff, pushed through the loans at super-cheap rates (and they're not loans -- they're outright gifts, as there was never any plausible way they'd be paid back). more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:43 PM | Comments (288)
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Since he was retarded before Gardasil was invented, that's the only explanation. It caused some awful hallucinations in the microscopic part they left, though.

I don't want to skip to your left on this but.... [W]hen I see automation, when I go to a CVS that used to employ a lot of people just above the poverty level, above the minimum wage. And you walk in there now, it's all machines. Now it's very convenient for the customer, it's all machines. There's a check-out machine, by the way, that talks to you and says 'Don't forget to put your CVS card in."

And by the way, I used to have about seven or eight cameramen. I don't have them anymore. It's all automated, it's all robots.

Everywhere we go is robots!

You used to go to a gas station, you'd have somebody would check your tires, check your oil. There ain't anybody there, there's nobody working at a gas station!

(video at the link)

Out here in the real world we call that progress, Chris. But if you're really that concerned, look below the fold for a sweet, sweet offer from an affiliate of Ace of Spades HQ. One day only, buddy. Just for you. more...

Posted by: andy at 04:05 PM | Comments (146)
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Okay, not Gardasil.

Full email at Climate Depot.

“Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'

...

"In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.’"

The article notes:

Giaever was one of President Obama's key scientific supporters in 2008. Giaever joined over 70 Nobel Science Laureates in endorse Obama in an October 29, 2008 open letter.

This is a really odd thing. As Giaever points out, science -- real science -- is supposed to be a field of free-ranging inquiry. As they say, there are no stupid questions. Every question is conceivably an interesting one -- depending on the facts and theories it might lead to.

Except.

Except for one field, where all scientists are supposed to line up to swear that the current science is absolutely perfect and in no need of additional refinement, testing, skepticism, challenge, or testing.

There's no point. No further work to be done.

Does the sun contribute to climate shifts via cosmic rays?

FYNQ. We don't want to hear that question. We do not want to run tests on that, we do not want to incorporate the evidence from such tests into existing (flawed, incomplete) models.

In this one area of science, and no other, you are not permitted to do anything but nod your head at the claims made by politicians.

What is acceptable to ask in science is sharply demarcated by the political impact such questions might have. If there might be some political impact, you are expressly forbidden to ask.

And, pretty much, any deviation from the "consensus" would be interpreted as some doubt in the consensus, and therefore would have political impact, so no, you're not permitted to ask pretty much anything.

I don't even know if Giaever even disagrees with AGW theory -- he may just find this rigidly religious take on science, with strictly defined blasphemies and only some permitted prayers and songs, to be repugnant in and of itself.

Posted by: Ace at 03:27 PM | Comments (152)
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