Oops: US May Have Let "Dozens" Of Al Qaeda Bombmakers Into The Country
— DrewM

As the lady said, the system worked (autoplay video warning).

Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- who later admitted in court that they'd attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists' fingerprints.

"We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that," FBI Agent Gregory Carl, director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline".

Fun fact: Rand Paul offered an amendment to the Senate's amnesty bill to toughen screening of refugees. It failed.

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Wednesday Morning News Dump
— Open Blogger

• Snake Eyes: Obamacare Was A Losing Ideological Bet
  
• Yes, Obamacare Is Working
  
• Democrats Panic Over Obama
  
• Looks Like Obama Won't Be Getting Us Out Of Afghanistan By 2014 After All
  
• From 'Four Score' To 'Yes We Can'
  
• Obama Plummets To 37% Approval
  
• We Should Totally Trust These People With Immigration Reform
  
• The Situation In Venezuela Worsens
  
• Obama Can't Even Fundraise All That Well Anymore
  
• Obama Was Briefed On Widespread Website Problems
  
• WH, HHS Were Warned About Trainwreck Website In March
  
• Rebellion Brews Over Obamacare
  
• Iran Embassy Attacked In Beirut
  
• Michelle O Takes Her Comedy Act On The Road
  
• Unnoticed In Yesterday's News Storm, John Kerry Declared The Monroe Doctrine Dead
  
• The GOP's Electoral Strategy Needs A Complete Overhaul
  
• Oprah, Obama, And The Racism Dodge
  
• Single Mom Thanked Obama for $169/Month Insurance Only To Find Out The Actual Cost Is $621/Month
  
• The Relationship Between Police And The Citizenry Seems To Be Deteriorating
  
• Funny Family Feud Answer
  

Follow me on twitter.

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GAO: TSA Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection Activities
— Purple Avenger

   GAO-14-159, Nov 8, 2013

Available evidence does not support whether behavioral indicators, which are used in the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, can be used to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation security. GAO reviewed four meta-analyses (reviews that analyze other studies and synthesize their findings) that included over 400 studies from the past 60 years and found that the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance. Further, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) April 2011 study conducted to validate SPOT's behavioral indicators did not demonstrate their effectiveness because of study limitations, including the use of unreliable data...

...TSA began deploying the SPOT program in fiscal year 2007--and has since spent about $900 million--to identify persons who may pose a risk to aviation security through the observation of behavioral indicators. In May 2010, GAO concluded, among other things, that TSA deployed SPOT without validating its scientific basis and SPOT lacked performance measures...

...Congress should consider the absence of scientifically validated evidence for using behavioral indicators to identify threats to aviation security when assessing the potential benefits and cost in making future funding decisions for aviation security. GAO included this matter because DHS did not concur with GAOÂ’s recommendation that TSA limit future funding for these activities until it can provide such evidence...

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Top Headline Comments 11-20-13
— Gabriel Malor

Happy Wednesday.

The Bushes, 43 and Laura, were on Leno last night and it was, I have to tell you, UH-MAZE-BALLS. Here's the tiniest snippet from it that was more serious-y. Most of it was very laugh-y (yes, he painted it). I hope the rest becomes readily available soonest. Do I miss him yet? Yes. Dear Lord, yes.

In other news, the Supreme Court declined to reimpose the injunction that the misguided district court judge laid on the Texas anti-abortion law. Here's the SCOTUS order (PDF), which features dueling opinions from Scalia and Breyer. I wouldn't waste my time with Justice Breyer's dissent because it doesn't actually rely on cognizable legal principles, but Justice Scalia's concurring decision is hard core, so I definitely recommend it, even for the not-so-law-minded. The man is not pulling any punches here.

In other law news, I do so love the weekly legal roundup at Filmdrunk.

In other other news, here's some speculation that Gov. Walker may be Gov. Christie's "worst nightmare" in 2016. Aight.

---

AoSHQ Weekly Podcast: [ RSS] [iTunes] [Download Latest Episode]

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Overnight Open Thread (11-19-2013)
— Maetenloch

The Female of the Species

Doesn't like to be told to calm down. Nor would a prudent male ever say this while within striking distance. Let Kipling's warning guide your heart and your big mouth.

Oh and my usual ban on poetry is lifted for this evening.

    WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
    He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
    But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
    He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
    But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
    They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
    'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
    For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
    But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale-
    The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    Man, a bear in most relations-worm and savage otherwise,-
    Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
    Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
    To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

    Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
    To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
    Mirth obscene diverts his anger-Doubt and Pity oft perplex
    Him in dealing with an issue-to the scandal of The Sex!

    But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
    Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
    And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
    The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

    She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
    May not deal in doubt or pity-must not swerve for fact or jest.
    These be purely male diversions-not in these her honour dwells-
    She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

    She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
    As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
    And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
    Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

    She is wedded to convictions-in default of grosser ties;
    Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!-
    He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
    Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

    Unprovoked and awful charges-even so the she-bear fights,
    Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons-even so the cobra bites,
    Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
    And the victim writhes in anguish-like the Jesuit with the squaw!

    So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
    With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
    Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
    To some God of Abstract Justice-which no woman understands.

    And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
    Must command but may not govern-shall enthral but not enslave him.
    And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
    That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

  -- Rudyard Kipling, 1911

more...

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Jonathan Karl: Is the President's "If You Like Your Doctor You Can Keep Your Doctor" Promise Still Operative?
Comically Evasive Mouthpiece Jay Carney: [600 Meandering Words]
— Ace

You can read Carney's response at Weekly Standard.
I wish they had not chosen to divide it into paragraphs; more accurate would have been to have just presented a Wall of Words.

Carney's answer is this, in short: You will have the option of picking a new plan which may include your doctor... if you pay for "more comprehensive coverage," which will have "broader networks." So if you can get past the sticker shock of the Bronze Plan, and past the even greater sticker shock of the Silver Plan, and finally check out the comprehensive coverage of the Gold Plan, which is fantastically expensive, sure, you can find a network that includes your doctor.

Sure.

Incidentally, Jay Carney uses the bullying tactic he's used with Jonathan Karl before. The tactic consists of suggesting all the other reporters are mad at Jonathan Karl for asking dumb questions, so why don't you just shut up?

He's done this before, telling Karl something like "you can hear sighs of exasperation from the other reporters because they get this," in explaining another, get this, Obama lie.

Now he says "Jon, I think everyone here understands how private insurance works," again attempting to rally Liberal Reporter Peer Pressure to get Karl to stop asking impertinent, irrelevant questions like "Did the president lie to the American public?"

more...

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Obama Attends Wall Street Journal CEO Council Conference; Says Stuff
— JohnE.

First up, you'll be happy to know that the economy is even more poised than ever to make a comeback. Some political hacks might want to make some cynical point about Obama saying this for five years running now, but I think the economy has slowly become more poiseier, thus allowing him to habitually offer this point. It hasn't de-poised, it's been a consistent poise growth of poisiness over five years.

"America is poised for a breakout," he declared, noting that stock markets and corporate profits were "soaring" and that "we are in a good position to compete around the world in the 21st century."

Now, Obama said, the challenge was to ensure opportunity for all to address too-high unemployment and stagnating incomes as growth continues.

Yeah, totally. Wait, why haven't we gotten on that, by the way?

"We have to stop governing by crisis in this town," Obama said, making clear he blamed Republicans for a failure to achieve compromise on major issues such as immigration reform and a comprehensive deficit reduction agreement.

So it's Republicans fault on that. Okay, then. Hey how about that signature healthcare law overhaul passed only by you and your party? Surely, you can't blame that on anyone but --

Asked what lesson he had learned, Obama said that "we probably underestimated the complexities of building out a website." He also said the ordeal showed that "the way the federal government does procurement and IT (information technology) is just generally not very efficient."

Oh. So, it's faceless big government's fault. The same big government you have empowered to intrude into our personal medical records and heath care decisions.

No lessons learned or anything on that? No introspection? Reevaluations on previous beliefs as they contradict real world challenges? No?

Anything else you'd like to add before wrapping up, Mr. President?

In a lighter moment, Obama noted that some people call him a socialist, and he said to laughter his accusers need to get out into the world more.

"You've got to meet real socialists to know what a real socialist is," he said

Ahhhh, you sure you want to go with that one? Final answer? Where can we meet some of these socialists, perhaps "in the neighborhood"?

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Politico Headline: Steely Obama Talks Tough to Insurers, Telling Them "No Politically-Unpopular Bailout"
Politco Article Itself: Obama Says There Will Be A Bailout
— Ace

Egregious. Obama doesn't want it talked up that he's proposing a bailout of insurers -- bailouts are unpopular anyway. And they become even more unpopular when the bailout is required by Obama's own careless bulldozing of the old law and rules.

If there's no bailout, insurers definitely won't offer the old policies-- because they need those people to pay the new, higher rates to subsidize other people. Or else they'll lose money, and, eventually, would go bankrupt, were this to continue. (Of course Obama doesn't plan for it to continue -- he just wants the old policies offered until the 2014 midterms.)

So he is proposing a bailout. But that's unpopular. So what does Politico do? It writes an article with a headline saying Obama vows to give insurers no bailout, and early paragraphs talking up his steely resolve against them.

And then, in paragraph 11, when most people have stopped reading, they tell you, get this, Obama is proposing a bailout after all.

Check it out.

I'm numbering paragraphs according to where they appear in the article.

[Headline:] President Obama to insurers: No bailout

Well, that's tough. Steely. Commanding. You tell those miscreant insurance companies, O!

[Para 1:] President Barack Obama had some bad news for the insurance company CEOs who met him at the White House: His “fix” might cost them.

More toughness: He's just putting it right out there. You're going to do this, Hated Insurance Companies, and it's going to cost you.

[Para 2:] Obama asked the CEOs to reinstate millions of AmericansÂ’ health insurance plans that were canceled because they fell short of coverage requirements under the law, according to two executives who attended the session Friday.

[Para 3:] The president offered the execs some sweeteners, but admitted they wonÂ’t necessarily add up to enough to cover the full brunt of added costs that the changes to the insurance market could create.

Sweeteners? That sounds like a bailout. Is that a bailout?

But the headline just told me "No bailout." So I guess these sweeteners must be non-bailout type inducements.

[Para 4:] The president’s proposed “fix” to the wave of plan cancellations was to allow insurance companies to extend the plans for a year, but those extensions are voluntary, so he needs the industry to buy in.

[Para 5:] ObamaÂ’s frank talk with the CEOs raises the stakes for the short-term solution and is a reminder that as much as the health care law is the presidentÂ’s signature achievement, he still needs industry buy-in for it to succeed in the long run.

Oooh, "frank" talk. That means "tough."

[Para 6: ]
“As the president emphasized, there is not an unlimited amount of money out there for the government to do that [make up for extra costs],” said Jim Roosevelt, CEO of Tufts Health Plan, one of more than a dozen insurance company leaders who attended the 90-minute meeting.

Wait, now we're talking about an "amount of money" out there to make up for insurers' extra costs. Like a "sweetener," that sounds like a bailout.

But Politico's headline assured me there was no bailout. I wonder what this means, then.

Finally, skipping down quite a bit:

[Para 11:] he 2010 health law had several tools aimed at helping insurers through some of the fiscal bumps in the new markets. To address the industry concerns about additional costs if they revive the canceled plans, administration officials said last week they would tweak one of those tools — called “risk corridors” — to give them more help.

Um, Politico sure seems to be cagey on this point, but "risk corridors" is a euphemism for "legally-required bailout due to losses suffered from Obamacare."

And what's "help"? Do they mean federal money help? Because, again, the headline vowed: No bailout.

[Para 11, continued:]
But Obama made clear that the financial support has a limit, according to the two health executives and several other industry sources who were briefed on the meeting.

So it is "financial support," to "help" insurers cover the extra costs deriving from the now-widened "risk corridors."

But Politico, in line with the President's messaging, insists this is "No bailout."

[Para 12:] Republicans had warned of a costly bailout.

So... we're right, right? Or is Politico saying we're wrong, because while we will in fact be bailing insurers out, that bailout will not be "costly" but rather "limited"?

Well, who knows. All I know is that Obama is bailing out the insurance companies, but does not want that widely reported in a headline, and the Kindly Friends at Politico obliged him.

Thanks to @lachlan.

Posted by: Ace at 11:40 AM | Comments (345)
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Oh, Boy: Years of Loose Loan Policy in China, Designed to Counter Global Shutdown, Has Resulted in Huge Number of Bad Loans and Possible Coming... Chinese Credit Crisis
— Ace

This won't be horrible at all.

I have no idea how this impacts the global economy, or if this would cause a disastrous pullback in Chinese purchase of American debt.

But it seems bad.

So, before getting into the article, let me link this:

Okay, that should make you feel pretty good and balance out the below excerpts.

A $6.6 trillion credit binge during the past five years, encouraged by Beijing policy makers as stimulus to combat a global economic slowdown, now threatens to stoke a debt crisis. At stake are trillions of yuan in bank loans that companies producing everything from ships to steel to solar power are struggling to repay as the worldÂ’s second-largest economy heads for the weakest annual expansion since 1999.

...

“The 2008 stimulus exacerbated an industrial glut that has been in existence since 2003,” S&P’s Liao said. “We expect the government to take measured steps in a crackdown on overcapacity because they need to weigh the impact on financial stability.”

....

ChinaÂ’s lending spree has created a debt burden similar in magnitude to the one that pushed Asian nations into crisis in the late 1990s, according to Fitch Ratings.

As companies take on more debt, the efficiency of credit use has deteriorated. Since 2009, for every yuan of credit issued, ChinaÂ’s GDP grew by an average 0.4 yuan, while the pre-2009 average was 0.8 yuan, according to Mike Werner, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

“If credit allocation in China improves, the ultimate credit cycle and economy downturn will be mitigated,” Werner wrote in an Oct. 21 note to investors. “However, if China continues to rely on debt to fund its economic growth, the country’s ultimate credit cycle will be more severe.”

Via Monty, aka @aoshqDOOM

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Comments (289)
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Henry Chao: Healthcare.gov Still 60-70% Unbuilt
— Ace

Incredible.

If you're keeping track, that means that the site is only 30-40% away from working nearly 80% of the time.

Apparently this was not in his opening remarks, but had to be questioned out of him.

REP. CORY GARDNER: Well how much do we have to build today, still? What do we need to build? 50 percent? 40 percent? 30 percent?

HENRY CHAO: I think it's, uh, just an approximation, we're probably sitting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent because we still have to build...

GARDNER: Wait, 60 or 70 percent that needs to be built, still?

CHAO: Because we still have to build the payment systems to make payments to insurers in January.

GARDNER: Let me get this correct. Sixty to 70 percent of Healthcare.gov still needs to be built?

CHAO: It's not really about Healthcare.gov -- it's the federally-facilitated marketplace.

GARDNER: The entire system that the American people are being required to rely upon...

CHAO: Healthcare.gov -- the online application, verification, determination, plan compare, getting enrolled, generating the enrollment transaction -- that's 100 percent there.

Oh, you mean the colors, pictures, and fonts are 100% there. Wonderful. Thanks, Julia.

30-40% of the building still has to be done, including the payment system, which is crucial, because, see, without a payment system, you can't actually purchase insurance.

They've got 11 days to build 30-40% of the site, after not being able to do so after 3 1/2 years. And then, after they've built the remaining 30-40%, they expect, best case scenario, to have it working for 80% of users.

If this were an eighties comedy, we'd have a montage, and the group's screw-up would propose some wild out-of-the-box solution that just might work! And then it would.

But this is real life, alas.

Even assuming they manage this, which, based on their history of stumblefuck bumbling and hapless pratfall incompetence, they won't -- What An Adventure it will be to enter your credit card information into Obama's website!

It'll be like your own Hollywood thriller.

The website at the center of U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul has security flaws that put user data at "critical risk" despite recent government assurances it is safe to use, a respected security expert said on Tuesday.

"There are actual, live vulnerabilities on the site now," David Kennedy, head of computer security consulting firm TrustedSec LLC, told Reuters before testifying at a congressional hearing on the topic "Is My Data on HealthCare.gov Secure?"

Kennedy, a former U.S. Marine Corps cyber-intelligence analyst, presented a 17-page report describing the problems to the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. It does not go into specifics in some areas, he said, because that could provide criminals with a blueprint for launching attacks.

...

"There is a lot of stuff that we are not publicly disclosing because of the criticality of the findings," Kennedy said. "We don't want to hurt people."

When asked to describe the severity of the threat that they posed to the public, he said it was a "critical risk."

See, what did I tell you? Sign up for Obamacare and star in your very own personalized Hollywood Identity Theft thriller: Critical Risk. Coming to a bank account near you.

Corrected: Chao later seems to correct himself, saying that 30-40% remains to be built, and 60-70% has been built. I guess maybe he got his numbers backwards. I'm not 100% sure but I'm changing it for now.

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