Read the whole thing.

I have been told that being hard on you Millennials will turn you against conservatism, that I should offer you a positive, hopeful message that avoids the touchy problem of your manifest stupidity.

No. There’s no sugar-coating it – your votes for Democrats have ensured that you are the first generation in American history that will fail to exceed what their parents attained. Embracing liberalism was a stupid thing to do, done for the stupidest of reasons, and I will now let you subsidize my affluent lifestyle without a shred of guilt.

I’m a 48 year old trial lawyer living on the coast in California – I should have “Hope and Change” tattooed on my glutes. I’d have an excuse to be lib-curious, but you Millennials? Why do you support an ideology that pillages you to pay-off Democrat constituencies? Your time in the indoctrination factories of academia trained you in a form of “critical thinking” that is neither. Somehow, you came to embrace the bizarre notion that conservatives are psychotic Jesus freaks who want to Footloosisze America into a land of mandatory Sunday school and no dancing.

But liberals, in contrast, are nice. Obama is cool. You chose petty fascism with a smile. Not a lot of thought went into it. Facts, evidence – these were mere distractions from the feelings-based validation that came from rejecting us wicked conservatives.

What did you get? The chance to be forced to buy health insurance you don’t want at inflated rates so my rates can be lower. You get to pay more out of your monthly barista take – liberalism ensured that the tanked job market foreclosed a real career – so that I get to pay less out of my lawyer checks. Thanks, suckers.

...

Good plan. Now fetch my latte – I’m in a hurry to get to my corner office. And I’ll leave you a tip – next time you decide to vote for a liberal, first be born in 1964.

By the way, #caring is the hashtag Schlichter uses, constantly, to express... I'm not sure actually. He's either mocking liberals for falsely believing they #care so much, or he's expressing his own lack of #caring. Or both. Whatever it means, t's sarcastic and insulting.

Via Jim Geraghty's Morning Jolt.

Posted by: Ace at 06:23 AM | Comments (424)
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• Obamacare To Increase Individual Market Premiums By An Average Of 41%
  
• The Outsiders Who Saw Our Economic Future
  
• Blue Dog Senate Dem's Son Loses His Health Insurance Because Of Obamacare
  
• Flowchart Of Obama's "You Can Keep Your Plan, Period" Defenses
  
• The Next Obamacare Shoe To Drop
  
• Obama Tries To Add New Lie To Failed Promise
  
• Cooke: Obama's Numbers Racket
  
• Yet Another Middle Income American Discovers That Obamacare Exchange Plans Are Junk Insurance
  
• 80,000 Louisianans Will Lose Their Health Insurance Plans
  
• Obama Stooge Charged With Fixing Healthcare Website Halted Technology Improvement Projects
  
• Software Experts Identify Multiple Security Issues With Obamacare Website
  
• Guns And Ammo Magazine Editor Coming Out In Favor Of Gun Control
  
• Young Avoid New Health Plans
  
• Obamacare: A New 'Old' Plan
  
• Is Twitter Really Worth 14 Billion
  
• How Bad Is The Obamacare Rollout?
  
• This Is Terrifying
  
• Planes Collide In Terrifying Skydiving Accident
  
• One In Five Milky Way Stars Host Potentially Life-Friendly Earth Like Planets
  
• "You Know, The President Already Has A Nobel Prize For Peace, I Think He's Shooting For One In Fiction"
  
• Ender's Game And Maneuver Warfare
  

Please be sure to get out and vote in your local, county and state elections. It is an off year election so turnout will be low. Your vote, as a percentage of the total votes cast today, will count more than it would in Presidential or House/Senate election years.

If you are voting in Virginia, remember the Libertarian candidate isn't really a Libertarian.

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:00 AM | Comments (306)
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Happy Tuesday.

Early post this morning, so I can get over to my polling place before work. Not that I expect it to be crowded. I don't think I've seen a single prediciton that this will be a high-turnout election, and recent ad moves by the Democrats are specifically intended to keep voters home.

The post-mortems started early this year. Here's one that follows Mark Levin's lead and blames everything on Karl Rove -- oddly for the reason that Rove hasn't been enough involved in the election. Interesting to see conservatives start demanding Rove's intercession, though. Here's one at Red State blaming Cuccinelli.

In Chris Christie-related news, Chris Matthews loses his temper when one of his guests turns out to be hackier than him.

A mega-analysis of Obamacare's effects finds that it will increase premiums on the individual market by 41% across 49 states. Oh, and that most subsidies will end up going to those nearing retirement.

Anyway, I'm off to hold my nose and vote.

[ RSS]

[iTunes]

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:38 AM | Comments (353)
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Orson Scott Card: History's Greatest Monster

Because he has the same views on gay marriage that Barrack Obama did until just a year or two ago, all the bien pensant have agreed that Card is a horrible bigoted monster full of bigotry who must be driven out of all decent society. So no review of the movie,  Ender's Game, is complete without a condemnation of the author himself.

Today comes Peter Debruge's review of Ender's Game. Debruge shows some restraint in waiting until the second paragraph before decrying Card's "anti-gay statements." So that's something, I guess. But then he circles back to kick Card again, writing:

Though Card may have publicly revealed his own prejudices, the casting department has assembled a wonderfully diverse group of actors - male and female, they come in all colors, shapes and sizes - to serve alongside Ender, including not only Latino best friend Bean (Aramis Knight) but also a fresh set of rivals and bullies, led by the odd-looking Bonzo ("Hannah Montana's" Moises Arias).

But of course it's not the "casting" department that's responsible for the ethnic diversity of Ender's Game. It's Card. All of those "wonderfully diverse" parts-Bean, Bonzo, Petra-were written as such by Card. I'm slightly surprised Debruge doesn't know that.

And Hollywood is wrapping itself up in knots trying to figure out the precisely perfect way to blacklist Card and all of his works. The squishy can't-we-all-get-along point of view is that of course his book should be boycotted but it's okay to see the movie (with the proper dispensations of course).

It's amusing to watch Hollywood types scramble about in a panicked effort to teach (tolerant, open-minded) progressives the best way to financially cripple an artist for holding political views they disapprove of. "No no, Hollywood is fine. We are the good people. The bad man is over there! Punish him for his heterodoxy!"

I can just see Dickey and others at The Wrap in the time of McCarthy, making lists of names of evil, evil communists to blacklist. "If you really want to hit Trumbo where it hurts, boycott Johnny Got His Gun and The Remarkable Andrew. That dirty commie still gets royalties from those works. But don't boycott the re-release of A Guy Named Joe! He won't earn cent one from that."

And Rachel Edidin in Orson Scott Card: Mentor, Friend, Bigot acknowledges all the support and kindness that Orson Scott Card showed her personally when she was a fledgling writer:

As a college student, I corresponded extensively with Orson Scott Card. For several years, I considered him a mentor and a friend. He was incredibly generous with his time and advice, and supportive of me as an aspiring fiction writer. I've had dinner at his home.

...The only time his beliefs came up in our conversations was a comment he made about fiction being a totally inappropriate venue for any kind of ideological proselytizing. I may not have agreed with his personal beliefs - I knew that he was an observant Mormon and at least somewhat politically conservative - but I respected and still respect the principle of not using fiction as a soap box

But because she's gay and Card committed an opinioncrime against gay marriage, he's now a hateful monster who must be burned.

Orson Scott Card is monstrously homophobic; he's racist; he advocates violence and lobbies against fundamental human rights and equates criticism of those stances with his own hate speech.

I would never, ever suggest that a student seek out his advice. I will not pay to see Ender's Game; I will never buy another copy.

...Card is a monster who helped me learn to write, an author of hateful screed whose novels taught lonely, angry kids compassion and gave them their first sense of home. None of those things makes the others go away.

And note the goal post shifting going on here - not supporting gay marriage == homophobia == hating gays == racism (?) == advocating violence against gays == being a monster in human form.

And if you're curious, a picture of the vile fiend that walks the Earth under the name 'Orson Scott Card' can be found below the fold. If you can stand it - for some say his mere image alone can smother pets and deprive people of rights. You have been warned.

Full disclosure: I read Ender's Game about 13 years ago and was underwhelmed. I found Ender kind of a boring character and could see the twist coming about halfway through the book. I think it would have worked better as a short story.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:14 PM | Comments (645)
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Bears and Packers tonight.

Meanwhile, in stupid football news of the day, Miami offensive lineman Richie Incognito is indefinitely suspended for being an asshole.

And best wishes to Houston Texans head coach Gary Kubiak who is hospitalized after collapsing yesterday during their game with the Colts.

OOPS. I missed that Denver head coach John Fox is also hospitalized and may need surgery to replace an aortic valve. Best wishes for a full recovery, and thanks BallofHate

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:30 PM | Comments (308)
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Remember when Obama said he didn't mind that people called it Obamacare? And that people would like it so much that calling it "Obamacare" would be complimentary to him?

Yeah, well. I guess that's not happening. So pretty soon we'll be hearing -- again -- that calling it "Obamacare" is "racist" or something.

Ken Cuccinelli has found -- we hope -- a winning message for tomorrow's gubernatorial election: Obamacare. Obama and Biden, campaigning for the loathsome longtime Democratic bagman Terry McAuliffe, aren't mentioning their signature legislation.

Obama plans on blitzing the country with a whole bunch of minor initiatives to keep people from noticing that Obama just taxed the shit out of them and gave them worse health care.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

The presidentÂ’s senior aides had at one time planned for him to be holding events aimed at encouraging Americans to shop for insurance on the new federal health-care website, with stops in places with high numbers of uninsured people. But the problems plaguing the site have forced them to shift strategies.

Specifically, this vile political animal's grab-bag of childish distractions will include plumping for some sort of thirtieth iteration on jobs, pushing for a big minimum wage increase, and finally doing something or other about gay rights.

But remember, he's for And The Middle Class.

JammieWF thinks he knows why. As Jake Tapper reports, documents have leaked showing that Obama's Obamacare "War Room" is panicked about What Comes Next.

Officials expressed concern that the next shoe to drop in the evolving story about the Affordable Care Act would be disappointment from consumers once they are able to get on the troubled HealthCare.gov website – disappointment because of sticker shock and limited choice, according to a new document obtained by CNN.

“Mike described a general concern of PM (Project Management): getting to the point where the website is functioning properly and individuals begin to select plans; the media attention will follow individuals to plan selection and their ultimate choices; and, in some cases, there will be fewer options than would be desired to promote consumer choice and an ideal shopping experience. Additionally, in some cases there will be relatively high cost plans,” say the notes from the Obama administration’s Obamacare 'War Room' from one week ago.

AllahPundit games this out and figures it's going to take a lot of Distractions to draw the eyes away from the months and months of trainwreckage on the horizon.

The point, though, is that horror stories about people losing their doctors en masse are still to come and the White House is preparing for them. Which makes me wonder: Given all the political agony thatÂ’s in store for red-state Democrats up for reelection next year, how much longer can they afford to stand by the law? Even if the websiteÂ’s fixed tomorrow, theyÂ’re staring at a parade of horribles well into 2014. Rate shock is the story now; the next story will be whether O-Care can possibly hit its enrollment targets in order to make the program sustainable. (This assumes that Healthcare.gov will begin operating smoothly soon. If it doesnÂ’t, the next story will be all about Democratic panic and ObamaÂ’s bad options in minimizing the damage from a busted enrollment drive.) The next story after that will be people outraged at how their provider networks have shrunk. After that comes the March 31, 2014 deadline for enrollment; will the administration reach its target on that or will the deadline be extended, raising the risk of an adverse selection problem for insurers? And then, as a cherry on top, after a long summer of the GOP showcasing ObamaCare nightmare stories, insurers will release the 2015 rates next October and thereÂ’ll be a new flood of small-business employees agonizing publicly about how high the premiums are on their new exchange-bought plans. ItÂ’s nothing but sh*t sandwiches for Senate Dems until next November. How long before they lose their appetites?

Yeah, while Obama delayed the employer mandate to take effect until after the 2014 elections, he, get this, f***ed it up: While the mandate won't take affect until January 2015 or so, insurers will have to announce their new rates in October 2014... just before the elections.

“What genius came up with that timetable?” asked one Democratic operative.

Why, Obama, of course. The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived.

I imagine this will change. They're very transparent about their complete devotion to politics and partisan advantage.

Carl M. Cannon wonders if the failure of Obamacare will make the public re-evaluate the shutdown.

How fast the conventional wisdom can change. Only three weeks ago, the liberal commentariat —joined by some hand-wringing Republicans—proclaimed the death of Tea Party, but not before it had stampeded the GOP over the precipice of extremism.

Yet, in our fast-moving world, the government shutdown of 2013 already seems an afterthought. The Affordable Care Act, by contrast, is not going anywhere. For those who do want to re-litigate the shutdown, the underlying rationale of the recalcitrant House Republicans, and their much-maligned Senate allies, suddenly doesnÂ’t look so idiosyncratic.

...

“All the people a few weeks ago [were] saying there is no way you can win this fight,” [Ted Cruz] told Greta Van Susteren. “They also said there is no way any D’s are going to flip. We are starting to see Democrats flip as this thing—it’s a train wreck—it’s not working. In any political fight, when the truth is on your side, you are in a good situation.”

You guys know what happens when Obamacare fails to sign up enough young, healthy Taxable Units and the insurance companies incur major losses? Have you heard? @benk84 linked this in the Morning News Dump, but it's worth highlighting.

What happens is, get this, a huge federal bailout already provided for in the law itself.

You know what I love about this administration the most? Its transparency and eagerness to share real information with the public.

Which is a trait his minions share with Obama. They apparently keep reporting a Twitter account, which promotes stories about people's insurance being cancelled, as "spam," and then Twitter dutifully suspends the account.

Little update to an earlier story: Jonathan Karl asked Obama's Comically Evasive Mouthpiece Jay Carney about people not being able to sign up over the phone for Obamacare, as Obama had promised.

Jay Carney answered testily, answering, basically, that even though what Obama said was another Gigantic Lie, the people who were lied to won't have to waste their time going through the website anymore.

That link above is to the Vine (a short video) of Carney's angry response.

Note how Carney tries to shut Karl up using social pressure -- bullying -- by noting that his Nice Liberal Colleagues all "get it," and are giving Karl "quizzical looks" for asking about yet another Obama lie.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:52 PM | Comments (462)
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Woman: Hell Yeah, I Just Use Guys To Buy Me Expensive Dinners at Restaurants!!!

Wife: Hell Yeah, I'm Deliberately the Worst Wife Ever!!!

Yeah... I see the pattern with your put-up Female Outrage!!! articles, Daily Mail.

And, Open Thread.

Posted by: Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (174)
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I'm actually a little surprised anyone fell for this. "Sweetie" looks fake.

Eh. Maybe the low-res nature of the webcam masks the falseness of the virtual lure.

I'm putting up this post as a change-of-pace. Then we'll finish off with more Obamacare.

— An international children's rights group said on Monday it had passed details of 1,000 alleged Internet sex offenders to Interpolafter trawling video chatrooms with the aid of a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipina 'girl' named Sweetie.

...

The largest contingents of named suspects on the dossier came from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands. In all, the charity identified suspects in 71 countries.

Here's a very tricky legal question: What do you do when these sorts of virtual child porn programs are ready for consumer sale?

Bear in mind, no actual children would be harmed in their making. It's something that grosses people out, but unlike actual child porn, which begins with an actual child victim, a computer-model child porn program would not have any actual victims.

I know people's reaction will be "criminalize it anyway," but I'm not sure that's quite right. Odious as this sexual derangement might be, a computer program for pedophiles would have no actual victim and no actual crime in it.

People will say "It encourages pedophiles to seek out real victims," but I'm not sure that's true. There are a lot of men not seeking prostitutes or raping women just because they have a safe alternative (the ubiquity of porn).

Actually... I just remembered there was already a legal controversy about the criminalization of computer-generated child porn. The Supreme Court upheld the ban, 7-2, despite this not making a great deal of sense.

Video about the Sweetie sting below -- as this is about child pornography, there is a NSFW advisory.

Again, I don't get it. It looks like a fake computer model. Although Harry Reid just emailed me to say, "This is the most exciting technology I've ever seen."
more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (221)
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[added a few more links & minor edits]

Ace has been kind enough to let me post links over in Headlines to my series of posts on the unraveling Healthcare.gov IT fiasco, I figured I owed him an original post here at Ace of Spades.

As a software architect, team leader, enterprise IT consultant, and expert witness, I have been studying and explaining why IT projects succeed or (more commonly) fail for nearly 20 years. The factors for failure are remarkably consistent, as is the path that failing IT projects typically take. In one sense, it make my job easier, since a relatively simple checklist can usually uncover the fundamental issues. On the other hand, I find that clients -- when I review projects that are still alive (vs. those already in litigation) -- often don't want to hear what I have to say. Gets a bit depressing at times, but there you go.

So, let's look at all the failure factors that have been revealed so far in the Healthcare.gov debacle. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:54 PM | Comments (148)
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That "end of November" deadline on an operational healthcare.gov site the Administration is so confident in.

Wow. At 1:44pm, CMS bails on its scheduled 1:30pmET http://t.co/ndLYsadxyB conference call.

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 4, 2013

HHS has canceled today's daily press call

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) November 4, 2013

Maybe they're all too busy enrolling people with all this massive demand or something. Or they're so far ahead of schedule, they don't need to update anyone.

Posted by: JohnE. at 10:02 AM | Comments (63)
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