Showing posts with label Central Intelligence Agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Central Intelligence Agency. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Obamacare Insurance Exchange Train Is Already Coming Off The Rails

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 03: Health and Human S...
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) raised eyebrows across the country last month when he publicly fretted about an Obamacare “train wreck” as the Administration rushes to implement the many provisions of the law that take effect in 2014.
President Obama has attempted to assuage Sen. Baucus’s concerns, saying that his staff was “pushing very hard to make sure that we’re hitting all the deadlines.”

But an Obamacare train wreck isn’t a distant possibility. It’s actively happening. Delays, wasteful spending, and cost overruns have already popped up. And it’s becoming increasingly likely that the exchanges won’t be ready by October 1, when they’re supposed to open for enrollment. Mass confusion and excessive costs will result.
The federal government is set to operate exchanges in 27 states and to jointly run them with state officials in another seven. Seventeen states will create and administer exchanges on their own.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Gary Cohen, who’s in charge of the implementation of Obamacare’s exchanges, said in March that the federal government will likely end up running some of the exchanges in the 17 states that elected to set them up on their own because they won’t be ready in time.
Even the states the administration has paraded around as “pioneers” are having trouble creating government-run insurance marketplaces out of whole cloth. Connecticut, the first state approved to set up an exchange, is now struggling to get it up and running. Colorado is “stripping its opening-day goals to a minimum.”
Federal officials have struggled to come up with a comprehensible application form. Their first effort reached 15 pages. After a round of criticism, they came back with a form that’s three pages for individuals — and seven pages for families.
Henry Chao, a senior federal official working on the information technology that will run the exchanges, said in March that he was “pretty nervous” about meeting the October 1 deadline and was reduced to hoping that the exchanges don’t end up being “a Third World experience.”
And it’s not as if the feds and the states have been short on money. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will have spent $4.4 billion on state exchange grants by the end of this year. That’s more than double what the Department said would be necessary just last year, despite the fact that fewer states than the feds anticipated agreed to establish their own exchanges.
The agency has also asked for $1.5 billion to help fund the exchanges it’s setting up in states that have refused to do so on their own next year.  California is planning to use $673 million in federal money to deploy 21,000 people, known as “navigators,” to sign people up for its exchange, Covered California. Those folks get a bounty of $58 for every person they sign up — and $25 for every annual renewal.
HHS can’t even account for all the grant money it’s throwing at the states, since the money comes with little or no restrictions, guidelines, or accountability.


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Snowden denies spying for China and former NSA praise him as they corroborate his key claims.

The Japan Times

News

Snowden defends leaks, denies spying

AP

Banner achievement: A bus drives past a banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Banner achievement: A bus drives past a banner supporting Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked top-secret documents about sweeping U.S. surveillance programs, in Hong Kong on Tuesday. | AP
A woman holds a placard near the U.S. consulate in Hon Kong during a protest march in support of Edward Snowden.
A woman holds a placard near the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong during a protest march in support of Edward Snowden. | AFP-JIJI PHOTO


WASHINGTON – Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, defended his disclosure of top-secret U.S. spying programs in an online chat Monday with The Guardian newspaper and attacked U.S. officials for calling him a traitor.
“The U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me,” he said. He added the government “immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home” by labeling him a traitor, and indicated he will not return to the U.S. voluntarily.
Congressional leaders have called Snowden a traitor for revealing once-secret surveillance programs two weeks ago in The Guardian and The Washington Post. The NSA programs collect records of millions of Americans’ telephone calls and Internet usage as a counterterrorism tool. The disclosures revealed the scope of the collections, which surprised many Americans and have sparked debate about how much privacy the government can take away in the name of national security.
“It would be foolish to volunteer yourself to” possible arrest and criminal charges “if you can do


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3 Former NSA Employees Praise Edward Snowden, Corroborate Key Claims

The men, all whistleblowers, say he succeeded where they failed.

snowdenUSETHIS.banner.reuters.png.png
Reuters
USA Today has published an extraordinary interview with three former NSA employees who praise Edward Snowden's leaks, corroborate some of his claims, and warn about unlawful government acts.
Thomas Drake, William Binney, and J. Kirk Wiebe each protested the NSA in their own rights. "For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens," the newspaper reports. "They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media."
In other words, they blew the whistle in the way Snowden's critics suggest he should have done. Their method didn't get through to the members of Congress who are saying, in the wake of the Snowden leak, that they had no idea what was going on. But they are nonetheless owed thanks.
And among them, they've now said all of the following:

  • His disclosures did not cause grave damage to national security.
  • What Snowden discovered is "material evidence of an institutional crime."
  • As a system administrator, Snowden "could go on the network or go into any file or any system and change it or add to it or whatever, just to make sure -- because he would be responsible to get it back up and running if, in fact, it failed. So that meant he had access to go in and put anything. That's why he said, I think, 'I can even target the president or a judge.' If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide. And then it would be collected, yeah, that's right. As a super-user, he could do that."

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Analysis: Syria Situation

August 2, 2012 by desertrose


 
Published on Aug 2, 2012 by
Syria is under assault: A sovereign nation, whose leader Bashar Al Assad has promised reforms, unlike other US and Western backed monarchies in the Middle East, is under full assault by those very same regimes, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And those nations, along with UN veto wielding members, like the US, and the UK, are working outside the UN, since their Chapter 7 resolution got vetoed by Russia and China, backing the militants or the so called FSA, even it means innocent people are going to get killed. It’ll discuss Syria, and whether there is an end-game in sight, since President Assad has said that the army is engaged in a crucial and heroic battle… one in which the DESTINY of the nation and its people rests.




Amateur Video Purportedly Shows Syrian Rebels Executing Assad

Published on Aug 2, 2012 by
A member of the Syrian National Council condemned rebel action on Thursday (August 2), after amateur video emerged purportedly showing rebels executing men loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
The footage, uploaded to a social media website and dated July 31st, showed the apparent execution of four men identified as members of the pro-Assad “shabbiha” militia.
The video shows the four men being led into a crowded yard before a prolonged barrage of gunfire is unleashed as people chant “God is Greater”. As the smoke clears, a crumpled pile of bodies can be seen by a wall.
This suggests that rebels are using the same tactics for which the Syrian leaders own forces have been condemned.
Mahmoud Osman, a member of the Syrian National Council stated “Executions should not be happening in this cruel way. People should be given the right to defend themselves and then they can, be given the punishment they deserve. We revolted against injustice and against dictatorship. We should all work hand in hand to fight errors in the law, We should always focus on respecting the law. And we should send anyone who commits any kind of crime, whoever this person is and whatever the crime is, to justice so he can be judged and punished.”
Another video showed rebels gloating triumphantly on Tuesday after taking over a police station in the town of Nayrab southeast of Aleppo.




US has violated UN resolution on Syria: Abayomi Azikiwe

Published on Aug 2, 2012 by
Uncovered today is a secret order signed by US President Obama earlier this year that gave the CIA and other agencies orders to support armed terror groups against Syria.
Interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, political commentator, Detroit





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