The Scott Brown inevitability story isn’t quite as solid as thought

TheScottBrowninevitabilitystoryisn’tquiteas

ElizabethWarren:Youknowwho’sreallytoblame

Elizabeth Warren: You know who’s really to blame for this financial crisis and middle-class erosion? Reagan.

posted at 8:41 pm on May 20, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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Because when President Barack Obama was blaming every problem under the sun on his predecessor President George W. Bush, he just wasn’t go back far enough. Via RCP:

WARREN: I grew up in an America that was investing in kids. It was investing in public universities. It had a higher minimum wage. It was an America that said every kid would get a fighting chance. And that’s how we built America’s great middle class. Then starting in about the 1980s, we turned in a different direction.

COLBERT: You mean when Reagan came in and it was morning in America. The direction toward greatness, pride. …

WARREN: That’s right. And what happened is that he had a couple of ideas. The first one was that they would fire the cops. Not the ones on Main Street but the ones on Wall Street.

COLBERT: The ones who were shackling creativity, and ingenuity in our financial institutions.

WARREN: And making sure the biggest financial institutions actually followed the law. Those were the cops they got rid of.

COLBERT: The law – that’s a vague term, law. Your — one man’s law is another person’s regulations. And regulation is bad. Regulation stifles business and stifles entrepreneurship.

WARREN: No, no. no. See if we don’t have happens is exactly what happened then. And that is the big financial institutions made billions of dollars by cheating people on credit cards, mortgages.

COLBERT: What do you mean cheating people on credit cards? You sign up for a credit card, you use the credit card and then you have to pay your bills. Is that too complicated for Harvard? …

WARREN: Let’s be clear about this. It was supporting having the regulators look the other way while the biggest financial institutions did every trick and every trap possible in credit cards, in mortgages, in checking account rules. And they made billions of dollars doing it. And at the same time they loaded up on risk. And what ultimately happened by 2008 was that they broke the economy. They got bailed out by the taxpayers. They continued to break the law in foreclosing on people’s mortgages.

After such a strong dose of oversimplified yet underhanded populism, all I can do at the moment is point you to the WSJ’s review of her book she was on Colbert’s show promoting… and shake. My. Head.

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Tags: Dodd-Frank, Elizabeth Warren, finance, Massachusetts, populism, progressive, Ronald Reagan

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Together,thosefourfailedstateObamaCareexchangesare

Together, those four failed state ObamaCare exchanges are costing taxpayers at least $474 million

posted at 3:21 pm on May 15, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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A handful of the states that were most enthusiastic about rolling out ObamaCare and creating their own online insurance exchanges ended up crashing and burning pretty spectacularly; several of them are still without even remotely functioning websites, and a number are considering scrapping their respective endeavors and switching over the the federal site, or have already decided to do so. Considering that the federal government allotted a whole bunch of cash toward the states that elected to build their own exchanges, these state-exchange screw-ups taken together mean quite a bit of wasted taxpayer money, via Politico:

Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four state Obamacare exchanges that are now in shambles — and the final price tag for salvaging them may go sharply higher.

Each of the states — Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland — embraced Obamacare, and each underperformed. All have come under scathing criticism and now face months of uncertainty as they rush to rebuild their systems or transition to the federal exchange.

The federal government is caught between writing still more exorbitant checks to give them a second chance at creating viable exchanges of their own or, for a lesser although not inexpensive sum, adding still more states to HealthCare.gov. The federal system is already serving 36 states, far more than originally anticipated.

Besides those four states, Politico notes, Hawaii and Minnesota could soon add their dysfunctional websites to that ignominious scrap heap, which could hike the price up even further — and that $474 million figure is only the amount that states have already spent and that officials have publicly detailed. As Phil Kerpen argues at The Federalist, that figure is liable to be much higher; although states like Oregon and Massachusetts have yet to run through the entire budget that the federal government so generously allotted to them, they aren’t likely to give the remaining balance of their federal marketplace-building grants back to the national coffers, either. Kerpen calculates that the cost of just Oregon, Massachusetts, and Maryland have already put us back by more like $655 million, and the total amount given away in federal grants is almost a whopping 5 billion smackers.

I know Democrats like to claim that they are totally on board with legislation that sincerely attempts to “fix” what they admit are ObamaCare’s obvious flaws, but we’ll see how they react to this latest offering from Senate Republicans Hatch and Barrasso, via National Journal:

Today, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) joined Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) to introduce The State Exchange Accountability Act. The bill will force states that wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on failed Obamacare exchanges to repay the federal government.  If a state chooses to no longer operate their own individual exchange, they will have to repay Washington for all of the taxpayer funding they received for their failed exchange. Specifically, the state will have to repay ten percent of their wasted federal grant funding each year over a ten year period.

“The American people are sick and tired of writing a blank check for the health care law’s complete failures.  After forcing taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the failed website, the Obama Administration now expects Americans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for failed state exchanges,” said Barrasso.  “Enough is enough.  States that scrap their state-run Obamacare exchanges are admitting they’ve wasted millions of dollars in federal grants. It’s only fair that states have to pay American taxpayers and the federal government back for their total incompetence.”

I’m thinking that critics will likely frame this as mere petty squabbling over small potatoes to keep ObamaCare in a bad public light before the midterms, and that Republicans really need to just stop because the law is totally working — and as Ed already noted this morning, the law actually kind of is working the way it was supposed to… which is not to be confused with working the way it was advertised.

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Tags: exchanges, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, ObamaCare, Oregon, taxpayers

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Together,thosefourfailedstateObamaCareexchangeare

Together, those four failed state ObamaCare exchange are costing taxpayers at least $474 million

posted at 3:21 pm on May 15, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

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A handful of the states that were most enthusiastic about rolling out ObamaCare and creating their own online insurance exchanges ended up crashing and burning pretty spectacularly; several of them are still without even remotely functioning websites, and a number are considering scrapping their respective endeavors and switching over the the federal site, or have already decided to do so. Considering that the federal government allotted a whole bunch of cash toward the states that elected to build their own exchanges, these state-exchange screw-ups taken together mean quite a bit of wasted taxpayer money, via Politico:

Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four state Obamacare exchanges that are now in shambles — and the final price tag for salvaging them may go sharply higher.

Each of the states — Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland — embraced Obamacare, and each underperformed. All have come under scathing criticism and now face months of uncertainty as they rush to rebuild their systems or transition to the federal exchange.

The federal government is caught between writing still more exorbitant checks to give them a second chance at creating viable exchanges of their own or, for a lesser although not inexpensive sum, adding still more states to HealthCare.gov. The federal system is already serving 36 states, far more than originally anticipated.

Besides those four states, Politico notes, Hawaii and Minnesota could soon add their dysfunctional websites to that ignominious scrap heap, which could hike the price up even further — and that $474 million figure is only the amount that states have already spent and that officials have publicly detailed. As Phil Kerpen argues at The Federalist, that figure is liable to be much higher; although states like Oregon and Massachusetts have yet to run through the entire budget that the federal government so generously allotted to them, they aren’t likely to give the remaining balance of their federal marketplace-building grants back to the national coffers, either. Kerpen calculates that the cost of just Oregon, Massachusetts, and Maryland have already put us back by more like $655 million, and the total amount given away in federal grants is almost a whopping 5 billion smackers.

I know Democrats like to claim that they are totally on board with legislation that sincerely attempts to “fix” what they admit are ObamaCare’s obvious flaws, but we’ll see how they react to this latest offering from Senate Republicans Hatch and Barrasso, via National Journal:

Today, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) joined Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) to introduce The State Exchange Accountability Act. The bill will force states that wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on failed Obamacare exchanges to repay the federal government.  If a state chooses to no longer operate their own individual exchange, they will have to repay Washington for all of the taxpayer funding they received for their failed exchange. Specifically, the state will have to repay ten percent of their wasted federal grant funding each year over a ten year period.

“The American people are sick and tired of writing a blank check for the health care law’s complete failures.  After forcing taxpayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the failed website, the Obama Administration now expects Americans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for failed state exchanges,” said Barrasso.  “Enough is enough.  States that scrap their state-run Obamacare exchanges are admitting they’ve wasted millions of dollars in federal grants. It’s only fair that states have to pay American taxpayers and the federal government back for their total incompetence.”

I’m thinking that critics will likely frame this as mere petty squabbling over small potatoes to keep ObamaCare in a bad public light before the midterms, and that Republicans really need to just stop because the law is totally working — and as Ed already noted this morning, the law actually kind of is working the way it was supposed to… which is not to be confused with working the way it was advertised.

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Tags: exchanges, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, ObamaCare, Oregon, taxpayers

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Source from: hotair

MassachusettsexchangeisoverhaulingtheirObamaCareexchange,too

Massachusetts exchange is overhauling their ObamaCare exchange, too

posted at 6:41 pm on May 5, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Late last month, Oregon finally decided to cut its losses and dump its disaster of an online ObamaCare exchange, becoming the first of the fourteen states plus D.C. that built their own individualized website to give their failed endeavor the ol’ heave-ho. Barely two weeks later, Massachusetts is almost following in Oregon’s footsteps, via the Boston Herald:

The Patrick administration will hire yet another outside company to try to salvage the state’s disastrous Obamacare website as it tries to avoid the embarrassment of a federal takeover.

Virginia-based hCentive — which has worked on the Colorado and Kentucky Obamacare exchanges — will develop software to fix the Bay State’s site by open enrollment in November, the Massachusetts Health Connector announced. …

The Health Connector did not disclose a price tag for the hiring of hCentive or the cost of the entire project, or how it would be paid for. The state has received $180 million in federal grants to build the state exchange, and it’s unclear whether Massachusetts will ask for more money from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“At this point, I don’t think anyone’s concerned about the price,” said the Connector official. “They just think Uncle CMS is going to pay for it.”

Massachusetts’ exchange website was all kinds of problematic, with its own unique set of glitches requiring time-consuming manual workarounds and putting applicants for subsidized insurance plans into temporary Medicaid holding patterns, all of which slowed down their transition from their state-run healthcare system to fulfilling ObamaCare’s requirements:

The Massachusetts Health Connector website, the state’s version of a health insurance exchange implemented under the national Affordable Care Act, has been plagued with glitches since it became operational in October. …

According to the Health Connector, the automated determination process, through which the Connector figures out what subsidy someone is eligible for and what insurance program they should be in, has not worked. There have been problems in account creation log-in, slow performance, time-outs and sporadic error messages.
Viewpoint: Don’t expect Health Connector to work when you’re expecting

State officials have created workarounds to get people enrolled in insurance plans – using paper applications, call centers and multiple computer systems rather than the automated online system that the state contracted with technology vendor CGI to build.

CGI, you might remember, was also the creator of HealthCare.Gov, but now Massachusetts is ditching the contractor to hire hCentive in a last-ditch effort to salvage things with new software. At the same time, they’re going to be laying the groundwork for joining the federal website, lest they fail to get things fixed before November and the need arise — any bets on that one?

Tags: blue, exchange, health care, Massachusetts, ObamaCare, Oregon, website

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MassachusettsDemocrat:ObamaCareis“goingtohitthe

Massachusetts Democrat: ObamaCare is “going to hit the fan” in the next few years

posted at 6:41 pm on April 21, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

As badly as President Obama wants everyone to start running with his preferred ObamaCare narrative — i.e., that “this thing is working,” “the repeal debate is and should be over,” and that “Democrats should forcefully defend” the law — but not all Democrats actually need to defend the top-down monstrosity that is now governing our healthcare system. There were a number of Democrats that didn’t join the otherwise overwhelming coalition that voted for the passage of ObamaCare, like Rep. Stephen Lynch in Massachusetts. He sounds pretty skeptical that, had the Obama administration actually allowed the law to go into effect as planned instead of making unilateral delays for the sake of political convenience, Obama would be quite so confident that “this thing is working.” Noah Rothman at Mediaite caught the interview from the Boston Herald last week:

There have been parts of ObamaCare that have been postponed because they are unpalatable. So, as these provisions come into effect, the administration thus far is saying, ‘Gee, really can’t handle this right now, so we’re gonna’ delay it.’ These obligations keep piling up — the mandatory registration, the penalties… It’s gonna’ hit the fan, because any individual with an individual healthcare plan that exceeds $10,200 is in a Cadillac plan situation. They’re gonna’ have to pay that employer if they provide that, and many do today, never mind in 2018, will have to pay a 40 percent tax on the amount over the maximum established under the Affordable Care Act. So, that’s a huge tax. … I think it’ll be impossible for a repeal right now because you’ve taken on 31 million new people, you know, you’re trying to provide healthcare to them — that’s a good thing. The problem has always been paying for it. You know, you’ve got to rely on the other individuals who already have healthcare to pay for that, and at the same time, you’ve made a promise to those individuals, those 270 million people that already had healthcare that your healthcare will either be the same or will be improved by this. I think that’s a very tough promise to live up to under this system.

Tags: Massachusetts, ObamaCare, Stephen Lynch

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UpskirtpicsapparentlylegalinMassachusetts posted

Upskirt pics apparently legal in Massachusetts

posted at 10:01 am on March 6, 2014 by Jazz Shaw

Much of the time in our current era of media, headlines are crafted in such a way that the actual story is far more benign than the title would lead you to believe. It’s linkbait, pure and simple, and I’m guilty of it myself at times. This story, however, is not one of those cases.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Upskirt photos not illegal under state law

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled Wednesday that a law used to charge a Green Line rider with taking upskirt photos of women in 2010 did not apply in the case because the women did not have any expectation of privacy in a public place and they were not in a state of undress.

The SJC ruled in the case of Commonwealth vs. Michael Robertson that the state law that Robertson was charged with violating in two criminal complaints in 2010 does not actually make what he did a crime.

Robertson did not contest that he took upskirt photos of two women on the Green Line in December 2010, but did contest that, because the women were not nude or partially nude and in public, he did not violate state law as written.

At The Week, Meghan DeMaria seems rather depressed about the entire affair.

If you’re wearing Spanx, a thong, or other undergarments that could constitute being “partially nude” beneath your skirt, you’re entitled to legal protection, but women who favor granny panties are out of luck. Good to know.

One of the problems with the rather rapid evolution of technology when paired with the colonial process of passing and editing laws through an elected legislative body is that the former can frequently outpace the latter. Back when I lived in New Jersey – this would have been the early 90′s – there was a rather infamous case where this phenomenon briefly drew national attention. (I tried to search for a link to it, but it may be too old for Google.)

A landlord had gone and installed a fiber-optic line from his office into the bedroom of an apartment he rented out to several young ladies. He recorded their activities without their knowledge until through some turn of events he was found out. Police arrested him, confiscated his recording equipment and multiple videos of his current tenant. They had her as a witness and all of the damning material ready as evidence when they went to court. After filing a not guilty plea, the landlord’s attorney showed up for the court date and promptly moved for the charges to be dismissed. And they were.

The law under which they charged the landlord had been written back in the early part of the 20th century, and it banned the surreptitious recording of conversations, music, or any other audio tracks of another person in a private residence without their knowledge. But the legislation had been passed long before anyone had imagined the ability to record video. And being a fiber-optic line, the videos had no audio tract. The guy walked free.

This Massachusetts case isn’t quite as blatant, but there’s certainly an element of the same problem. They passed a law which only applied to “people in private when they are nude or partially nude.” Apparently the authors didn’t imagine a time when phones could be just as intrusive in the middle of a subway car. Of course, they’re going to get right on fixing this.

“We conclude that (the law), as written, as the defendant suggests, is concerned with proscribing Peeping Tom voyeurism of people who are completely or partially undressed and, in particular, such voyeurism enhanced by electronic devices. (The law) does not apply to photographing (or videotaping or electronically surveilling) persons who are fully clothed and, in particular, does not reach the type of upskirting that the defendant is charged with attempting to accomplish on the MBTA,” read the decision.

There’s a project for some of you state and local bloggers out there. Start a review of the existing, oldest laws and identify some of these same gaps and bring them to the attention of the legislature. Such issues will probably be most common in the original colony states on the east coast, but I’d bet there are a lot more of these waiting to be found out there.

Tags: crime, Massachusetts

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ScottBrown’srecordongunssignalstroublein

Scott Brown’s record on guns signals trouble in NH bid

posted at 8:31 am on December 21, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

Earlier this week Ed looked at a rumor we’d been hearing for months now which seems to be verified. Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown had put his Bay State home on the market and moved to New Hampshire in preparation for a bid to take the Senate seat currently held by Jeanne Shaheen. There’s little doubt that Shaheen is potentially in hot water over her unflagging support of Obamacare and the President, and Ed felt that might be enough to work that old Scott Brown magic again.

The primary will certainly prove interesting. Shaheen will have a tough time regardless of who her opponent turns out to be, thanks to the cratering support for Barack Obama. Brown can at least demonstrate his opposition to ObamaCare and his brief experience as a Senator as pluses for New Hampshire voters, and that may be all they require by the time the rest of the ObamaCare disaster has unfolded over the next year.

If it comes to a battle in the general election, that may certainly prove to be true. But in order to reach that point, Brown will need to make it through the “interesting” primary which Ed referenced. And during one of his first appearances on the early campaign trail, the candidate found out precisely how interesting things might get.

Scott Brown attracted more than 125 pro-gun conservatives to a GOP holiday party here Thursday night — but they came to protest his appearance, not to hear him speak.

The spectacle — protesters outnumbered activists who coughed up $50 to see Brown — was a stark illustration of the treacherous political terrain facing the 54-year-old New Hampshire transplant if he launches a Senate bid that’s looking more likely by the day…

“His coming here is calculated disrespect, just as if he went to Saudi Arabia with pork chops in his suitcase,” said Jay Simkin, a 60-something economic consultant who lives in Nashua. “If he wants gun control, he should stay in Massachusetts.”

Brown isn’t officially in the race yet, telling reporters outside of this event that he hasn’t even set a timeline for making a final decision as to whether or not he’ll run, but this was probably an eye opener for him. The Granite State’s somewhat unique blend of conservative and libertarian politics always makes it an interesting and challenging state for presidential candidates and pundits alike. But there’s one area where there is little to no question when it comes to the attitude of the voters. If you want to impress New Hampshire Republicans (not to mention independents and a fair share of the Democrats to boot) you had best be a rock solid supporter of Second Amendment rights.

Anyone seeking to challenge Brown in the primary will find plenty of fodder to attack him on that front. He’s on the record expressing support for a renewed federal “assault weapons” ban, opposing a national concealed carry law and once even received the endorsement of the Deplorable Nanny State Mayor and his anti-gun rights group. These sorts of things may have been what it took to remain competitive in Boston, but they add up to a rather toxic mix in New Hampshire.

Another factor which we may be overlooking in the early rush is the carpetbagging element of a potential Brown candidacy. It’s not that it’s impossible to pull of a carpetbagger move for statewide office in the modern era because it certainly does happen. Supporters of the idea like to point to Hillary Clinton who swept into New York’s junior Senate seat with no home town credentials beyond renting an apartment a couple of months before the election and proclaiming a lifelong affinity for the Yankees. But let’s remember… that was Hillary. She was already a legend in liberal circles and was freshly moved out of the White House. Scott Brown garnered a lot of fame for his insurgent upset Senate victory, but he doesn’t have that level of national status. People still have a natural attraction to the genuine article, and Brown will have a hard time claiming any sort of New Hampshire favorite son status.

It would be a wonderful, unexpected surprise if we picked up a Senate seat in New Hampshire. (It’s not even on my personal list of nine Senate races to watch next year.) And there’s no question that the Granite State may be in play, particularly given the rolling series of disasters which Obamacare has become. But I think it’s still far from certain that Scott Brown will wind up being the person to carry the banner for the GOP next fall.

Tags: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Scott Brown, Senate 2014, US Senate

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Source from: hotair