In an effort to thin-the-herd of hyperlinks, a set of Morning Jolts from the Jim Geraghty [of the National Review] is provided;

the problem, here, is that he doesnt upload these essays onto the website [noting his blogging-site is http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot] and, thus, the only way to convey his cool observations [and his embedded hyperlinks] is to provide text. This temptationafter having reprinted a week of juicy-stuffwill be resisted in the future, and the reader is simply advised to sign-up [and to peruse the National Review home-page regularly, accepting it will suck-you-into a combo of topical & referenced pieces rarely found elsewhere. {Excerpts therefrom are focused on the Budget-Battle & ObamaDontCare noting, respectively, how they reflect previously-established themes of the GOPs Civil War and BHOs deceit; providing his simultaneous commentary eliminates the need to elucidate many of these points (the import of which doesnt fade with time) when compiling my juxtaposition of references.}

December 9, 2013 You Know the Latest News on Obamacare Is Bad, But You Don't Know How It's Bad The threat that Obamacare could end up shutting down volunteer firehouses, the site not working again, the administrators demanding bonuses and raises . . . rough end of the week for Obamacare. But things had to get better this weekend, right? Nope. Behold, members of Congress and their staff, unable to purchase insurance through the exchanges. I'll give you a moment to stop laughing at the hardships of other people. Congress itself is now having so much trouble signing up for the Obamacare exchanges that late Friday the top administrator in the House of Representatives laid out a backup plan in case lawmakers and staff can't get through the process by the time their enrollment ends Monday. The red flags started reaching critical mass Thursday and Friday, when some staff and members of Congress told House administrators they were having trouble enrolling through the Washington health exchange, known as DC Health Link. The D.C. exchange is the official signup portal for Congress, where members must go to get health care through their job. Then the state of California decided that they could do whatever they wanted with the personal information that insurance shoppers typed into the site: Raising concerns about consumer privacy, California's health exchange has given insurance agents the names and contact information for tens of thousands of people who went online to check out coverage but didn't ask to be contacted. The Covered California exchange said it started handing out this consumer information this week as part of a pilot program to help people enroll ahead of a Dec. 23 deadline to have health insurance in place by Jan. 1.

State officials said they are only trying to help potential customers find insurance and sign up in time. But some insurance brokers and consumers who were contacted said they were astonished by the state's move. "I'm shocked and dumbfounded," said Sam Smith, an Encino insurance broker and president of the California Assn. of Health Underwriters, an industry group. Smith said he was under the impression from the exchange that these consumers had requested assistance. He received the names of two consumers this week but has not yet contacted them. And they wonder why people don't trust the government! Then we learned the implementation in Maryland was even worse than anyone imagined: Although state officials have provided the public scant detail about the troubled launch of Maryland's version of Obamacare, emails and documents show that the project was beset behind the scenes for months by an array of technical issues, warring contractors and other problems. Since Maryland's online health exchange opened Oct. 1 for people to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act and immediately crashed the two main companies in charge of the website have taken their fight to court, a corporate project manager was replaced and a high-powered consulting firm was quietly brought in to restore order. Though state officials initially said the crash of the online exchange was an unexpected and fixable problem, emails and documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun through state open-records laws outline serious issues before and after the launch. The revelations came just days before Rebecca Pearce, the head of the exchange, resigned. State officials announced that move Friday night and pulled Carolyn Quattrocki from the governor's health reform office to serve as an interim replacement. Just two weeks before the launch, Pearce visited the prime contractor's Linthicum headquarters and found a room of empty seats. She fired off an email questioning the company's commitment to resolve problems and reminding the contractors of what was at stake: "Tonight, I am begging. I don't know how else to say it: we have got to make this a reality." Finally, remember all of those administration officials telling the public to use paper applications if the website wasn't working? Well, now they're not so sure there's time to process all of those: Federal health officials, after encouraging alternate sign-up methods amid the fumbled rollout of their online insurance website, began quietly urging counselors around the country this week to stop using paper applications to enroll people in health insurance because of concerns those applications would not be processed in time. Interviews with enrollment counselors, insurance brokers and a government official who works with navigators in Illinois reveal the latest change in direction

by the Obama administration, which had been encouraging paper applications and other means because of all the problems with the federal website. Consumers must sign up for insurance under the federal health overhaul by Dec. 23 in order for coverage to start in January. "We received guidance from the feds recommending that folks apply online as opposed to paper," said Mike Claffey, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Insurance. After a conference call earlier this week with federal health officials, Illinois health officials sent a memo Thursday to their roughly 1,600 navigators saying there is no way to complete marketplace enrollment through a paper application. The memo, which Claffey said was based on guidance from federal officials, said paper applications should be used only if other means aren't available. So yeah, it was as bad a weekend for Washington-run health care as it was for the Washington Redskins. 'Catastrophe Theory' Seems Like a Natural Fit for Obamacare Bruce Webster, the Morning Jolt's favorite IT-project analyst turned Healthcare.gov analyst, uses "catastrophe theory" to examine the shifts in public opinion since October 1: For most of the three years since Obamacare was passed, the majority of the population has disapproved of it (see the second chart here at Real Clear Politics), yet that didn't really translate into significant public anger or political action, beyond the 2010 mid-term election results. In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz's filibuster attempt and the House's short-lived shutdown appeared to push public opinion against those actors rather than against Obamacare. But that has changed, and dramatically, with the law actually going into effect and Healthcare.gov going live back on October 1st. For the first time, Obamacare got "close enough" to significant portions of the American electorate to trigger a sudden shift in actual emotional response from a generic disapproval to outright hostility. I believe that Obama and his Administration lulled, perhaps, by the more passive dislike evinced by the public up until now have been caught genuinely off-guard by the dramatic change in public opinion in a month's time, not just towards Obamacare but towards Obama himself. I believe that shift in fact represents a 'catastrophe' that is, an abrupt transition from one state to another -- brought on by the realities of Obamacare hitting home. Does Everyone in the Administration Think They're in a Movie? Allow me to turn your attention to a disturbingly insightful essay from Ace over at Ace of Spades. I'll presume you're familiar with the concept of the MacGuffin -- Hitchcock's term for the object that drives the plot of a movie. Ace's observation is that our political coverage and dialogue has become so wrapped up in the language and narrative of movies, that the condition of the country and actual results of policies have been reduced to MacGuffins:

For Obama's fan-boys, this is not politics. This isn't even America, not really, not anymore. This is a movie. And Barack Obama is the Hero. And the Republicans are the Villains. And policy questions -- and Obama's myriad failures as an executive -are simply incidental. They are MacGuffins only, of no importance whatsoever, except to the extent they provide opportunities for Drama as the Hero fights in favor of them. Watching Chris Matthews interview Obama, I was struck by just how uninterested in policy questions Matthews (and his panel) were, and how almost every question seemed to be, at heart, about Obama's emotional response to difficulties -- not about policy itself, but about Obama's Hero's Journey in navigating the plot of President Barack Obama: The Movie. As with a MacGuffin in the movie, only the Hero's emotional response to the MacGuffin matters. Again and again, Matthews and his panel focused not on weighty questions of state, but on what toll these important-sounding MacGuffins took upon the Star of the Picture, Barack Obama. Matthews was not terribly interested in hearing about the problems with Obamacare, or how Obama planned to address them. But he was very interested in learning how Obama was coping with the challenges. Matthews didn't care all that much about disputes over the budget. But he was keenly interested in Obama's thoughts on his opponents in such struggles. Of course, it's not just Obama's fans who think they're watching Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing. Back in January 2010, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank had this diagnosis: Gibbs acts as though he's playing himself in the movie version of his job. In this imaginary film, he is the smart-alecky press secretary, offering zippy comebacks and cracking jokes to make his questioners look ridiculous. It's no great feat to make reporters look bad, but this act also sends a televised image of a cocksure White House to ordinary Americans watching at home. And then just last week, Peggy Noonan echoed that assessment, applying it to the whole administration: From what I have seen the administration is full of young people who've seen the movie but not read the book. They act bright, they know the reference, they're credentialed. But they've only seen the movie about, say, the Cuban missile crisis, and then they get into a foreign-policy question and they're seeing movies in their heads. They haven't read the histories, the texts, which carry more information, more texture, data and subtlety, and different points of view.

Andy McCarthy wrote last week that at a time of serious, deepening problems and crises, most of the coverage of the highest levels of our federal government seem reminiscent of a soap opera: Politics is our reality. It only seems like soap opera because of the way it is covered: Right into your living room, day-in-day-out, celebrity journalists present the adventures of their fellow dramatis personae, celebrity pols. The journalists portray politics, moreover, as suspense, and not just such suspense as the news of the day may warrant by dint of its relative seriousness an earthquake, the outbreak of a war, or the specter of millions losing healthinsurance plans they were promised they could keep. The continuing suspense lies in the practice of politics. In an increasingly perilous world, politics has to be our response, not our entertainment. Today's events are not episodes. They are threats, foreign and domestic; and they are no longer on the horizon they are clear and present dangers. Politics is how we perceive our national interests and take effective action, not how the president manages to weather storms of his own making. Tune in tomorrow December 11, 2013 Budget? Deal with It Great news for everyone who was tired of the recent Republican unity over Obamacare and fantastic momentum heading into the midterm elections: House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, (R., Wisc.) worked out a budget deal with Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray, (D., Tennis Shoes). The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 would set overall discretionary spending for the current fiscal year at $1.012 trillionabout halfway between the Senate budget level of $1.058 trillion and the House budget level of $967 billion. The agreement would provide $63 billion in sequester relief over two years, split evenly between defense and non-defense programs. In fiscal year 2014, defense discretionary spending would be set at $520.5 billion, and non-defense discretionary spending would be set at $491.8 billion. The sequester relief is fully offset by savings elsewhere in the budget. The agreement includes dozens of specific deficit-reduction provisions, with mandatory savings and non-tax revenue totaling approximately $85 billion. The agreement would reduce the deficit by between $20 and $23 billion. This is not what most of us would consider a "good" deal. The deficit reduction is pretty paltry. The "non-tax revenue" includes things like raising the $2.50 per-passenger per-flight "TSA fee" on flyers, which will sound a lot like a tax hike to a lot of folks. But there is a tiny bit of pension reform for federal workers: These sections increase federal-employee contributions to their retirement programs by 1.3 percentage points. The proposal affects new employees hired after December 31, 2013 with less than five years of service.

And there's a bit of what we would consider to be entitlement reform in the treatment of military pensions: This provision modifies the annual cost-of-living adjustment for working-age military retirees by making the adjustments equal to inflation minus one percent. This change would be gradually 3 phased in, with no change for the current year, a 0.25 percent decrease in December 2014, and a 0.5 percent decrease in December 2015. This would not affect service members who retired because of disability or injury. Service members would never see a reduction in benefits from one year to the next. This, or any other long-term deal, avoids a government shutdown for the next two years. And you have to figure Barack Obama and Harry Reid are itching to have another government shutdown, as it provided the Democrats their one most optimistic political moment, just before Obamacare the Destructor appeared on the horizon. Here's the political environment at the moment, according to Quinnipiac: President Barack Obama's job approval among American voters drops to a new low, a negative 38 - 57 percent, as the outlook for Democrats running for Congress and the U.S. Senate fades also, according to a national poll released today. He even gets a negative 41 - 49 percent among voters 18 to 29 years old and a lackluster 50 - 43 percent approval among Hispanic voters. American voters say 41 - 38 percent that they would vote for a Republican over a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives, the first time this year the Democrats come up on the short end of this generic ballot. Independent voters back Republican candidates 41 - 28 percent. Voters also say 47 - 42 percent that they would like to see Republicans gain control of the U.S. Senate and the House. Independent voters go Republican 50 - 35 percent for each. If Quinnipiac's not to you liking, here's NBC News/Wall Street Journal this morning: A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that more Americans disapprove of the president's job performance than ever before; half say they're either disappointed or dissatisfied with his presidency and 54 percent believe he's facing a long-term setback. Perhaps more significantly, Obama has seen a drop in key presidential attributes. Just 28 percent give the president high grades for being able to achieve his goals (down 16 points from January); only 37 percent give him high marks for being honest and straightforward (down 5 points from June); and 44 percent give him high marks for being able to handle a crisis (down another 5 points since June). Only 34 percent believe the health law is a good idea (down 3 points from late October), while 50 percent say it's a bad idea (the highest percentage on that measure since the NBC/WSJ poll began asking this question).

Also, by a 51 percent to 43 percent margin, respondents say they are bothered more by the Obama administration's troubled health care website and some Americans losing their health plans than by the Republican Party's continued efforts to undermine the law. And asked which one or two issues have been most important in shaping their views about the president, the top response was the health care law (58 percent) followed by the economy (25 percent), the government shutdown (23 percent) and the situations in Syria and Iran (16 percent). The Ryan-Murray deal puts Obama and Reid in a box. Only a few events would be big enough to change this dynamic, and the most likely is another shutdown. But to get another government shutdown, they have to shoot down this deal -- putting them on the wrong side of a happy-talk "bipartisan compromise" and making them the scapegoats for any failure to reach a deal. Sure, they could dig in and force another government shutdown, but they would get the blame for this one. Mike Memoli nicknames it, "The Bland Bargain."

December 13, 2013 It's Friday the 13th. Beware! Obama Administration: Okay, Forget All the Rules for Obamacare's First Month God save us from the optimists. Optimism probably is good for your mental health, but it seems potentially problematic in a leader. There's nothing wrong with a bright, cheery outlook on life, but there's a disturbing tendency in some of our leaders to believe that their plans will work out as intended, and not prepare for problems. If you talk to any Democrat on Capitol Hill, anyone in the administration, or any fan of the president, they'll usually express optimism that the problems with Obamacare will work themselves out, sooner or later. This is a familiar sentiment. Kathleen Sebelius told Sanjay Gupta, "I was optimistic that things would go smoothly." Sometimes things go wrong. The bigger and more complicated the task, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. When large government entities have to build a network of databases that connect several federal agencies, collect correct information from millions of people, share that information among their own different systems and with insurance agencies things are pretty likely to go wrong. And when you're instituting a whole package of changes that impact every American, the problems can start piling up like a . . . well, train wreck. And sometimes you run into the worst-case scenario. Washington is full of people who don't want to contemplate the worst-case scenario, and deny the possibility of the worst-case scenario, even as it unfolds before their eyes. You've been reading me, and the explanations from Avik Roy, Bruce Webster, Bob Laszewski, Megan McCardle -- antidotes to the happy talk.

Another must-read guy on the health-care-reform beat, Phil Klein, points out that HHS is asking insurance companies to ignore at least three major rules on the books, at least for Obamacare's first month: It is requiring insurers to accept payments until Dec. 31 for coverage starting on Jan. 1. It is also "urging" insurers to give individuals more time beyond that to pay for coverage. In other words, if somebody pays for coverage in the middle of January, HHS is asking insurers to retroactively make that person's coverage effective as of Jan. 1. HHS is also asking insurers to cover individuals who offer a "down payment," even if that payment only covers part of the first month's premiums. In a press release, HHS said it was also "strongly encouraging insurers to treat out-of-network providers as in-network to ensure continuity of care for acute episodes or if the provider was listed in their plan's provider directory as of the date of an enrollee's enrollment." HHS is also "strongly encouraging insurers to refill prescriptions covered under previous plans during January." Of course, for insurers who have spent years designing plans to comply with the law, this would present huge and unreasonable logistical hurdles. But wait, there's more: HHS is also allowing a "special enrollment period" that will give people who had problems with the federal and state-run Obamacare exchanges more time than they would have had to sign up and get coverage quickly. Those problems could include so-called 834 file errors, which impact the electronic transmission of enrollment forms to insurers from the exchanges errors that could lead to delays in formal enrollments. Up to one in four of the 365,000 enrollments as of Nov. 30 had such errors, and the error rate still may be as high as one in 10 this month. BusinessWeek: The next big risk ahead for the Affordable Care Act: if people who believe they've enrolled in insurance can't get care when they start showing up to clinics and hospitals in January. That's what happened to Medicare patients in 2006, when a new drug benefit took effect. As the New York Times reported at the time: People who had signed up for coverage found that they were not on the government's list of subscribers. Insurers said they had no way to identify poor people entitled to extra help with their drug costs. Pharmacists spent hours on the telephone trying to reach insurance companies that administer the drug benefit under contract to Medicare. Given the depth of the technical failures that plagued Healthcare.gov and some state marketplaces, the risk of the same thing happening to Obamacare enrollees next month is real. In cases where the government website sent bad or incomplete information about applicants to insurers, government workers are correcting the records by hand, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified Wednesday. "The risk is real." Thanks, Carnac. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much; Robert Laszewski, who knows about as much about this stuff as anybody, thinks no one actually knows how many people will find themselves without coverage starting in January:

There have been reports of HealthCare.gov enrolling exchange eligible people in Medicaid instead of the private plan they want (Federal Exchange Sends Unqualified People to Medicaid). No one seems to know how big a problem this is. How many people's enrollmentsMedicaid and private planshave been jeopardized by these backroom issues? Until the federal government can do a timely and efficient reconciliation of those who have applied compared to those whose coverage has actually been established by the health plans and state Medicaid programs, there is no way to know. But hey -- I'm sure Sebelius is optimistic. Democratic Pollster: Relax! Voters Aren't Willing to Punish Democrats over Obamacare! On that note, sometime Democrats' optimism can end up working for us: Alex Roarty: How much should Democrats worry about Obamacare politics in 2014? Even the party's top political minds can't agree. On Thursday, senior Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg told reporters that the Republican focus on hitting Democrats over Obamacare was a political "trap." Citing a new Democracy Corps poll he helped conduct, Greenberg said if Republican dwell on repealing the law while Democrats focus on fixing the economy, Democrats will come out on top. "I know there is an initial opportunity in going after the rollout I would argue this is a trap," he said. "The more they're on this, the more voters say they're just part of this extreme partisan gridlock [in Congress], and they're not addressing the economy and jobs." Greenberg acknowledged the law troubled rollout had cost President Obama and his party, and that, on a substantive level, the law needed to perform better. But his bottomline assessment sounded like a relatively sanguine one: Don't worry, Democrats, you can win this fight against a still deeply unpopular Republican Party. Roarty notes that if Mary Landrieu running ads suggesting she's an opponent of Obamacare . . . those red state Democrats see an environment completely different from the happy vision of Greenberg.

How Do We Recharge a Burned-Out Conservative Grassroots? A friend and fellow righty recently wrote to a group of conservative bloggers and activists discussing burnout, exhaustion, a declining interest or passion in politics. I responded with the following: Spend a few days away from politics -- the holidays, watching sports, getting away on a trip -- and you're struck by how nice everyone is. Good-natured. Easygoing. Capable of laughing at themselves. Life is full of a lot of things that are very easy to enjoy without anyone arguing about anything. Good food. A good walk. Nature. Movies. Family. Friends. Then you log back on to your computer Monday and your e-mail, comments section, Twitter feed, etc. are varieties of the same: "YOU'RE A @#$%^& SELLOUT GO &^%$ YOURSELF I HOPE

YOU EAT $*&^@% AND DIE !!!!!!" Usually over something as consequential and earth-shattering as whether or not the president was flirting with the Danish prime minister. And those are the people who care. Deep down, we all know that the vast majority of the population isn't paying any attention to what we care about. We see something like Representative Kuster having no idea what or where "Benghazi" is, a level of ignorance and obliviousness and incompetence that defies belief and yet there are no immediately discernible consequences. At one of our conservative blogger gatherings from earlier this year, someone observed that with "local crime story" (a Post reporter's dismissal of the horrific abortionist/ghoul Kermit Gosnell) we can really get something out there when we're all pulling in the same direction. But of course, it's tough to get us all pulling in the same direction. Yes, we're all on the right, but we're a collection of different world views, priorities, and perspectives, and we have different ideas about what constitutes a big deal or a cause worth fighting for. We're used to the Left hating us, denouncing us, mocking us, etc. Part of the job. But when we find ourselves in disagreement with other folks on the right, there's this sense of betrayal. "I thought you were with us!" And pretty quickly, we end up with folks accusing each other of extremism, irrationality, hobbit-hood, angry-bird-hood, selling out, servitude to the ruling class, etc. And let's face it, there are pretty strong incentives to pick a "Tea Party" or "Establishment" side and make that a part of your brand or approach to the world. If you're "Tea Party," you get authenticity points. You're part of the Real America outside of the Beltway. You get to proclaim you're standing on principle. You get to believe that you're saving this country from a corrupt class of insiders running it into the ground. You're the Rebel Alliance, the plucky underdogs fighting for all that's right who will someday overcome overwhelming odds. If you're "Establishment," you get to be reasonable and sensible. Democrats and/or MSNBC may like you or praise you for your willingness to compromise and focus on getting results. You get to believe that you're serious, and dealing with the facts as they are, instead of living in a makebelieve world of imminent revolution. You're the professional, who knows how to get actual results, as opposed to the amateur who dresses up and pretends to understand politics and government. Our country has fewer people focused on solving the outrageous problem and more people focused on monetizing the outrage over the problem. That's why you can stand with [INSERT POPULAR FIGURE HERE] by donating now...

December 16, 2013 Tough Weekend for Dallas Cowboys Fans, Tougher Weekend for Obamacare The insured are finding their premiums, deductibles, and co-pays are going up, and their spousal coverage is disappearing -- and they're not happy about it. AP: Americans who already have health insurance are blaming President Barack Obama's health care overhaul for their rising premiums and deductibles, and overall 3 in 4 say the rollout of coverage for the uninsured has gone poorly. In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year -- mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77

percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act, even though the trend toward leaner coverage predates the law's passage. Sixty-nine percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing. Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years. Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued. "Rightly or wrongly, people with private insurance looking at next year are really worried about what is going to happen," said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who tracks public opinion on health care issues. "The website is not the whole story." But at least the uninsured are happier, right? Nope, not really. Uninsured Americans have soured on the Affordable Care Act in the past three months and that bodes ill for the law's popularity and financial underpinnings. Less than a quarter24%of uninsured Americans think the health care law is a good idea, and half think it's a bad idea, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Wednesday. That's an 11-point dive in support from three months ago, when a September poll before the troubled rollout of the HealthCare.gov marketplace found that 35% of the uninsured thought it was a good idea, and 32% thought it was a bad idea. The claims of a fixed website, coming through the weekend from the administration, don't match what the insurance companies are reporting: Insurers said they had found many discrepancies and errors and that the government was overstating the improvements in HealthCare.gov. In some cases, they said, the federal government reported that the home address for a new policyholder was outside an insurer's service area. In other cases, a child was listed as the main subscriber the person responsible for paying premiumsand parents were listed as dependents. In some cases, children were enrolled in a policy by the federal government and parents were left off, or vice versa. In other cases, the government botched up the members of a family: A child or spouse was listed two or three times in the same application in late November. Such errors can have financial implications, increasing the amount of premiums that a family is required to pay. While some of the problems were discovered in the last few days, insurers said that they had previously reported many of the errors to the "help desk" at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and that the problems remained unresolved. Federal officials, insurers and health care providers said they were concerned about confusion and possible chaos in the early days of January, when people try to use the new insurance coverage they believe they have.

Hear that? "Chaos." We've got good seats with an unobstructed view of America's Medical Armageddon. Meanwhile, remember the worries from a few weeks ago about whether volunteer fire departments are required to offer health insurance to their firefighters? Those fire departments are still waiting for answers from the administration and IRS. "It would be just devastating to our budget," Burlington Township Fire Director John Stewart said Friday. "Right now, we have three full-time employees and 90 qualified volunteers. I don't know what we would do." Pemberton Township Fire Chief Craig Augustoni said informal estimates were that the mandate might cost the municipality an additional $2 million to insure its volunteers. "That, or pay a fine of $2,000 per worker," Augustoni said Among their questions: Would the 30 hours a week include training or just time spent at fires and other emergencies? Will it be based on the hours of each volunteer or the entire department or company? Will it apply to all volunteers or just those who don't already receive coverage elsewhere? "We know about (the possible mandate), but we can't really plan for it because nobody can say what it really means," said Scott Jones, administrator for the Mount Laurel Fire District. "We went to our attorney with it, but he says there's no sense worrying about it until the IRS spells out its rules." Kathleen Sebelius, what do you have to say about all this? Q: Madam Secretary, PolitiFact, which is based here, just found that the administration committed the lie of the year by saying, 'if you like your plan, you can keep it.' As the person in charge of the agency at the heart of that lie, what do you think of it? Sebelius: I think that, um, the statement about keeping your plan was one that is applicable to the vast majority of Americans in the health insurance market. What we know is that we also designed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act to make sure that plans that were in place in March of 2010 that kept the same benefits in place, didn't shift costs to consumers, and stayed in place were actually eliminated from needing to conform to any of the consumer protections in the uh, 2014 Affordable Care Act. So a number of customers in the individual market had those grandfathered plans in place, it varies by company and by market. I think the president felt it was important to make sure that individuals as much as possible did not lose coverage that they had, so in addition to early renewals, which I think virtually every company in this market offered to their consumers, he asked us to use our discretion authority and asked insurers to consider allowing their customers, if they were interested in staying in those same plans. And that's happening across the country. Florida has decided to take up that transition plan, so a number of individuals who are in individual market that they like, which certainly is not 100 percent of all the people in the individual market, will be able to work with their insurers choosing a new plan in the marketplace, choosing a competitive plan, or staying in their same plan. Clear as day, huh? The reporter continues: "So you don't think it was a lie? (Sebelius ignores question) You're not going to answer that?"

Finally: Another reporter: At any point during the initial rollout, or after the rollout did you ever offer your resignation to the president? Sebelius: I'm not going to discuss what I talk about with the president. There really is nothing she can do to get canned, is there? Bruce Webster notes, "I'm not sure how much new IT-related systems analysis I have to give. The IT problems are all pretty much unfolding as I and many, many others said they would, which is probably why the Obama Administration is resorting to its current measures. It is, perhaps, time to sit back a bit and see what happens next," but sends in this image.

December 17, 2013 Obama: In Worse Shape than George W. Bush in December 2005 Do you ever get tired of the headline, "Obama Numbers Hit New Low"? Nah, I didn't think so. President Obama is ending his fifth year in office matching the worst public approval ratings of his presidency, with record numbers of Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance and his once-hefty advantages over Republicans in Congress eroded in many areas, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. His position is all the more striking when compared with his standing a year ago, as he was preparing for his second inauguration after a solid reelection victory. That high note proved fleeting as the president faced a series of setbacks, culminating in the botched rollout of his Affordable Care Act two months ago. The president's overall approval rating stands at 43 percent, while disapproval is at 55 percent. Those numbers are virtually identical to a poll taken a month ago. At this time last year, 54 percent approved of Obama's overall performance and 42 disapproved. Even after the huge losses his party suffered in the 2010 midterms, Obama's approval rating was higher, at 49 percent, than it is today and was slightly more positive than negative. Obama ends his fifth year in office with lower approval ratings than almost all other recent two-term presidents. At this point in 2005, for example, former president George W. Bush was at 47 percent positive, 52 percent negative. All other post-World War II presidents were at or above 50 percent at this point in

their second terms, except Richard M. Nixon, whose fifth year ended in 1973 with an approval rating of 29 percent because of the Watergate scandal that later brought impeachment and his resignation. Also note: "Two months ago, Democrats held an eight-point advantage on the heels of the October government shutdown. Today it's just two points 47 percent to 45 percent. As a point of reference, shortly before Republicans made historic gains in the House in 2010, this "generic ballot" narrowly favored the Democrats." Obama's Cabinet: The One Place Americans Can't Get Laid Off or Fired Hey, remember when we used to joke that Obama was always throwing people under buses? In USA Today, political science professor Ross Baker notes the strangely persistent presence of Kathleen Sebelius at the Department of Health and Human Services, and examines how rare it is for President Obama to directly fire anyone: People have come and gone in Obama's five years in office, but most were urged to jump rather than wait to be pushed. Both generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus knew they were doomed and tendered their resignations. Early in Obama's first term, Social Secretary Desiree Rogers was urged to resign after two unauthorized guests were admitted to a state dinner, and environment adviser Van Jones stepped aside under pressure when some of his controversial writings surfaced. But not all officials who are under fire agree to face-saving devices. The explanation usually offered by the Obama folks on background is that firing cabinet members or other staffers is usually perceived as a panic move. That person has to be replaced, and the replacement usually takes weeks or months or even a year to get up to speed. And Obama's staffers are quick to point out he's never going to be bullied into firing anyone by a Beltway media that he insists he ignores. Okay, but Sebelius still managed and directed perhaps the biggest and most consequential cluster you-know-what in American domestic-policy history. She helped craft a policy that was sold with PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" and the Washington Post Fact-Checker's biggest Pinocchio of the Year . What's more, if Obama is telling the truth, he was kept in the dark about the unfolding disaster until a week after Healthcare.gov launched. She still isn't giving straight answers. If all of that hasn't earned a dismissal, what does? We know that Obama isn't particularly close to anyone in his cabinet; Politico called serving in Obama's cabinet "the worst job in Washington." The staffers who rule Obama's West Wing often treat his Cabinet as a nuisance: At the top of the pecking order are the celebrity power players, like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to be warily managed; at the bottom, what they see as a bunch of well-intentioned political naifs only a lip-slip away from derailing the president's agenda. [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu might have been the first Obama Cabinet secretary to earn the disdain of White House aides, but he was hardly the last.

"We are completely marginalized until the [s-word] hits the fan," says one former Cabinet deputy secretary, summing up the view of many officials I interviewed. "If your question is: Did the president rely a lot on his Cabinet as a group of advisers? No, he didn't," says former Obama Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. It's hard to believe Obama really thinks of Sebelius or anyone else in his cabinet as indispensible. Of course, Obama's not the first president to demand loyalty from his staff and repay it in kind. George W. Bush was loyal to "his guys" and "his gals." That was one factor in how Harriet Miers came to be nominated by the Supreme Court. The advantages of the Bush-Obama loyalty approach are obvious, but let's imagine the opposite. Imagine you had a president who wasn't afraid to fire any member of the cabinet who turned into a liability. Imagine a president bold enough to say he likes being able to fire people for bad service. Imagine a president known for cutting people loose, quickly and coolly, after any massive foul-up with big consequences. Don't you think that might cut down on the number of massive foul-ups with big consequences? Speaking of which . . . Your Tax Dollars at Work: The EPA's Absentee Wannabe-Spy So, what would it take to get an agency's secretary or administrator to really overhaul the culture, fire those who can be fired -- despite difficulties -- offer scathing performance reviews for poor performers, light fires under butts, and generally right the ship? Would it take an unbelievably embarrassing disaster like this? The EPA's highest-paid employee and a leading expert on climate change deserves to go to prison for at least 30 months for lying to his bosses and saying he was a CIA spy working in Pakistan so he could avoid doing his real job, say federal prosecutors. John C. Beale, who pled guilty in September to bilking the government out of nearly $1 million in salary and other benefits over a decade, will be sentenced in a Washington, D.C., federal court on Wednesday. In a newly filed sentencing memo, prosecutors said that his lies were a "crime of massive proportion" that were "offensive" to those who actually do dangerous work for the CIA. In September, Beale, who served as a "senior policy adviser" in the agency's Office of Air and Radiation, pled guilty to defrauding the U.S. government out of nearly $900,000 since 2000. Beale perpetrated his fraud largely by failing to show up at the EPA for months at a time, including one 18-month stretch starting in June 2011 when he did "absolutely no work," as Kern, Beale's lawyer, acknowledged in his court filing. To explain his long absences, Beale told agency officials -- including McCarthy -that he was engaged in intelligence work for the CIA, either at agency headquarters or in Pakistan. At one point he claimed to be urgently needed in

Pakistan because the Taliban was torturing his CIA replacement, according to Sullivan. "Due to recent events that you have probably read about, I am in Pakistan," he wrote McCarthy in a Dec. 18, 2010 email. "Got the call Thurs and left Fri. Hope to be back for Christmas . . . Ho, ho, ho." In fact, Beale had no relationship with the CIA at all. Sullivan, the EPA investigator, said he confirmed Beale didn't even have a security clearance. He spent much of the time he was purportedly working for the CIA at his Northern Virginia home riding bikes, doing housework and reading books, or at a vacation house on Cape Cod. Sure, throw the book at Beale. But will there be any consequences for any of Beale's bosses at the EPA? Did any of them ever ask why an alleged climate change expert would be running around Pakistan for the CIA? Imagine any of your co-workers trying this at your job. "Boss, I can't come in today, or tomorrow, or anytime in the near future. I've been recruited to the CIA. Also, you have to keep paying me. It's a matter of national security." Now imagine your workplace's highest-paid employee pulling that stunt. Merry Christmas Happy Generic Late-December Holidays from the DNC! Getting down to the wire for Christmas shopping! Let's check out the DNC's store to see what they're offering as last-minute gift ideas. . . A mug that says "Happy Holidays" and offers greetings in many languages, but not "Merry Christmas." Perfect for that decorated veteran of the War on Christmas!

A "Speaker Pelosi" magnet pin. What, are these left over from 2010? $1.99. If you find one of these in your stockings, it is a sign Santa just didn't give a damn this year.

"I heart Obamacare" sweatshirts. Can't believe they didn't sell out!

You love equality, but not capitalization. For $49.95, you can buy a framed photo of President Obama and Nancy Pelosi at the signing ceremony for Obamacare:

You know, the National Republican Senatorial Committee might buy one; they'll be using that image in their ads over and over again in the coming year . . . ADDENDUM: An unfortunate, or perhaps revealing, metaphor from Irish journalist Niall O'Dowd: "Waiting in line to meet President Obama and First Lady Michelle is a little like waiting for communion." They're "a little like" each other in the sense that both involve waiting, yes. Then again, so does a late-night run to the convenience store. A comparison of the president to the Eucharist would be a little easier to take if, say, the U.S. Embassy in London hadn't just installed giant tapestries depicting several portraits of our president, reminding us that the cult of personality is alive and well:

Before you lash into O'Dowd, note his deep appreciation for the home of our presidents: You can never say enough about the magic of the White House at Christmas; it is truly the most magnificent venue in the world to observe the festivities. It makes you incredibly proud of this country as your stroll the halls Lincoln walked, the rooms the Kennedy family gathered in, the East Room where Reagan spoke on so many occasions. Now it is the realm of the Obamas, but the history of the place overwhelms any single president.

December 18, 2013 A Bad Day, Even by the Standards of Obamacare's Bad Days President Obama probably can't wait to get away on that 17day vacation. Because Obamacare just continues to careen from success to success:

Some frustrated consumers are sending premium payments to insurers who have never heard of them. Others say they will pass up federal subsidies and pay full price through insurers, while still others have given up altogether on the promise of health insurance by Jan. 1. Consternation and confusion over applications sent through the federal HealthCare.gov website continue into the last seven days before the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline. Consumers with health issues are particularly nervous about the prospect of not having insurance at the start of the new year. Federal assurances last week about a "special enrollment period" for people whose applications have been hung up on the site are little comfort as neither insurers nor consumers have any idea how this will work and who will qualify. The Department of Health and Human Services recommends people call its help line with questions and concerns about applications on HealthCare.gov. But that suggestion is also proving less than helpful for many. "Logic tells you I'm the target population for the law," said Nelson, a Lombard, Ill., resident and Affordable Care Act supporter. But when people seek help from the call center, "you're just being shuffled back and forth nobody owns the callers." Experts are divided on another possible solution for those hanging in the balance: sending premium payments before bills arrive from insurers. Sentara Health, which offers the Optima health insurance plans for Virginia on HealthCare,gov, is hanging onto payments it can't match with new customers yet. But Aetna warns that consumers should wait until they get a bill in the mail before writing any checks. That's a heck of a strategy for getting insurance: "Pay and pray." Oh, hey, more bad information on the sites, too: In the latest round of difficulties with Obamacare in Wisconsin, plans offered by at least three insurers temporarily disappeared from the online insurance marketplace last week. Before they came off the federal HealthCare.gov website for about a day, some of the plans from one company posted incorrect information about deductibles, according to the insurer. Oh, hey, more sudden resignations of state directors: MNsure's top official resigned Tuesday following a Watchdog Minnesota Bureau report that she took a two-week Costa Rica vacation in late November, during the rocky rollout of the state $150 million health insurance exchange. April Todd-Malmlov's abrupt resignation came during a closed emergency session of the agency's board of directors. Subsequent reports revealed that Todd-Malmlov was accompanied on her tropical getaway by Jim Golden,

Minnesota's Medicaid director, raising possible conflict of interest and other concerns. Oh, hey, more broken promises of imminent fixes: Private health insurance exchanges still are not able to directly enroll consumers in subsidized health plans offered through Obamacare even though the government has said problems doing so should have been cleared up weeks ago. Executives from three online health exchanges that contract with both insurance companies and government agencies to enroll consumers eligible for federal subsidies in marketplace plans say the process still isn't ready to go and that more work remains. This despite several promises from government officials that technical fixes have been made to allow for business to be conducted on those sites, which are alternatives to the troubled HealthCare.gov website and health exchanges sites run by states. And Maryland may have to scrap its state exchange entirely: The pace of enrollments is still far too low. If the exchange is able to replicate its best weekday and weekend performance during every one of the 104 days between now and the end of the open enrollment period on March 31, Maryland will still only achieve about three-quarters of its goal of signing up 150,000 people with private coverage. The site may be better, but better isn't good enough. Under those circumstances, the question raised by Rep. John Delaney, a Montgomery County Democrat, about whether it would be better for Maryland to scrap its effort to build its own exchange and instead join the federal one has merit. Indeed, Gov. Martin O'Malley acknowledged on Monday that the option and all others remain on the table. That's a hard possibility for Governor O'Malley to acknowledge. Under his leadership, Maryland was one of the most aggressive states in the effort to build out its own exchange a strategic decision that appears in retrospect to have involved no small amount of hubris and political ambition. Walking away now from all that effort and tens of millions in expenditures would be particularly embarrassing. But other than all that, Obamacare had an okay Tuesday. Nah, I'm just kidding. There's more bad news. Oregon Suddenly Realizes the Horse Comes before the Cart Crazy idea, fellas: build a product and distribution system that works, then start advertising. Oregon did it the other way around.

You know those quirky, hipster ads with the "Live Long in Oregon" jingle you can't get out of your head? They're going away for now. Bruce Goldberg, acting executive director of Cover Oregon, said during a Monday press conference that the ads will be on hold while the agency focuses on getting people enrolled. "We think it's appropriate to hold off on any further advertising," he said, noting the agency has pulled most of the ads while keeping some billboards. Critics of the quirky, vague and expensive ads will likely rejoice. The ad campaign was originally slated for about $10 million, but then officials doubled it to $21 million in October. Of course, this applies to almost all of the advertising and promotion for the Obamacare exchanges, doesn't it? Until the whole darn thing is working, end to end, the way it is supposed to, why is anyone spending a dime to promote this dysfunctional contraption? Because the plan is to spend a hell of a lot more than a dime: Now that the Obamacare website is working you can look forward to the next stage in President Obama's health-care overhaul: the media blitz. The trade group Television Bureau of Advertising, known as TVB, is saying that the money spent on local television ads by health insurers next year will jump to $500 million, more than double its 2012 total of $216 million. Speaking of advertising for the exchanges . . . Obamacare Finds the Poster Boy It Always Deserved

Hmm. Nope, nope, and nope, pal. Where to begin? That appears to be a plaid adult onesie, and this is really testing my libertarian live-and-let-live limits. I suspect there's a reason grown men don't usually wear onesies. Probably something to do with zippers and midnight trips to the bathroom, and how you really don't want anything down there getting caught when you're half asleep and zipping up. By the way, if you're in the market for a plaid adult onesie, apparently they cost $69.95. What you wear to bed is your business, but that seems like a lot of money for something you sleep in. Of course, he's not sleeping in that; he's having hot chocolate and discussing health insurance. (Wonder if Michelle signed off on the hot chocolate.) It's probably fair trade Mexican hot chocolate. It's spicy, Ibarra. Hard to find but "he knows a guy." (This is the only point where my mockery is mixed with a bit of envy.)

He appears to be raising his eyebrow and smirking a bit, as if there's someone directly to his left who he thinks should be quite impressed with him at the moment. Maybe this person just checked out the closet of his Brooklyn apartment and noticed all of the Urban Outfitters, Ambercrombie & Fitch, and American Apparel clothes -- this is after he's mentioned to his guest his disdain for "blind consumerism." Lots of "skinny jeans," of course. He undoubtedly has already mentioned that he has a lot of vinyl records of a bunch of bands you've never heard of, or the early work of your favorite bands "before they went mainstream." He doesn't actually need those glasses. He just wears them because he likes the way they "frame his face." Obviously, he's going to be discussing health insurance with someone. He's wearing his watch, which seems a little odd. Christmas lights -- er, wait, it's an Obamacare ad, probably "Holiday Lights" -- are up on the relatively bare walls. I'm definitely getting a "Pottery Barn Leather Sofa" vibe, which retails for about $2,999. If you're plunking down $70 for your pajamas, you're probably not going to be that horrified by the prices on Healthcare.gov. John Sexton notices:

Oh, my money is on the guy from Big Bang Theory once they throw down in a slap fight. Get Taxed for Not Having Insurance? Two Colorado Lawmakers Want to Help This idea will probably not go anywhere, but give these two Colorado state lawmakers points for trying: Reps. Dan Nordberg of Colorado Springs and Jared Wright of Grand Junction announced that they will introduce a bill to give a tax credit to anyone who gets fined for not buying health insurance at an amount equal to the federal penalty under the Affordable Care Act for not purchasing insurance. The pair of conservatives are calling it the "Healthcare Liberty Act." "Many Colorado families are relying on us as their elected representatives to try to mitigate the adverse effects of Obamacare," Wright said. "Our bill is an appropriate response to the tax penalty and will help people in Colorado who simply cannot afford this expensive new government health insurance mandate." ADDENDA: NBC News, yesterday: "Seventy-three percent of Iowa Republicans have a somewhat or very favorable impression of Ryan, the former GOP vice presidential nominee from neighboring Wisconsin. The reservoir of goodwill for the House Budget Committee chairman could translate to crucial support in Iowa come 2016, should Ryan decide to make his own bid for the presidency."

Politico, today: "Paul Ryan will seek to become the next chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, a move that would bring instant star power to the cause of tax reform while complicating his presidential ambitions." Watch him endorse his friend from his home state, Scott Walker.

December 19, 2013 Terrific: 58 Percent of the Uninsured Haven't Even Looked at the Exchanges Yet Before we begin this morning's buffet table of bad news for Obamacare, a quick note on the typically bad-faith accusation from the Left that we're somehow enjoying all the problems stemming from the implementation of this law. From the beginning, Obamacare fans inside and outside of government insisted that they were right, that we were wrong, and that we were motivated by all sorts of malicious and callous motives. They insisted our skepticism was fueled by ignorance and outdated ideology. Our warnings and dire predictions were dismissed as sour-grapes negativity and pessimism. Most of the ideas from the right -- medical malpractice reform, interstate sales of insurance -were ignored or dismissed. We said you couldn't require insurance companies to cover a lot of new expenses -- i.e., pre-existing conditions -- without driving up costs, and that higher costs inevitably would drive up premiums. Obama's promise that his plan would lower premiums by $2,500 per year for families was always industrial-strength snake-oil, and yet somehow we were the bad guys for saying it couldn't possibly happen, short of covering the costs from the discovery of the Leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now it is exceedingly clear that one-sixth of the nation's economy is being fouled up beyond recognition by a convoluted, complicated, poorly-planned Rube Goldberg of a law that has been implemented by hacks whose overestimation of their own abilities is on an astronomical level. So we're not enjoying any of the problems from Obamacare, but spare us the insistence that we not take any satisfaction in seeing our assessment of the world, the limits of policy, the capabilities of government, and the possibility of grandiose, utopian promises reaffirmed, verified, underlined, highlighted, and footnoted in high-definition, day after day. Anyway, today's roundup: Most of the uninsured haven't even looked at the exchanges yet: "Ten percent of uninsured Americans in the poll say they have applied for insurance under the exchanges. Thirty-two percent say they have looked up information about the exchanges but have not applied; 58 percent have not looked up information about health insurance exchanges." Oh, and 59 percent of the uninsured think getting health insurance would "hurt them financially." Remember, all of this grief and aggravation is driven by the aim to get the uninsured to buy insurance.

Just how many Americans are losing insurance? "In the poll, 13 percent of insured Americans say they've received a notice that their health insurance plan is being cancelled or changed because it does not meet the minimum coverage requirements under the 2010 health care law." Better hope the server change goes smoothly: "Some technical experts are perplexed at the U.S. government's plan to switch web hosts for its new health insurance portal, HealthCare.gov, in the midst of an expected last-minute rush to beat a March 31 enrollment deadline for 2014 coverage. Switching hosts is not in and of itself a huge risk if it is done carefully and with lots of preparation, according to technical experts interviewed by Reuters. It is the timing of the highly complex maneuver that is risky. If there are problems, the website could become sluggish or even unusable for anyone trying to enroll. The government is tempting fate, they said." Hey, come on. What are the odds of something going wrong with Healthcare.gov? Back to square one: "Illinois officials are e-mailing and calling some 30,000 people, advising them to start over on their health insurance applications. They say it's possible they were referred to Medicaid. Officials advise if the screener at the Get Covered Illinois website sends them back to healthcare.gov, they should create a new account with a different e-mail address and submit a new application." And enrollment in some states remains abysmal: "As of Wednesday, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange had spent at least $2.5 million on marketing and outreach campaigns to get people to buy health insurance. And as of Wednesday, 291 people had enrolled for coverage beginning Jan. 1 on NMHIX's small business exchange."

Obamacare, in marshmallow form.