Oregon's Governor Resigns Amid Ethics, "Green Energy" Scandal

Oregon's four term Democrat governor John Kitzhaber announced his resignation last week amid growing pressure from an ethics investigation and reports that his fiancée was involved in a 'Green Energy' pay-to-play scheme.

According to media reports, Kitzhaber's fiancée- Cylvia Hayes- acted in a rather dubious triple role, acting as Oregon's de-facto First Lady, the governor's 'green energy' adviser and a paid consultant for the 'green energy' industry. However, while serving as Kitzhaber's unpaid energy advisor, Hayes reportedly pocketed $118,000 in consulting fees from various green energy lobbying firms- including some tied to billionaire democrat donor Tom Steyer- that she failed to disclose on her ethics filings for the governor's office.

While serving as an unpaid policy adviser for the governor’s office, Ms. Hayes collected $118,000 in fellowship and consulting fees from the Clean Economy Development Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, for work on low-carbon fuel standard legislation in Oregon.

Ms. Hayes never disclosed the payments on her ethics filings for the governor’s office.

The Clean Economy Development Center went out of business after the IRS pulled its tax-exempt status. Before it did, the center received funding for Ms. Hayes‘ fellowship from another nonprofit, the Energy Foundation, which in 2012 received $200,000 in funding from Mr. Steyer’s “TomKat” Charitable Trust, according to the group’s latest 990 tax form.

The Energy Foundation hired Ms. Hayes directly in 2013 for communications work, giving her a contract of $50,000, according to documents and interviews.

The web of payments, the failure to disclose and questions about influence peddling have prompted the state’s attorney general to open an ethics investigation. Republican state lawmakers also have demanded a suspension of the new fuel legislation, which would keep Oregon’s low carbon fuel standards in place instead of expiring this year.

Hayes is also suing The Oregonian in a move designed to prevent the release of e-mails she sent while working as a consultant to the governor. Her lawyers argue that Hayes is technically not a public official, despite closing some e-mails with the initials FLO- First Lady of Oregon.

These wouldn't be the first shady dealings that Hayes was involved in. In 2002, Hayes reportedly accepted $5000 to take part in a sham marriage to an Ethiopian immigrant and in the 1990s she was accused of participating in a scheme to buy acreage in Washington state to grow marijuana on.

Meanwhile, the FBI and IRS are investigating Kitzhaber, Hayes, former staffers and state officials on possible charges of tax evasion and influence peddling while the Willamette Week released more of Hayes' emails that indicated she sought to leverage her position with the governor to land additional lucrative contracts.

New York's Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Arrested on Corruption Charges

The powerful and long-serving speaker of New York's state assembly was arrested by the FBI after turning himself in to authorities last week. Silver, who had been in the state Assembly representing Manhatta in 65th Assembly district since 1976, is also a practicing attorney and close political ally of New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio. Siver's income from the law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg had long been the subject of criticism. US Attorney Preet Bharara accused Silver of collecting more than $3 million in bribes and kickbacks that were disguised as referral fees.

In a criminal complaint, authorities said Silver abused his power and “obtained about $4 million in payments characterized as attorney referral fees solely through the corrupt use of his official position.”

The arrest sent shock waves through New York’s Capitol as a new legislative session began, and it came just a day after Silver shared the stage with Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his State of the State address.

As speaker of the Democrat-controlled Assembly, Silver is one of the most influential people in New York state government. Along with the Senate majority leader and the governor, he plays a major role in creating state budgets, laws and policies in a system long-criticized in Albany as “three men in a room.”

During a press conference, Bharara also hinted that more charges could be waiting in the wings against state officials.

In July 2013, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced the formation of the Moreland Commission to examine New York's weak campaign finance laws and investigate any wrongdoing or suspicious activities among state lawmakers. A few short months after the Commission released their preliminary findings, Cuomo abruptly announced that he was shutting down the Moreland Commission. Some observers believe that any further investigating by the Moreland Commission would've brought to light incriminating information against Cuomo's donors or political allies.

In July 2014, the New York Times published an article further alleging that Gov Cuomo was hindering the Moreland Commission's investigations. Assembly speaker Silver was among those who were subpoenaed by the investigative committee, but accused the Moreland Commission of being nothing more than a 'fishing expedition' and attempting to intimidate state lawmakers.

Although Cuomo shut down the Moreland Commission less than halfway into its stated 18-month lifespan, the US Attorney's office was requesting documents from them back in May 2014.

It wasn't until last month that Silver disclosed that he was earning money from a second law firm- something he withheld from the Moreland Commission.

Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu Loses Runoff Campaign to Republican Challegnger Bill Cassidy

Red is for the parishes that Cassidy won while Blue is the parishes that voted for Landrieu. It wasn't even as close as it appears on the map.

The 2014 midterm elections officially wrapped up on Saturday and the Republican party extended their total gains to nine US senate seats when the polls closed in Louisiana for a runoff election for the US Senate seat held by incumbent Mary Landrieu. Observers both inside and outside the Sportsman's Paradise believe the December runoff campaign may not have been necessary if the ballot in the November general election wasn't split between multiple Republican candidates. Last month, both Landrieu and challenger Bill Cassidy failed to get more than 50% of the vote, making last week's runoff necessary.

Sen Landrieu's re-election bid seemed doomed late when she said in an interview shortly before the general election that she stated southern states like her native Louisiana were hostile towards women and minorities. Just days before the runoff voting, she gave a radio interview where she implied the host was illiterate and hung up only part way through when she was facing repeated questioning over her support for 0bamacare.

Nationally, Landrieu was further hurt by the Senate Democrats rejecting a hastily put together bill supporting the KeystoneXL pipeline by a lame-duck session of congress and President Obama's executive order that effectively gave amnesty to more than 5 million illegal immigrants late last month. Offshore drilling and energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico contributes millions of dollars to Louisiana's economy annually and it's believed that the oil from northern Alberta's Athabasca oil sands that would be carried by the proposed pipeline would end up in a Louisiana refinery.

Senator-elect Cassidy had previously served as a Congressman from Louisiana's 6th district and in the Louisiana's Senate after receiving an MD from the LSU school of Medicine and helped establish the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic.

Obamacare Architecht: Law Passed Because of Lack of Transparency, "Stupidity" of American Voters

A series of videos have surfaced showing MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber, the man widely credited with crafting President Obama's sweeping healthcare law, admitting that the law was written in a vague and deceptive manner by design to hide costs and that the Affordable Care Act was ultimately passed thanks to the 'stupidity of the American voter'.

As of Friday, the total number of videos circulating of Gruber boasting to audiences about the circumstances under which Obamacare had passed was six. A number of the recently surfaced videos date from 2010 and 2011, while the most recent videos date back to fall of 2013 and there may be even more damning video to come.

In a 2011 conversation about the Affordable Care Act, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the law more commonly known as Obamacare, talked about how the bill would get rid of all tax credits for employer-based health insurance through "mislabeling" what the tax is and who it would hit.

The issue at hand in this sixth video is known as the "Cadillac tax," which was represented as a tax on employers' expensive health insurance plans. While employers do not currently have to pay taxes on health insurance plans they provide employees, starting in 2018, companies that provide health insurance that costs more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family will have to pay a 40 percent tax.

"Economists have called for 40 years to get rid of the regressive, inefficient and expensive tax subsidy provided for employer provider health insurance," Gruber said at the Pioneer Institute for public policy research in Boston. The subsidy is "terrible policy," Gruber said.

"It turns out politically it's really hard to get rid of," Gruber said. "And the only way we could get rid of it was first by mislabeling it, calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people when we all know it's a tax on people who hold those insurance plans."

(The White House press secretary said at a press briefing in 2010: "I would disagree with your notion that it is a tax on an individual since the proposal is written as a tax on an insurance company that offers a plan.")

The second way was have the tax kick in "late, starting in 2018. But by starting it late, we were able to tie the cap for Cadillac Tax to CPI, not medical inflation," Gruber said. CPI is the consumer price index, which is lower than medical inflation.

Gruber explains that by drafting the bill this way, they were able to pass something that would initially only impact some employer plans though it would eventually hit almost every employer plan. And by that time, those who object to the tax will be obligated to figure out how to come up with the money that repealing the tax will take from the treasury, or risk significantly adding to the national debt.

"What that means is the tax that starts out hitting only 8% of the insurance plans essentially amounts over the next 20 years essentially getting rid of the exclusion for employer sponsored plans," Gruber said. "This was the only political way we were ever going to take on one of the worst public policies in America."

Unions and employers who object in 2018, he noted, "at that point if they want to get rid of it they're going to have to fill a trillion dollar hole in the deficit...It's on the books now."

Speeches with much more blunt language on Gruber's part had surfaced on conservative blogs and talk radio earlier this week, although the story didn't begin gaining coverage until later on in the week when more videos began surfacing.

The comments were made during the panel sessions at the Annual Health Economics Conference last year.

"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes," he said during a panel discussion at the University of Pennsylvania in October, 2013. "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the 'stupidity of the American voter' or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”

Democrats who were pivotal in passing Obamacare were quick to distance themselves from Gruber. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who cited Gruber's work during the push to pass Obamacare, denied knowing who he was and attempted to downplay his role in crafting the law during a press conference on Friday.

Gruber himself boasted of a 2009 meeting with the President Obama about the healthcare law in a 2012 interview- the White House visitor's log confirms Gruber's visit.

While some pundits have been wondering why these videos didn't surface before the election, their release may have been timed to coincide with something else altogether. The revelations come before the issue of Obamacare is once again before the Supreme Court. This time, the law is being challenged based on subsidies for the 14 states that didn't set up state-run Obamacare exchanges and the Administration's case could very well be undercut by Gruber's statements.

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Insists Colorado's Second Largest City Doesn't Have Roads In Rolling Stone Interview

Gosh- where would anybody POSSIBLY get the farfetched idea that gun-control advocates are wealthy, out-of-touch, super-liberal busybody east coast elitists who hold vast swaths of the United States outside of Manhattan in utter contempt and disdain?

I mean, how could someone ever jump to such an absurd conclusion?

At least until somebody like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg opens his mouth in a Rolling Stone interview.

The former New York City mayor said he was “sorry” about the recalls of two Democratic state senators last year over the state legislature’s passage of gun control laws, but said the districts in the recall races were so “rural” that “I don’t think there’s roads.”

“In Colorado, we got a law passed. The NRA went after two or three state senators in a part of Colorado where I don’t think there’s roads,” said Mr. Bloomberg in the interview with Rolling Stone published online this week.

“It’s as far rural as you can get,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “And, yes, they lost recall elections. I’m sorry for that. We tried to help ‘em. But the bottom line is, the law is on the books, and being enforced. You can get depressed about the progress, but on the other hand, you’re saving a lot of lives.”

The districts in question for last year's recall campaigns were in Colorado Springs and Pueblo- Colorado's second and seventh largest cities, respectively. State Senate president John Morse of Colorado's 11th State Senate district in El Paso county and state senator Angela Giron of the 3rd state senate district in Pueblo county- both Democrats- were successfully recalled by voters in their district just months after passing stricter gun control laws that limited magazine size and required a background check for all transfers of firearms [even among neighbors and relatives- NANESB!].

While no Manhattan, Colorado Springs is Colorado's 2nd largest city and is located some 75 miles south of Denver on Interstate 25. The city of roughly 400,000 is home to the United States Air Force Academy, the US Army's Ft Carson, the US Olympic Training Center and the Colorado Springs Sky Soxx- the Rockies AAA affiliate.

A little further south on I-25, Pueblo was once a key steel producing town and to this day remains an important rail town- not only for the southern terminus of the Joint Line which was once shared by the Rio Grande and Santa Fe, but also the FRA's Transportation Technology Center in which track, ballast, carbodies, rail, freight cars and locomotives undergo testing before being put into service.

The September 2013 recall election was the first of its kind in the state of Colorado and the threat of a 3rd recall against democrat state senator Evie Hudak of suburban Denver forced her to resign in November 2013 so that the Democrats could appoint her replacement instead of the party risking its slim majority in the Colorado state senate on a recall election.

Hudak also gained the ire of gun owners and rape survivors when she told rape victim Amanda Collins, who was testifying before the Colorado state senate in support of concealed carry on campus, that a gun wouldn't have spared Collins from her ordeal and she most likely would've been disarmed and killed by her rapist.

Bloomberg's comments in the Rolling Stone article titled Michael Bloomberg Isn't Afraid of the NRA that briefly disappeared [Rolling Stone claimed the article wasn't due to be published until a few days later- NANESB!].

More damning is that the article comes a few days after Democrat governor John Hickenlooper- who signed the sweeping gun control bill into law last year- met with Colorado's sheriffs last month, claiming that his office was in no way influenced by Bloomberg's gun control campaign. Initially, 55 of Colorado's 64 county sheriffs sued the Hickenlooper administration on the grounds that the magazine limit was unconstitutional and other provisions in the state laws were unenforceable- however, that suit was thrown out in November 2013 after a judge ruled the sheriffs couldn't sue the state while in office. Still, the judge left an opening for the sheriffs who were term limited to file suit against the state individually upon entering their final term.

As for Bloomberg's comments, both governor Hickenlooper and US Sen Mark Udall sought to distance themselves from the former mayor's comments while their Republican opponents jumped on Bloomberg's comments to portray the incumbents as more in touch with wealthy billionaire New York liberals than Coloradans.

In addition to gun control, Bloomberg also sought to limit the size sodas that are available in New York restaurants, citing health and obesity concerns. However, last year a 4-judge panel at the appeals court lever deemed the restrictions on soda sales was unconstitutional and struck it down last year.

What Do Cattle, Porn Starlets, Toyota and Hot Sauce Have in Common?

They're all getting out of Dodge California and heading for greener pastures- in some cases, literally.

Beset by higher taxes, above-average unemployment and among the highest cost of living in the USA, it's no secret that Californians have been moving out of state annually by the hundreds of thousands in recent years. This should come as no surprise with recent scandals and corruption involving California's political class coupled with onerous, intrusive and often absurd regulations for businesses passed on the state, county and municipal level.

Sensing discontent among Californians and business owners, Texas governor Rick Perry rolled out the welcome mat for Golden Staters with a PR blitz, offering lower taxes and a lower cost of living than California as well as business incentives for those companies who set up shop in the Lone Star state.

Although incumbent California governor Jerry Brown crassly dismissed Perry's efforts as 'barely a fart', it appears as though the Lone Star State's lobbying has been producing results. At the end of April, Japanese automaker Toyota announced that they would be moving their North American headquarters from the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance to Plano, TX starting in 2016. The move by Toyota [NYSE: TM] is expected to consolidate 4,000 employees from marketing, manufacturing and corporate operations to the suburban Dallas facility. In 2003, Toyota broke ground on a plant near San Antonio that produces the Tundra and Tacoma pickup trucks.

On a smaller scale, Irwindale, CA-based Huy Fong foods- maker of the Sriracha hot sauce- has been locked in a legal battle with the city council after the council threatened to declare Huy Fong a nuisance and threatening them with fines or closure after receiving complaints from four households regarding the fumes resulting from processing chili peppers. Although Huy Fong CEO David Tran stated publicly that he has no immediate plans to relocate the Irwindale facility, the company welcomed a delegation of Texas lawmakers in May. A company spokesman said that relocation wouldn't be as straightforward for Huy Fong because local producers of Sriracha ingredients such as chilis and vinegar couldn't pull up and move to Texas with them. However, botanists working on behalf of Tran have begun examining the soil in parts Texas to see if it's conducive to growing the variety of chilis used in Sriracha sauce. There's also concern over variables in the Texas weather such as flooding, hurricanes, drought and hail as well as competing bids from within California and other states.

However, not all the businesses exiting California have decided to head to the Lone Star state. Once considered the hub of the adult entertainment industry, California's San Fernando Valley has been hit hard by the advent of online pornography. The number of permits to film in the San Fernando Valley plummeted after a law requiring adult film stars to wear a condom while performing went into effect late last year. The measure was a Los Angeles county ballot initiative that was approved by voters in 2012. In response to the measure, studios and actors shipped themselves a few hours up Interstate 15 to Las Vegas where the cost of doing business was lower than in California and there were no regulations to mandate the wearing of condoms. Industry insiders say that its much cheaper to rent out warehouses for filming or mansions or hotel suites to accommodate talent for the duration of a shoot.

Nor are all the Californians leaving the state two-legged. Thanks to an ongoing drought and the closure of a massive slaughterhouse in the Imperial Valley town of Brawley, ranchers in California have been selling off cattle to Texas, Nevada and Nebraska. According to Reuters research, at least 100,000 head of cattle have left California in 2014- including breeding stock that's going to slaughter. Higher feed and transportation costs have also put pressure on California ranchers, although ranchers elsewhere are facing similar problems.

Although defenders of the current business climate in California often cite the entertainment industry and Silicon Valley as being the state's economic backbone as well as the primary source of fundraising for the state's democrat party, Hollywood has been shipping jobs out of state due to increased production and filming costs within the state. Special effects firm Sony Pictures Imageworks announced at the end of May that their headquarters will be moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Canada for post production work. Over the last 20 years, the area around Vancouver, BC has been dubbed 'Hollywood North' as British Columbia offered studios tax credits for filming on location. Although the exchange between the US and Canadian dollar isn't as favorable as it was in the 1990s, a number of studios are still drawn there for post-production work and location filming [the area around Vancouver can pass for a number of other settings depending on the type of film or scene- NANESB!].

The state's Democrat-controlled legislature also recently passed a bill that would raise the state's minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2017 and is expected to be signed into law by governor Brown. While the bill raises entry-level wages, many employers will likely end up cutting their workforce and retailers or restaurants will close down locations or increase prices to make up for any increased operating costs.

More damning, none of these jobs or businesses will be coming back or are unlikely to be replaced by new enterprise. Although California sits on considerable oil reserves in the Monterrey Shale, wealthy environmentalists with considerable backing from the entertainment industry are seeking to ban the hydraulic facture drilling process that has been so effective in recovering shale oil and gas in Texas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, state and local lawmakers continue to busy themselves with legislation concerning transgender bathrooms for schoolchildren or banning plastic bags and simply assume that they can get whatever revenue they need from the next Silicon valley startup such as Facebook.

Maine Liberal Group Distributes Flyer Accusing Wheelchair-Bound State Representative of Having "No Spine" in Not "Standing Up" To Governor

A left-wing Portland, ME advocacy group has sent out a mailer accusing state representative Dale Crafts [R- Lisbon Falls] of having 'no spine' and failing to 'stand up' to Gov Paul LePage's 'bullying'. Crafts, who also serves on the Lisbon, ME town council, is confined to a wheelchair.

The Maine's People Alliance mailer, which is done up like a mock prescription pad (shown above) was mailed throughout Craft's district in Androscoggin County just north of Portland.

The left-wing advocacy group Maine's People Alliance took issue with Governor LePage's veto of Medicaid expansion last month. In his veto letter to the state legislature, LePage said:

“Maine has been down this road before, and we must learn from previous experience,” he wrote. “Medicaid spending grew by $1 billion in a decade, hospital bills were not being paid by the state, budgets were broken and thousands of elderly, and people with disabilities were forced to wait for critical services.

“For the sake of the truly needy and Maine taxpayers, we cannot go down this path again,”

Expansion of Medicaid for each state was considered a linchpin of 0bamacare. Under 0bamacare, the federal government would pay for any state that expanded Medicaid to anyone making less than 138% of the poverty level, but only through 2016.

State House minority leader Ken Fredette blasted the mailed and called for the MPA to publicly apologize. The communications director for Maine's People's Alliance said he has personally apologized to Rep Crafts via telephone but will continue to attack him over his support for LePage and opposition to proposed Medicaid expansion in Maine.

This would not be the first time in the 2014 election cycle that a liberal group has mocked a Republican with a disability. In January, undercover reported James O'Keefe videotaped Battleground Texas staff and supporters of Democrat gubernatorial candidate Wendy David mocking Texas attorney general Greg Abbot's disability
as well as forging signatures on resignation forms.

Oregon's 0bamacare Exchange Calls it Quits

The state-run 0bamacare insurance exchange in Oregon- Cover Oregon- that failed to enroll a single person through its online portal after state officials spent more than $130 million has called it quits. Instead, visitors to the Covered Oregon home page will be instructed to go to the Department of Health and Human Service's troubled healthcare.gov website.

State officials determined that additional fixes to the Cover Oregon homepage would cost an additional $78 million. The state of Oregon had initially paid software developer Oracle [NASDAQ- ORCL] to develop the Covered Oregon website while Covered Oregon paid another $3 million for TV, radio and internet marketing that played up Oregon's hipster image.

Cover Oregon received a month-long enrollment deadline extension because of multiple technical glitches in its system.

But fixing the existing system, Cover Oregon officials say, would have meant pouring another $78 million into the growing money pit. Switching to the federal system significantly reduces the cost to around $5 million.

It is still unclear how the state might be able to recoup its exchange funding -- if at all. Cover Oregon was partially financed by a 2.5 percent premium tax on insurers selling the exchange, Cover Oregon technology chief Alex Petit said Thursday.

Petit says he’ll meet with federal health officials early next week to iron out all of the financial details.

Oregon’s exchange, which was touted by the Obama administration in the beginning as a success story, quickly proved otherwise. It was widely seen as the worst of more than a dozen states that developed their own online health insurance marketplaces.

The federal Government Accountability Office has announced an investigation into Oregon's exchange, including looking at whether the federal government can reclaim grant money given to Cover Oregon if taxpayer funds were mismanaged.

While the Obama Administration did a touchdown dance earlier this month over the figure of 7.1 million enrolled in 0bamacare, the President's signature law has suffered a number of setbacks on both the federal level as well as states where 0bamacare received support from state and local officials. Towards the end of 2013, Colorado's state-run 0bamacare exchange failed to meet even half of it's worst-case scenario projections for enrollments. The state of Hawaii spent $120 million to create the Hawaii Health Connector website that only 4300 people enrolled in- averaging more than $28,000 per enrollee.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, embattled director Kathleen Sebelius submitted her resignation shortly after the administration began touting the 7.1 million enrollees number.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius Announces Resignation

Kathleen Sebelius, the former Kansas Governor who was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services by President Obama and in charge of the disastrous rollout of the healthcare.gov website, announced her resignation on Friday.

Sebelius entered the Cabinet in 2009, three months into Obama’s presidency, as a well-regarded former governor of conservative Kansas. She is leaving after months of intense criticism over the botched rollout last fall of the insurance marketplace.

During the firestorm, Obama made clear to his aides that he would not seek the resignation of his health secretary, and her departure is timed to brighter news for the White House as enrollment soared late last month.

Still, some White House allies said Thursday night that the troubled launch of HealthCare.gov had heightened tensions between Sebelius and the president’s staff members, who had become increasingly mistrustful of the department she led. Some Democrats, meanwhile, had argued privately that someone should be held accountable for the problems with the federal insurance exchange.

According to federal health officials, Sebelius approached Obama in early March and told him that, with the insurance enrollment period ending that month, the time had come for new leadership at HHS, the government’s largest domestic agency.

When the healthcare.gov website launched in late 2013, the White House said their enrollment goal was 7 million. After a problematic rollout of a website that only worked part of the time and was fraught with security problems, both the HHS and White House were mum about enrollment numbers for the last several months. According to some in the White House Press corps, the Administration became increasingly uncomfortable after Sebelius badly fumbled what was supposed to be a sympathetic interview on Comedy Central's The Daily Show in October.

This has also led to speculation that the White House was holding out for any semblance of good news to show Sebelius the door. That opportunity came earlier this month when after months of silence on the actual number of enrollees on the Obamacare website, President Obama held a press conference at the White House, claiming that exactly 7.1 million individuals enrolled through healthcare.gov- although they declined to break down how many of the enrollees had previously had insurance that was cancelled.

The top choice by the White House to replace Sebelius is reportedly OMB director Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who was reportedly responsible for directing the National Parks Service to shut down open-air war memorials during last year's government 'shutdown' (in which an estimated 17% of the federal government had actually shut down).

Blue State Graft Watch- California State Senator Who Authored Gun Control Laws Arrested on Charges of Weapons Trafficking, Ties to Organized Crime

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Blue State Graft Watch- Rhode Island Speaker of the House Resigns After Feds Raid Offices

Gordon Fox, a Rhode Island democrat who held the distinction of being the first openly gay speaker of the state house in the USA, abruptly announced that he was resigning from his role as speaker shortly after the FBI, IRS and Rhode Island State Police raided his home and office this week.

The joint effort by Rhode Island state troopers, and investigators from the FBI, the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s office, began in mid-morning, when troopers took up positions outside Fox’s office.

The troopers would not answer questions about why they had closed off access to the speaker’s State House office. They referred questions to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which provided no further details. Soon after, FBI and IRS agents arrived.


As to the nature of the documents the investigators took, Berman said: “Business-related. They looked like files, but I am not sure.” When asked if that included legal files, Berman noted that Fox has “a separate law office on Dorrance Street where he practices his law.”

“They weren’t asking, from what I understand, for legislative documents, which are all on line and available anyway,” Berman said.

While investigators searched Fox’s State House office, more than a dozen FBI and IRS investigators were searching his East Side home. (A Fox confidante said the investigators asked Fox to leave, but allowed his spouse, Marcus LaFond, to remain behind to look after Fox’s 91-year-old mother.)

The investigators emerged from the house shortly before 2 p.m. in single file, carrying boxes and navigating a gauntlet of media. As a few of the investigators in dark suits watched, others wearing windbreakers emblazoned with “Evidence Response Team” quickly loaded the boxes into a white unmarked truck parked across the street and drove off.

Although the US Attorney declined to specify the charges against Fox, the Providence Democrat has had prior legal and ethics violations. Earlier this year, Fox agreed to pay a $1500 fine after he failed to disclose $43,000 he made preparing loan documents for a local economic development agency. A decade prior, Fox was fined $10,000 for voting on a $770 million lottery deal that assured work would be steered towards his law firm at the time, according to the Providence Journal.

Fox's resignation abruptly triggered an internal struggle among Democrats in the Ocean State after then-house majority leader Nicholas Mattiello [D- Cranston] called for a closed-door caucus at the Providence Marriott as soon as Fox stepped down as speaker. However, a number of members of the House weren't even informed of the caucus until well after the fact. By Tuesday, Mattiello was voted in by colleagues as Rhode Island's latest Speaker of the House.

GOP Makes Gains in Florida, California Special Elections

In a race that was touted as the first electoral challenge to President Obama's signature healthcare law since it's been implemented, Democrat and former Florida gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink lost to Republican attorney David Jolly in a special election to fill the congressional seat in Florida's 13th Congressional district that was left vacant by the death of longtime GOP incumbent Bill Young.

Although 0bamacare wasn't the core issue in the Tampa, FL-area district, both Sink and Jolly made clear their respective stances on 0bamacare during their campaign. While acknowledging the flawed 0bamacare rollout and trouble-plagued healthcare.gov website, Sink stated that the Affordable Care Act was flawed and that she was favor of 'fixing' the law. Jolly, however, said he was in favor of a full repeal of the law if elected.

The race to replace the late Rep. Bill Young was considered a tossup, and was cast as a political bellwether, and a testing ground for each party's messaging strategy -- which revolves in part around the Affordable Care Act.

Jolly's election night headquarters in Clearwater Beach erupted into loud cheers as it became clear he was the winner. In his victory speech, Jolly simultaneously struck a conciliatory tone and expressed gratitude for his mentor, Young, and Young's family. Jolly was introduced by former "Price is Right" game show host Bob Barker, via video. Young's two adult sons were also onstage with Jolly, and he embraced them at the end of his speech.

Meanwhile, national Republican groups swiftly got to work casting Jolly's victory as a blow to ObamaCare and those who support it.

“Tonight, one of Nancy Pelosi’s most prized candidates was ultimately brought down because of her unwavering support for ObamaCare, and that should be a loud warning for other Democrats running coast to coast," said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. "Pinellas County voters have made the right choice; David will be a dedicated and thoughtful representative for them in Congress.”

The electoral victory comes despite Jolly trailing in early voting to Sink and Libertarian candidate Lucas Overbay getting nearly 5% of the vote. Although the Pinellas County congressional district was home to the longest-serving Republican in the House of Representatives, the district narrowly went to Obama in the 2012 Presidential election. With nearly 100% of the vote counted on Tuesday's special election, Jolly had 48.5% of the vote while Sink had 46.7%. Both parties had sent out

While pundits are cautioning against using the FL13 race as a bellweather for the 2014 midterms, this is the first chance either the Democrats or Republicans had to use Obamacare as an election issue in a competitive district since key provisions of the law went into effect.

Meanwhile in California, Republican Kevin Faulconer was sworn in as the mayor of San Diego. Faulconer, a former city councilman, garnered 43% of the vote in a special election in November 2013 to replace disgraced Democrat mayor Bob Filner. This set up a runoff between Faulconer and fellow city councilman, Democrat David Alvarez last month. Despite money coming in from big name donors, gains by Democrats in 2012 an endorsement from President Obama and campaigning across the border in Tijuana, Mexico by Alvarez, Alvarez lost to Faulconer by nearly 10 points in the runoff.

President Obama Orders Yet Another Delay in His Landmark Healthcare Law

So much for the Democrats running on 0bamacare in this year's midterm elections.

For the second time since November, President Obama has unilaterally ordered a delay in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act- his signature law that has been most often derisively referred to as 'Obamacare'. This latest delay is centered around the mandate for companies with between 50 and 99 employees, who reportedly won't have to be in compliance until early 2016.

A similar mandate for larger businesses had been delayed [once again, by Presidential decree- NANESB!] until January 2015. Critics point out that not only do both delays to the Affordable Care Act come after the 2014 midterm elections, but that President Obama changing the law whenever he feels like it is also- in all likelihood- illegal and constitutes a gross overreach of executive power.

In last month's State of the Union address, President Obama promised to go around the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and use 'the phone and pen' if he didn't get his way on a number of issues ranging from immigration to gun control and the federal minimum wage. The White House justified the most recent executive order by saying the delay would assist small and mid-sized businesses by giving them more time to fall into compliance with the 0bamacare employer mandates.

This most recent delay also reportedly comes with some strings attached for the affected businesses- namely signing an affidavit from the IRS that Obamacare would play no factor in any future layoffs or firings at that company.

Interestingly, some of the more watered down demands of the GOP during the October government shutdown included delays in part or all of the mandates attached to 0bamacare were rejected out of hand by President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

After repeatedly crowing that 0bamacare is the 'Law of the Land', the White House and vulnerable senate Democrats have been taking steps to make sure the full effects of their signature healthcare law is not felt during an election year.

More 0bamacare Good News! Democrats Spin CBO Report Estimating 2 Million People Will Lose Jobs as Freeing Americans From 'Job Lock'

According to a Congressional Budget Office report released this week, 0bamacare is set to push roughly 2 million Americans out of the workforce over the next three years as their hours are reduced or they leave the workplace altogether to qualify for subsidies offered by 0bamacare.

Although part of those numbers are attributed to job cuts, the vast majority represent workers who decide it makes more sense to stay home or work fewer hours, weighing the higher taxes they pay in the workforce versus their qualifications for benefits if they drop out.

“CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive,” the nonpartisan tax agency said in its economic outlook.

Although the White House and Congressional Democrats initially disputed the CBO's findings, many of them had revised their strategy shortly thereafter and claimed its actually a good thing that 0bamacare was providing Americans disincentive to work less or employers from hiring, citing the dreaded phenomenon of 'Job lock'.

Yes- that's the actual phrase House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi used.

“What we see is that people are leaving their jobs because they are no longer job-locked,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters after House votes Tuesday afternoon. “They are following their aspirations to be a writer; to be self-employed; to start a business. This is the entrepreneurial piece. So it’s not going to cost jobs. It’s going to shift how people make a living and reach their aspirations.”

Pelosi said she hadn’t “fully” seen the report, but, “this was one of the goals. To give people life, a healthy life, liberty to pursue their happiness. And that liberty is to not be job-locked, but to follow their passion.”

Using their line of reasoning, I guess I should actually be thanking the Democrats for freeing me from 'Job Lock' [not to mention 'paycheck lock'- NANESB!] for several months back in 2009. Come to think of it, maybe the Democrats can market the War on Coal as freeing most of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania from 'Job Lock'- assuming those jobs had something to do with mining or transporting coal.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this somewhere before: After Obama's promise to Americans of "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it" turned out to not only be untrue, but the 'Affordable Care Act' resulted in roughly 4.7 million cancellations of already-existing healthcare plans, the spin from Democrats and editorial boards at the New York Times and Washington Post was that those policies were 'junk' and the people who were previously happy with their 'junk' policies could shop around for another plan [often offering even less than the cancelled 'junk' policies for much more money- NANESB!] on the not-really-working healthcare.gov website.

Yet the Democrats and liberal pundits who somehow failed to go into detail on what made the millions of policies cancelled thanks to 0bamacare 'junk' are now opining what sort of jobs Americans find themselves 'locked' into- apparently involuntarily- when they could be spending that time with their family or pursuing a fulfilling career in interpretive dance [how exactly they still have a roof over their heads after being liberated from 'job lock' isn't really made clear- NANESB!].

Perhaps the most patronizing and insulting thing from the beltway pundits and liberal politicians who have most likely never worked a day of their life in the private sector is the assumption that Americans taking time off from work to be with family, switching jobs or quitting everything to pursue your dream job or start up your own business had never happened prior to the 2010 passage of 0bamacare. Even more dangerously, not only does the CBO report find this disincentivizes working full time but also tacitly promises success for those who strike out on their own thinking they have the Affordable Care Act to thank.

UPDATE 2/6- The Lonely Conservative points out that entrepreneurs 'liberated' from the drudgery of Job Lock could face an increase of as much as $20,000 for insurance if they cross the income level set out by 0bamacare guidelines (Calculated as roughly 400% of the Federal Poverty Level)

Greece in the Carribean- Puerto Rico Moves Closer to Defaulting on $70 Billion in Public Sector Debt

News out of Puerto Rico so disturbing that I thought I'd lead with a picture of basketball wife Evelyn Lozada at the 2012 Puerto Rico Day Parade in New York City to take the edge off.

Remember that whole 'Cyprus' or 'Greece' thing? Years of unsustainable public-sector spending coupled with lower than expected economic growth plunged both Mediterranean countries into economic chaos that threatened to trigger a domino effect throughout the Eurozone beginning in 2010.

The same factors that led up to the Greek and Cypriot economic crises have been at work in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and analysts say that the Caribbean island and US territory is moving towards a near certain default on more than $100 billion is public sector debt and unfunded pension liabilities.

A possible suspension on payment of the debt comes despite the progress Puerto Rico's Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla has made in raising taxes and reducing the territory's deficit.

Any such decision partly reflects legal complications arising under Puerto Rico's ambivalent status, which today makes a Chapter 9 filing for bankruptcy protection for local governments, such as the Detroit municipal filing last July, impossible. It also reflects the maths of a debt service burden that requires paying between $3.4 billion and $3.8 billion each year for the next four years. As doubts grow about the ability of the commonwealth to service that debt, the cost of doing so will inevitably rise.

"The numbers are untenable," said one restructuring adviser. "To issue new debt the yield would have to rise and where they can't raise new money they will have to stop paying."

If Puerto Rico is forced to take that step, the effects will ripple through the entire $4tn municipal bond market. Because the debt is generally triple tax free, in a world of zero interest rates demand is high and it is distributed widely, including in funds that imply they have no exposure to Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico cannot really raise taxes much more, since the debt per capita is more than $14,000, while income per capita is almost $17,000, a ratio at 83 percent—that makes California, Illinois or New York—each at 6 percent—models of prudence. Meanwhile, at 14 percent, the unemployment rate is twice the national average.

While Congress could theoretically intervene and create an insolvency regime for the island [similar, in theory, to Detroit's city emergency manager- NANESB!] the current partisan divide in Congress would lead to considerable wrangling with the GOP likely prioritizing the island needing to uphold their financial obligations to creditors versus the Democrats giving priority to the pensions of unionized public sector employees on the island.

Municipal and general obligation bonds from Puerto Rico have enjoyed what's called 'triple tax free' status [i.e. they're exempt from federal, state and local taxes- NANESB!] and have proven attractive to investors, but starting last year ratings agencies have cut much of the bonds' credit ratings to one notch above junk in light of recent developments.

Adding to the island's troubles is the considerable outmigration that began back in 2000- well before the 2008 global economic crisis. Some estimates say the net population loss since 2000 is in the neighborhood of 144,000- many of them younger people going to school or looking for work in the United States.

In what is perhaps the surest sign that US taxpayers will be on the hook for the ongoing situation on Puerto Rico, the White house stated that they were not considering a bailout of Puerto Rico on Wednesday.

Public opinion in Puerto Rico in recent decades has swung from full independence from the USA to status quo to support for becoming the 51st state.

New York Governor Cuomo- Conservatives Have "No Place in New York"

It's not surprising that Governor Andy Cuomo feels this way- it is a little surprising that Cuomo would be this brash and up-front about his disdain for some of his fellow New Yorkers in an election year.


In an interview with Syracuse PBS affiliate on Friday, Cuomo stated that conservatives have "no place in the state of New York, because that's not who New Yorkers are".

The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.

If they’re moderate Republicans like in the Senate right now, who control the Senate — moderate Republicans have a place in their state.

Shortly after the remarks were made public, Cuomo backtracked and his supporters claimed that his remarks were merely 'taken out of context', instead. Some supporters highlighted Cuomo's qualifier of 'extreme' and pointed out the Governor's praise of 'Moderate' Republicans who have more or less rubber-stamped some or all of Cuomo's agenda. Cuomo attempted to walk back his statements by saying that New Yorkers prefer moderate politicians of either party running for office only a few weeks after avowed socialist and Sandinista supporter Bill DeBlasio was sworn in as mayor of New York City.

By 'anti-gay', Cuomo is apparently referring to anybody who held similar views on same-sex marriage as Pope Francis or President Obama prior to his 2012 re-election campaign. Meanwhile, the NY SAFE Act, a hastily written and almost confiscatory gun law rushed through a closed-door session of the New York state assembly in the immediate aftermath of the December 2012 Newtown, CT school shootings has proven extremely unpopular upstate. Opponents point out the law does nothing to deter crime and makes criminals out of law-abiding citizens who own previously legal firearms while prompting manufacturers and businesses to move out of state because of the increased restrictions.

Another issue that has residents upstate irate at the son of Democratic former governor Mario Cuomo is fracking. New York's Southern Tier sits atop the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation- in fact, the formation is named after the village of Marcellus outside of Syracuse. However, while there has been drilling activity in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, Cuomo has dragged his feet on the issue since his 2010 election. Although drilling for natural gas could give the Empire State's economy a shot in the arm- particularly the economically hard-hit Southern Tier- hardline environmentalists and celebrity activists such as Yoko Ono or actor Mark Ruffalo seem to have the ear of Gov Cuomo's office, regaling his staff with liberally embellished horror stories of artificial earthquakes and tap water bursting into flames due to fracking. As the celebrities, environmentalists and wealthy Manhattan progressives do there utmost to ensure that no drilling takes place in New York, upstate counties atop the Marcellus Shale have unemployment rates of around 8%. To his credit, Cuomo floated a compromise where drilling would be confined mostly to the Southern Tier counties of Broome, Chemung, Tioga, Steuben and Chenango but that was quickly overruled by environmentalists. While the Governor and state officials have made no official decision on fracking, observers believe Cuomo and other Democrats are waiting for a more politically opportune time after the 2014 election to make an unpopular decision.

Meanwhile, as landowners in the Southern Tier have been hit with a double whammy of an economy that's been in decline since the 1970s and some of the highest property taxes in the USA, Governor Cuomo has been fundraising in Hollywood- for his re-election bid as governor of New York.

Between the push for same-sex marriage, gun control and abortion while obstructing a surefire means of reviving the Southern Tier's long suffering economy for political expediency, Cuomo's actions as governor have made it abundantly clear that he believes conservatives (or even moderates who disagree with him) have no place in New York. his statements in Friday's PBS interview simply made it official.

[Hat tip- Lonely Conservative; The Mental Recession

White House, Democrats Announce New 'Berate Your Family' Charm Offensive For the Holidays

If you're travelling to visit loved ones this Thanksgiving or Hanukkah, the Democrats and Obama Administration have made it clear that they would like you to incessantly pester your loved ones about the merits of 0bamacare (or gun control) in an attempt to sugarcoat the flailing 0bamacare rollout.

From Obama's own website which shockingly, actually works:

This holiday season, millions of Americans have a chance to get quality, affordable health insurance—many for the first time. If you have family members who are uninsured, you can play a big part in helping them find coverage that works for them. It might not always seem like it, but your family listens to you. So have the talk.

He's actually encouraging people to print up these lying points and to, I don't know, recite them at Thanksgiving dinner? This sort of flies in the face of his reassuring back-patting and confidence in you being your family's healthcare policy expert if you have to rely on pathetic propaganda you printed up. It's got pretty colors and paint-by-number instructions, so maybe this shit will fly over at the kids' table, but I wouldn't be so quick to try this in front of adults. Hungry and varying degrees of intoxicated adults who just want to watch football and be left alone.

If you can't catch the Chris Hayes "how to talk to conservatives about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner" special, don't worry, the same thing has already been printed in a number of newspapers and magazines across the country. From WaPo: A guide to surviving Obamacare debates at Thanksgiving.

That's the part of the health-care law that isn't working. But in some states that built their own insurance marketplaces, Obamacare is working--and the health law is meeting enrollment projections. California, for example, has signed up 80,000 people for coverage and Washington has enrolled nearly 12,000. These examples are limited, but the suggest that the problem isn't with demand but a technical one. We won't know whether this is true everywhere, though, until HealthCare.gov is fixed.

[What they neglect to mention is that an estimated 900,000 people in California have lost their individual health insurance policies under 0bamacare, so even if the 80,000 figure is accurate the ratio of those who lost their insurance plans still vastly outnumbers the enrolled under California's 0bamacare exchange- NANESB!]

Yeah, go with that.

Next up, Huffington Post, who is not even trying to hide what side of this debate they're on: Here's Every Argument You'll Need To Win Your Obamacare Debate This Thanksgiving.

We've all got a crazy uncle we love. He might not even technically be an uncle -- it's not something the family likes to get into -- but he's there at Thanksgiving every year just the same, getting heavy handed with the 1.5-liter wine bottle, insisting on calling the dog "bitch," starting with off-color jokes that made people uncomfortable even before the country "evolved" and finishing with a tea party-inspired screed about the Kenyan in the White House. We'll call him Uncle Hank.
...
Those plans were terrible anyway -- high deductibles, no hospital coverage, dropped you if you got sick, etc. It wasn't insurance if you actually needed it. Cite an example from a family member here who's gotten screwed by an insurer. Shouldn't be hard to find.

Your plan sucks Uncle Hank, you dumb slack-jawed hick. Get over it.

Slate jumps in as well. They're not content with just bringing up Obamacare, they actually want you to fight about it: How To Pick a Fight With Your Relatives This Thanksgiving

2) Getting Started. First off, you should wait until everyone's seated at the table before you try to get things started. That way you have a captive audience that has to watch the fireworks, and everyone is settled in for a nice long time. Getting the topic of conversation to politics shouldn't be too hard. Stick to short, sarcastic, tendentious remarks to get things going. "I'm thankful for all that free stuff Obama gave me." Once you've engaged the enemy, it won't take much effort to pivot to whatever particular subject you feel most comfortable with. A good Thanksgiving skirmish will scamper from topic to topic wildly and without warning, but it's best to begin by digging into one particularly contentious subject to get tempers flared.

"Get in their faces". I remember someone saying that once.

There are others out there, even in local papers like the Denver Post and the Pittsburgh Courier. I'm sure there will be more before Thursday. But what if you don't feel like talking about Obamacare, what with the steady, embarrassing and collapsing failure and all? Well don't you worry one bit, because there are other liberal causes you can awkwardly bring up as well! Michael Bloomberg wants you to start talking about gun control, for instance.

Lovely people, aren't they? And of course, all coincidental.

Perhaps completely unrelated, the White House had a closed-door meeting with select journalists from the Washington Post, MNSBC, the Huffington Post and Mother Jones last week, reportedly to coordinate damage control over the 0bamacare rollout. The media has also been attempting to find positive stories about the 0bamacare experience in the wake of last week's meetings.

Despite the happy talk by some media outlets, a number of state-run 0bamacare exchanges had only a fraction of the anticipated number of enrollees- in some cases falling well short of projected 'worst case scenario' numbers.

[Hat tip- Ace of Spades; Weasel Zippers]

Report: White House Knew As Far Back As 2010 That Millions Of Americans Would Lose Insurance Coverage Under 0bamacare

According to an NBC report on Monday, The Obama Administration knew that as many as 67% of Americans already insured would lose their coverage once 0bamacare was passed into law as far back as 2010. This runs contrary to President Obama's numerous promises of "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" while stumping for the passage of the law known as the Affordable Care Act in 2009.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

“This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80 percent of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a richer package of benefits than most policies today.

The NBC article drew an immediate and fierce reaction from senior White House staffers on social media.

FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans.
— Valerie Jarrett (@vj44) October 29, 2013

Curiously, the NBC story disappeared for awhile on Monday night before re-appearing at a different URL- at first with a key paragraph missing and then with the original content posted.

White House press secretary Jay Carney at first blamed the cancellation notices on 'routine turnover within the insurance industry' and Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner said it was the insurance industry that was to blame, not the Obama Administration. However, the insurance industry claims that the cancellation notices are being sent out because the current policies aren't in compliance with 0bamacare.

Elsewhere, Senator Mary Landrieu [D- LA] claimed that Democrats had only promised Americans could keep their insurance policies if it was "good insurance".

According to Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Democrats had only promised that Americans could keep their insurance if it was "good insurance."

"We said when we passed that, 'If you had insurance that was good insurance that you wanted to keep it, you could keep it,'" Landrieu said.

She declined to say if she would support a measure to let Americans keep the plans they had in 2013. "I haven't looked at it specifically," Landrieu said.

So first the White House and the Democrats denied that there was any widespread cancellations of insurance policies taking place, but when the reports of previously insured people receiving cancellations notices or being placed into newer, cost-prohibitive policies for the same level of coverage thanks to Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law became too numerous to ignore, the spin was that those policies millions of Americans were losing were crappy to begin with and that the insurance industry was to blame- all while making sure the individual mandate wasn't delayed during this month's government shutdown.
Other Democrat senators, including those up for re-election in red or swing states, declined to comment on the cancellations

Newark Mayor and NJ Senate Candidate Cory Booker Unloads Floundering Waywire Startup Ahead of Election

A video-sharing site affiliated with social-media savvy Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker was sold to cloud video provider Magnify.net just days before a special election in which Booker is running for the US Senate seat left vacant after the death of Democrat Senator Frank Lautenburg.

People familiar with the transaction say that Magnify, which helps websites manage, curate and distribute video, is buying Waywire primarily with equity.

It’s unlikely that the deal placed a high value on Waywire, which had previously raised $1.75 million

Booker announced that he would give the proceeds of his share of the sale to charity once the transaction was completed.

Waywire was started by Booker and former Yahoo [NASDAQ- YHOO] executive Sarah Ross in April of this year. The startup received a substantial cash infusion from Booker's wealthy supporters including Oprah Winfrey and Google [NASDAQ- GOOG] executive Eric Schmidt. Perplexingly, Booker stated a number of times that he "had YouTube in his sights", despite receiving startup money from the video platform's parent company, Google.

That wasn't the only thing about Booker's Waywire that was off- the 15 year old son of CNN President Jeff Zucker was on Waywire's payroll as an adviser before stepping down once new of his involvement was made public.

After somehow scoring a seat on the advisory board of the rising Democratic star’s Waywire video-sharing site, 15-year-old Andrew Zucker abruptly quit yesterday amid questions over his qualifications.

The rich kid’s consulting career as a “millennial adviser” ended just hours after it was revealed that he had been granted stock options in the firm co-founded by Booker, the Newark mayor who polls show is a shoo-in for the US Senate after a special election.
“Despite the fact that his affiliation with Waywire was extremely limited to only an advisory capacity, in order to avoid even the perception of a conflict, Jeff’s son has resigned from the Waywire advisory board, effective immediately,” CNN said in a statement.
News of Andrew’s stock deal lit up social media yesterday, with critics on Twitter branding it a “gross nepotism alert.”
Corporate-governance experts also called his hiring highly unusual, saying they’d never before heard of anyone so young getting such a cushy gig.

Advisory boards are usually stocked with “seasoned folks who have been through the process of making that kind of a start-up work, or enhancing the capacity of a company so it can move to an IPO [initial public offering] or the next level of business,” said Eleanor Bloxham, CEO of The Value Alliance. “So you’re not generally looking in the high-school age range.”

The funding from wealthy donors for a startup with a poorly defined purpose and appointing the teenage sons of network CEOs to lucrative positions has led to accusations that Booker was looking to enrich himself or sell access in anticipation of winning the Senate seat while former employees say that Booker and others in the company were simply looking to keep it afloat until after the election to stave off a potentially embarrassing and politically damaging bankruptcy.

Although Booker's poll numbers have been slipping before this month's special election, the Newark mayor still enjoys a sizeable lead over Republican challenger and former Bogota, NJ mayor Steve Lonegan.

Blue State Graft Watch: Former Detroit Mayor Kilpatrick Sentenced to 28 Years

Once billed as 'America's First Hip Hop Mayor', former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was clad in khakis and gave a brief statement to the court as he was sentenced to 28 years of federal prison on Thursday at Detroit's federal courthouse.

Kilpatrick, now 43, became Detroit's youngest mayor ever at age 32. Prosecutors say he used his position to generate enormous personal wealth for himself and those close to him, not to improve the city he claimed to love and grew up in.

While earning an annual salary ranging from $158,000 to $176,000, Kilpatrick used other means to enrich his bank account, federal prosecutors say.

He evaded taxes and spent $554,000 of funds raised by the Kwame Kilpatrick Civic Fund, which operated under the guise of a nonprofit, on campaigns, rental cars, summer camps for his children, debugging equipment, birthday parties, gifts to relatives, travel and a crisis manager after the text message scandal broke.

Prosecutors tabulated $64,000 spent on suits.

"In all, while he was mayor, he spent $540,000 in cash," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Chutkow said during the opening statement of the trial. "This was over and above his salary, his payroll check, and it was not disclosed on his tax returns.

"And this was just a minimal, just the amount that these investigators here were able to readily trace."

Before Kilpatrick resigned in 2008, prosecutors presented evidence and testimony showing that Ferguson recruited Mahlon Cliftan, one of Kilpatrick's "best friends" who stood up in his wedding, to deliver him $90,000 dollars.

Cliftan taped the cash to his abdomen, flew to Chicago and hid the cash in the bag of a vacuum cleaner before delivering it to Kilpatrick and his wife in two installments.

Kilpatrick's former fundraiser, Emma Belle, who said she'd known Kilpatrick since he was a boy and regarded him as a son, earned over $900,000 in commissions collecting donations for Kilpatrick's nonprofit, although about half she kicked back to the mayor, she testified.

Kilpatrick's co-defendant and friend Bobby Ferguson is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday. While in office, Ferguson colluded with Kilpatrick and friends to steer millions of dollars worth of lucrative city public works contracts to Ferguson.

From Day 1, Kilpatrick's tenure as mayor was fraught with official misconduct and corruption. Within a year of Kilpatrick's 2002 swearing-in, reports circulated of Kilpatrick's wife interrupting a wild party with strippers and drugs at the mayor's official residence. On April 2013, one of the strippers who reportedly performed at the mansion was shot and killed in her vehicle with a .40 cal Glock- the same type of gun used by the Detroit Police as their sidearm at the time.

Around the same time, Kilpatrick was carrying on an illicit affair with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty and the two were texting on city-issued phones. By 2008, the Detroit Free Press had obtained nearly 14,000 text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty. In addition to the extramarital affair, the texts also indicated that Kilpatrick was using city funds to arrange getaways with Beatty and the two had colluded to fire then police chief Gary Brown.

Kilpatrick has also been accused of diverting state grant money to his wife and lost a 2007 civil suit filed by Brown and one of the mayor's former bodyguards. The mayor's office initially dragged his feet on paying the $8.4 settlement but quickly changed his tune when the attorney for the policemen had discovered that Kilpatrick and Beatty perjured themselves. The mayor and attorneys for the city then hastily struck a 'secret' deal in which the sacked police chief and bodyguard would lose up to 33% of their settlement if they ever divulged the secret text messages or the deal itself. Ultimately the Free Press ended up publishing the contents of the incriminating texts.

Earlier this year, Kilpatrick was found guilty on 24 out of 30 federal charges of bribery, racketeering and corruption.