Monday, October 31, 2016
The Smartest Women Ever ( In charge of our national security for Foreign Affairs) and Her Genius Campaign Manager fall for the Hacker Chump 101 move
Hackers apparently fooled Clinton official with bogus email
WASHINGTON (AP) - New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia's government and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final weeks before the U.S. presidential election.
The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta’s personal Gmail password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should "change your password immediately."
Podesta's chief of staff, Sara Latham, forwarded the email to the operations help desk of Clinton's campaign, where staffer Charles Delavan in Brooklyn, New York, wrote back 25 minutes later: "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately.”
But the email was not authentic.
The link to the website where Podesta was encouraged to change his Gmail password actually directed him instead to a computer in the Netherlands with a web address associated with Tokelau, a territory of New Zealand located in the South Pacific. The hackers carefully disguised the link using a service that shortens lengthy online addresses. But even for anyone checking more diligently, the address - “google.com-securitysettingpage" - was crafted to appear genuine.
In the email, the hackers even provided an internet address of the purported Ukrainian hacker that actually traced to a mobile communications provider in Ukraine. It was also notable that the hackers struck Podesta on a weekend morning, when organizations typically have fewer resources to investigate and respond to reports of such problems. Delavan, the campaign help-desk staffer, did not respond immediately to The Associated Press’ questions about his actions that day.
It is not immediately clear how Podesta responded to the threat, but five months later hackers successfully downloaded tens of thousands of emails from Podesta's accounts that have now been posted online. The Clinton campaign declined to discuss the incident. Pedestal has previously confirmed his emails were hacked and said the FBI was investigating.
The suspicious email was among more than 1,400 messages published by WikiLeaks on Friday that had been hacked from Podesta's account.
It was not known whether the hackers deliberately left behind the evidence of their attempted break-in for WikiLeaks to reveal, but the tools they were using seven months ago still indicate they were personally targeting Podesta: Late Friday, the computer in the Netherlands that had been used in the hacking attempt featured a copy of Podesta's biographical page from Wikipedia.
The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department have formally accused Russian state-sponsored hackers for the recent string of cyberattacks intended to influence the presidential election.
The help-desk staffer, Delevan, emailed to Podesta's chief of staff a separate, authentic link to reset Podesta's Gmail password and encouraged Podesta to turn on two-factor authentication. That feature protects an account by requiring a second code that is separately sent to a cell phone or alternate email address before a user can log in. “It is absolutely imperative that this is done ASAP," Delevan said.
Tod Beardsley, a security research manager at the Boston-based cybersecurity firm Rapid7, said the fact that an IT person deemed the suspicious email to be legitimate “pretty much guarantees the user who is not an IT person is going to click on it."
Other emails previously released by WikiLeaks have included messages containing the password for Podesta's iPhone and iPad accounts.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.
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Follow Tami Abdollah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/latams and Michael Biesecker at https://twitter.com/mbieseck.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Two FBI Criminal Investigations Against The Clinton Crime Syndicate Opens Path for Trump Presidency
TRUMP IS RIGHT ABOUT THE CREATION OF ISIS
Polls Will Return to Accuracy as Trump Surges and Crooked Pollsters Cover Their Ass
British polling experts who didn’t see Brexit coming on why the US should be prepared for a similar upset
Don't get too confident yet. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
While the latest twist in Hillary Clinton’s email controversy may have shaken her support base, Democratic voters have been feeling rather confident of late. But lessons from the other side of the pond suggest that polls are no reason for complacency. Pollsters in the UK who were surprised by the outcomes of the 2015 General Election and Brexit referendum say the same issues could distort predictions in the US presidential election.
First, a recap of what went wrong in the UK. Britain choosing to leave the European Union sent shockwaves around the world. Betting markets, politicians, and pundits were confident that Remain would win. Though the race was narrow and polling analysts collectively suggested it was too close to call, four of the six surveys released the day before the vote showed a win for Remain. But when the results came in, the Leave vote tipped ahead.
The results were enough of a surprise that British Polling Council (BPC) president John Curtice is holding a conference in December to investigate how and why the polls went wrong. And the misreading was all the more striking following on from the UK’s May 2015 General Election, where the polls were wildly off and an inquiry into the inaccuracies found “systemic” errors in survey methods.
Could the polls be wrong in the US? Clinton’s lead has narrowed to just 4.4%, while 15% of voters are currently undecided (compared to 5% at this stage in 2012.) A surprise Trump win looks unlikely, but it’s certainly not impossible.
Shy voters?
Republican nominee Donald Trump recently suggested that many of his fans are keeping their support secret, so the polls aren’t an accurate reflection of his chances. The notion of “shy voters” was first described by the 20th century German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who argued that voters who thought their choice was unpopular would be more likely to fall into a “spiral of silence” and keep quiet about their voting choice. “If you perceive that a particular voting choice is unfashionable, perhaps socially unacceptable, you may be reluctant to declare your views,” says Curtice.
Jonathan Mellon, sociology research fellow at Oxford University with a focus on polling data, says there’s some evidence that Republicans are less likely to respond to pollsters after a bad news day for their party, which fits in with “spiral of silence” theory. But, in fact, “shy voters” were not a significant source of error in the 2015 General Election or Referendum vote. In general, Trump voters seem proud of their candidate, and there’s no significant evidence that there are hordes of secret Trump fans keeping quiet.
An election unlike any other
But there are bigger potential sources of error at play. BPC president Curtice explains that in order to get a representative sample, pollsters must rely on knowledge from past elections about how much each demographic tends to vote. This was the key to errors in polling for the 2015 UK General Election, which ultimately overestimated the number of young people who would cast their vote, and was also a likely source of misunderstanding in predicting the Brexit vote.
“The question of whether different people may turn out to vote is a much trickier issue and one that has affected polls in a lot of countries in the past,” says Mellon. “If that question becomes miscalibrated, then that can certainly affect the results because you’re systematically excluding people at a higher rate than you should within certain groups, or you’re under-excluding them.”
The current US election is quite different from those in previous years, given the polarizing effect of both Clinton and Trump, and Trump’s disconnect from his own party. So there’s potential for pollsters to misjudge how each demographic is likely to vote.
“We’re talking about an election where the demographics of the vote is somewhat different from what you’d normally expect at a Democratic-Republican contest,” explains Curtice. “Given that the demographics of the Trump campaign has some similarities with the demographics of the Leave campaign, that’s a more interesting question [than “shy voters”]. Will it be the case that older white working class voters will come out in higher numbers than the polls anticipate because these folk are energized by Trump?” Meanwhile, “the Democrats are getting the suburban, white, college-educated vote who you’d normally expect to lead towards the Republicans on average.”
Low turnout and loyal Republicans
There’s also the question of how traditional Republican supporters are likely to vote. In general, most voters tend to stick with the same party. “The thing above all that best predicts how you’ll vote in the next election is how you voted in the last one,” says Curtice.
Michael Hanmer, politics professor at the University of Maryland says it will be “interesting” to see how Republicans behave in this election. He notes that 90% of those who strongly identify as Democrat say they’ll vote for Clinton, compared to just 80% of those who strongly identify as Republican and currently say they’ll vote for Trump.
“I think those who say they’re undecided now are genuinely conflicted,” he says. But when it comes to Election Day, they may skip the vote, go for a third party, or, “when they’re staring at the ballot, select the Republican ticket.”
It’s also extremely difficult to judge the level of turnout. Hanmer expects many Americans to stay at home—some because they dislike the candidates; others because they have a false sense of complacency from the polls. “It’s a tough situation to predict,” he adds. Most polls are predicting results based on “likely voters”, but “we don’t have a single agreed-upon definition of what that is in political science or among the media,” he says. Hanmer adds:
“Trying to get your head around who’s going to show up is particularly challenging this time. Voter models, like all models, are imperfect in the most predictable circumstances and this is probably one of the least predictable elections we’ve seen.”
Nobody knows what will happen
US polls do have more diverse methodology than those in the UK, and it’s unlikely that the pollsters will be drastically wrong. “Even if you’re really skeptical about the polls, at best Trump is hanging in there by his fingernails,” says Curtice. Yet all the polling experts I spoke to strongly warned against certainty.
Polls are “a reasonable best guess of what will happen,” says Mellon. It would take a “convergence of several forces of bad luck” for them to be wildly wrong, but an inaccurate prediction is certainly possible. After all, the candidates in this election are quite unlike those in previous years. “Because there are so many possible issues,” he says, “if they all converge in the same direction on Election Day, it could be enough to push it over.”
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Which of the Clintons is Most Sleazy, Most Morally Deficient or Most Unethical?
Establishment Panic
It’s a Dead Heat Tie: Double-Wide Trailer-Trash Would Be a Step Up
UPDATE: HILLARY CLINTON IN 2006 ON RIGGING THE PALESTINIAN ELECTION
Bad to the Bone: A Vote to Anyone but Trump is a Vote for The Clinton Criminal Enterprise
The Cold Clinton Reality
Why isn’t the IRS investigating the Clinton Foundation?
Main Street Columnist Bill McGurn on how the former president used his foundation as a vehicle for personal enrichment. Photo credit: Zuma Press.
Hillary and Bill Clinton are asking for a third term in the White House, and voters who want to know what this portends should examine the 12-page memo written by a Clinton insider that was hacked and published Wednesday by WikiLeaks. This is the cold, hard reality of the Clinton political-business model.
Longtime Clinton aide Doug Band wrote the memo in 2011 to justify himself to lawyers at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett who were reviewing his role and conducting a governance review of the Clinton Foundation at the insistence of Chelsea Clinton.In an email two weeks earlier, also published on WikiLeaks, Ms. Clinton said her father had been told that Mr. Band’s firm Teneo was “hustling” business at the Clinton Global Initiative, a regular gathering of the wealthy and powerful that is ostensibly about charitable activity.
Poor innocent Chelsea. Bill and Hillary must never have told her what business they’re in. If she had known, she would never have hired a blue-chip law firm to sweep through the hallways of the Clinton Foundation searching for conflicts of interest. Instead of questioning Mr. Band’s compensation, she would have pleaded with him never to reveal the particulars of his job in writing.
But she didn’t, and so Mr. Band went ahead and described the “unorthodox nature” of his work while emphasizing his determination to help “protect the 501(c)3 status of the Foundation.” That’s the part of the tax code that has allowed the Clinton Foundation to remain tax-exempt on the premise that it is dedicated to serving humanity.
Mr. Band graciously copied John Podesta, then adviser to the board, who would eventually become Hillary’s campaign chief. His helpful reply was to suggest that Mr. Band “strip the defensive stuff out” and later “go through the details and how they have helped WJC” [ William Jefferson Clinton].
The Band memo reveals exactly what critics of the Clintons have long said: They make little distinction between the private and public aspects of their lives, between the pursuit of personal enrichment, the operation of a nonprofit, and participation in U.S. politics.
Mr. Band writes that he and his colleague Justin Cooper “have, for the past ten years, served as the primary contact and point of management for President Clinton’s activities—which span from political activity (e.g., campaigning on behalf of candidates for elected office), to business activity (e.g., providing advisory services to business entities with which he has a consulting arrangement), to Foundation activity.”
This excerpt and all the potential conflicts it describes, plus Chelsea’s warning about business “hustling” at foundation events, would seem more than ample cause to trigger an IRS audit of the foundation. For that matter, why aren’t the IRS and prosecutors already on the case? Any normal foundation has to keep records to show it is separating its nonprofit activity from any for-profit business.
Mr. Band’s memo confirms that donors were not seeking merely to help the sick and the poor. He explains that the Clinton Foundation had “engaged an array of fundraising consultants” over the past decade but “these engagements have not resulted in significant new dollars for the Foundation.” In other words, it wasn’t working as a conventional charity.
Mr. Band then explains how he and his Teneo partner Declan Kelly had to carry the fundraising load, and did so by packaging foundation solicitations with other services such as a meeting with Bill Clinton, $450,000 speeches or strategic advice. Many of the donations, from U.S. companies like Coca-Cola and Dow Chemical and foreign firms like UBS and Barclays, occurred while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
Why exactly were donors writing checks? The Band memo makes clear that donations untied to additional Clinton or Teneo services weren’t all that appealing to potential supporters. This is significant, because the large grant-making foundations in the U.S. are almost entirely run by Clinton voters. So you know they weren’t turned off by the brand name. They’d contribute more if they thought they were also buying goodwill and influence with a current Secretary of State and a potential future President.
***
We don’t applaud WikiLeaks or the theft of information, and these hacks deserve a firm U.S. government response. But the emails are public and they will confirm for many Americans their worst suspicions about the people who run their government.
It’s also worth noting that in the vast digital trove of Mr. Podesta’s stolen emails we haven’t noticed emails from Mrs. Clinton. Perhaps they don’t exist. But American voters shouldn’t worry merely about the emails released before the election. What emails or memos exist that these hackers, Russian or not, could be withholding for leverage after the election with another President Clinton?
The Clinton campaign has suggested that Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putinbecause the Russian has something on the Republican. The question is what do any number of possible bad actors know about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s mixing of business, charity and politics?
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Wikileaks 20: $50 million to Bill Clinton - 3 FBI Field Offices Wanted to Investigate Criminal Conflict of Interest Between US Dept of State and The Clinton Foundation - Guess Who Stopped It?
ANSWER: The so-called US Department of Justice
FBI officials wanted to investigate whether there was a criminal conflict of interest with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton’s tenure. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politic...
FBI officials wanted to investigate whether there was a criminal conflict of interest with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton’s tenure. http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/politic...
(CNN) Officials from the FBI and Department of Justice met several months ago to discuss opening a public corruption case into the Clinton Foundation, according to a US official.
At the time, three field offices were in agreement an investigation should be launched after the FBI received notification from a bank of suspicious activity from a foreigner who had donated to the Clinton Foundation, according to the official.
FBI officials wanted to investigate whether there was a criminal conflict of interest with the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton's tenure. The Department of Justice had looked into allegations surrounding the foundation a year earlier after the release of the controversial book "Clinton Cash," but found them to be unsubstantiated and there was insufficient evidence to open a case.
As a result, DOJ officials pushed back against opening a case during the meeting earlier this year. Some also expressed concern the request seemed more political than substantive, especially given the timing of it coinciding with the investigation into the private email server and Clinton's presidential campaign.
The FBI's investigation into Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and his tie to a Clinton Foundation donor was also raised during the meeting. DOJ said that probe could continue but declined to open a case on the foundation.
Representatives from the Clinton Foundation, FBI and DOJ declined to comment.
The Clinton Foundation is under increased scrutiny this week. Newly released emails from Clinton's tenure as secretary of state raised questions about the nature of the department's relationship with the Clinton Foundation.
A CNN investigation found that Clinton aide Cheryl Mills was involved in the Clinton Foudnation while she was also employed as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State. On a trip to New York in 2012, Mills interviewed two executives for a top position at the Clinton foundation. The State Department said she was on personal time. Mills' attorney says she was, doing "volunteer work for a charitable foundation. She was not paid."
The Clinton campaign issued a statement, "It was crystal clear to all involved that this had nothing to do with her official duties. The idea that this poses a conflict of interest is absurd."
In a hearing last month on Capitol Hill, FBI Director James Comey declined to say whether the Clinton Foundation was under investigation, saying "I'm not going to comment on the existence or non-existence of any investigation."
For there to be criminal conflict of interest, there would have to be evidence showing a government employee received something of value in exchange, such as a job post-employment or money.
There doesn't appear to be anything so far suggesting that in the newly released heavily redacted emails from Judicial Watch, but those emails do raise questions about whether the relationship between the State Department and Clinton Foundation was too cozy, particularly after Clinton pledged she would not be involved with the foundation when she became secretary of state in an effort to prevent an inappropriate relationship.
In a case where there's a possible conflict of interest that's not necessarily criminal, the inspector general can look into it and take an administrative remedy if necessary. The State Department OIG has been looking into connections between the State Department and Clinton during her term as Secretary of State since earlier this year, but has not said anything about the matter.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Not Voting for Christ on a Harley
Why I Now Feel Compelled To Vote For Trump
Last time a Clinton was on the ballot, I voted for Ross Perot. My vote didn’t deny Bob Dole the White House, but I confess I felt a smug sense of satisfaction in “refusing to settle.” I sure showed them, didn’t I?
I haven’t been as vocal as other “Never Trump” writers, but neither have I hidden my dislike or tempered my criticism. In a field of 17 Republican candidates, Donald Trump wouldn’t have been my 18th choice. I’m still not a fan. But they didn’t just ask me; they asked everyone. And more of everyone chose Donald Trump.
I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. For countless reasons I’ve covered over the last year, I dug in my heels and proudly basked in my self-satisfaction. I still defended Trump in this column and on social media when he was wrongly attacked by the left and the media, but I was steadfast in my opposition to the man.
So what changed?
Not Trump. He still gives rambling speeches with little focus and spends far too much time defending himself against insignificant slights when he should be focusing on policy (though his ethics reform proposal is excellent and will irritate all the people in Washington who need to be irritated).
Hillary hasn’t changed either. At least not in who she is – a corrupt, self-serving liar willing to do or say anything to win and/or sell out to the highest bidder. There isn’t enough Saudi Arabian money in the Clinton Foundation to get me to vote for someone who got rich off “public service” and a “commitment to helping the poor.”
No, what’s changed is me. Not through introspection and reflection, but through watching the sickening display of activism perpetrated by a covert army with press credentials.
Bias has always been a factor in journalism. It’s nearly impossible to remove. Humans have their thoughts, and keeping them out of your work is difficult. But 2016 saw the remaining veneer of credibility, thin as it was, stripped away and set on fire.
More than anything, I can’t sit idly by and allow these perpetrators of fraud to celebrate and leak tears of joy like they did when they helped elect Barack Obama in 2008. I have to know I weighed in not only in writing but in the voting booth.
The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won’t do it, it’s something. Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don’t want me to, and I believe I must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
I am not of the mindset that any vote not for Trump is a vote for Hillary, but a vote for Trump is a vote against Hillary. And I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.
After the last debate, when no outlet “fact checked” Hillary’s lie that her opposition to the Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn’t lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn’t hold out any longer.
A Trump administration at least will include people I trust in positions that matter. I don’t know if they will be able to hold him completely in check, but I know a Clinton administration will include people who have been her co-conspirators in corruption, and there won’t even be a media to hold her accountable.
The Wikileaks emails have exposed an arrogant cabal of misery profiteers who hold everyone, even their fellow travelers deemed not pure enough, in contempt. These bigots who’ve made their fortune from government service should be kept as far away from the levers of power as the car keys should be kept from anyone named Kennedy on a Friday night. My one vote against it will not be enough, but it’s all I can do and I have to do all I can do.
I won’t stop being critical of Trump when he deserves it; I won’t pretend someone is handing out flowers when they’re shoveling BS. But I’d rather have BS shoveled out of a president than our tax dollars shoveled to a president’s friends and political allies.
The Project Vertias videos exposed a corrupt political machine journalists would have been proud to expose in the past. The Wikileaks emails pulled back the curtain on why that didn’t happen – journalists are in on it. I can’t pretend otherwise, and I have no choice but to oppose it.
This isn’t a call to arms for “Never Trumpers” to follow suit; this is a choice I had to make for myself after much reflection. I wouldn’t presume to tell others how to act any more than I would accept the same from someone else. I would encourage them to consider what awaits the country should Hillary win. If they can’t vote against her by voting for him, at least spend these last two weeks of the election directing their ire toward Clinton.
Although most are principled, far too many “Never Trump” conservatives spend more of their time attacking him than pointing out her corruption. I get it – in him, you see the fight you’ve been a part of being betrayed, and that leaves a mark.
I’m not saying you should support him, but you shouldn’t lose sight of the importance of opposing her. If, or when, Hillary Clinton takes the oath of office, she needs to have as little support as possible. Frankly, she needs to be damaged. The mainstream media won’t do it; they’re in on it.
This is my choice, what I must do. Each person has to come to this decision on their own terms. And the fact remains there simply aren’t enough “Never Trump” Republicans to make up Trump’s current deficit, and that’s on him. But I know what I’ve been wrestling with these past few weeks is not unique to me. And I don’t know about you, but I simply cannot sit around knowing there was something else I could have done to oppose Hillary Clinton and I didn’t do it.
A simple protest vote for a third party or a write-in of my favorite comic book character might feel good for a moment. It might even give me a sense of moral superiority that lasts until her first executive order damaging something I hold dear – or her first Supreme Court nominee. But the sting that will follow will far outlive that temporary satisfaction.
I oppose much of what Donald Trump has said, but I oppose everything Hillary Clinton has done and wants to do. And what someone says, no matter how objectionable, is less important than what someone does, especially when it’s so objectionable. A personal moral victory won’t suffice when the stakes are so high. As such, I am compelled to vote against Hillary by voting for the only candidate with any chance whatsoever of beating her – Donald Trump.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Fighting for What is Theirs
Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon Join Protest Against the North Dakota Pipeline
“It’s a problem in terms of social justice,” Sarandon told a Los Angeles rally.
Hundreds of people gathered in Los Angeles on Sunday to protest against climate change and show support for activists demonstrating against the construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota.
Several Hollywood stars, including Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon, were among the more than 800 people who attended the climate rally in MacArthur Park. Rallygoers carried signs urging to “shut it all down now” and chanted slogans like “water is life.”
“Not only is it an environmental, but it’s a problem in terms of social justice,” Sarandon told the rally. “We can do it. We can stop fracking. We can stop the pipeline. But really it’s only because of great numbers of people.”
Also among celebrity attendees was actress Shailene Woodley, who earlier this month was arrested in North Dakota while protesting the planned pipeline in an incident that was live-streamed on Facebook.
In North Dakota, more than 80 protesters were arrested on Saturday after clashing with police near a pipeline construction site, according to the local sheriff’s department, which pepper sprayed demonstrators.
For more on environmental change, watch Fortune’s video:
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and environmental activists have been protesting construction of the 1,100-mile (1,886-km) pipeline in North Dakota for several months, saying it threatens the water supply and sacred sites.
The pipeline, being built by a group of companies led by Energy Transfer Partners LP, would be the first to bring Bakken shale from North Dakota directly to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Supporters say the pipeline would provide a safer and more cost-effective way to transport Bakken shale to the U.S. Gulf than by road or rail.
There were no reports of arrests at the Los Angeles rally, where demonstrators assembled into the evening decrying climate change, hydraulic fracturing and oil pipelines as a threat to the safety of future generations.
“I’d rather walk miles today to protest the building of the pipeline than have my children walk miles to get clean water in the future,” 22-year-old college student Steffany Urrea said.
Obama and Clinton, Getting Nothing Right
Obamacare Premiums for 2017 Jumped 25% on Healthcare.gov
That’s the average rise for benchmark Obamacare insurance plans.
The average premium for benchmark 2017 Obamacare insurance plans sold on Healthcare.gov rose 25% compared with 2016, the U.S. government said on Monday, the biggest increase since the insurance first went on sale in 2013 for the following year.
The average monthly premium for the benchmark plan is rising to $302 from $242 in 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services said. The agency attributed the large increase to insurers adjusting their premiums to reflect two years of cost data that became available.
The government provides income-based subsidies to about 85% of people enrolled, and those credits will increase with the higher premiums. It said 72% of consumers on HealthCare.gov will find plans with a premium of less than $75 per month.
Large national insurers including Aetna AET 0.69% , UnitedHealth Group, and Anthem ANTM 0.80% have said they are losing money on the exchanges, created under President Barack Obama’s national healthcare reform law, because patient costs are higher than anticipated and enrollment is lower than forecast. Both UnitedHealth UNH -0.47% and Aetna have pulled out of the exchanges for 2017.
As a result, consumers will have fewer plans to choose from. In 2017, in five states there will be offerings from only one insurance company. The government expects average monthly 2017 enrollment of 11.4 million people, up about 1 million from 2016.
Obama acknowledged last week that the law is not working perfectly but said the problems could be fixed if lawmakers created a government-run health insurance option that would help U.S. states where there is little or no competition.
Premium increases have become fodder for the presidential race, as Republican candidate Donald Trump calls for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act if he is elected and Democrat Hillary Clinton calls for expanding it.
The news “shows why the entire program must be repealed and replaced …. Mr. Trump knows the only way to fix our nation’s failing health care system is complete and total reform,” said Trump communications adviser Jason Miller.
The government agency said the 2017 premium increase comes after two years of very low increases in the marketplace for the second-lowest cost “silver” plan, the benchmark plan used to calculate cost-sharing subsidies.
Average premiums for the silver plan increased 2% in 2015 and were up 7% in 2016, the agency said.
The figure reflects premiums on Healthcare.gov, the federally run website that sells plans for about two-thirds of the states. Including four states and the District of Columbia, which run their own insurance marketplaces, and those that have reported data, the average premium rose 22%, the agency said.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Hillary Clinton Criminality & Security Breach Is Far Greater Than Has Been Revealed - Wikileaks 16
"WE NEED TO WIN THIS MOTHERFUCKER”
HAITIANS FOR CLINTON (JAILED)
HAITIANS FOR CLINTON (JAILED)
The Rigged Fixed US Election Process: Brent Budowsky Outed on Wikileaks
Title: WIKILEAKS - WARNING TO HILLARY CLINTON [by Brent Budowski]
Source: WIKILEAKS
URL Source: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6900
Published: Oct 22, 2016
Author: Brent Budowski
Post Date: 2016-10-22 17:54:51 by nolu chan
Ping List: *WIKILEAKS* Subscribe to *WIKILEAKS*
Keywords: None
Views: 90
Comments: 3
Source: WIKILEAKS
URL Source: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6900
Published: Oct 22, 2016
Author: Brent Budowski
Post Date: 2016-10-22 17:54:51 by nolu chan
Ping List: *WIKILEAKS* Subscribe to *WIKILEAKS*
Keywords: None
Views: 90
Comments: 3
WIKILEAKS - WARNING TO HILLARY CLINTON [by Brent Budowski]
Warning to Hillary Clinton
From:brentbbi@webtv.net
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2015-03-21 10:48
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2015-03-21 10:48
Subject: Warning to Hillary Clinton
It was not uplifting to learn in recent hours that problems with foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation continue, Hillary Clinton was still making paid speeches for hire this week, and Tony Rodham is hustling gold mining deals in Haiti.
From the minute the email story broke I have been out there publicly and unequivocally supporting Hillary Clinton in multiple ways in multiple media unlike many Democrats and unlike most in the media.
My mama taught me long ago that when I am seriously angry I should count to ten and choose my words carefully. In that spirit here is my toned down advice which I seriously doubt the Clintons are hearing from those close to them, and if they are hearing it, they are not understanding it.
If there is one thing that could well bring down a Hillary Clinton candidacy it is this cycle of money issues about which I am now feeling red alerts, loud bells, warning signals, and red flags and I am now seriously pissed off that there is a real chance that her candidacy and the Democratic Party could be destroyed by these self-created dangers that continue to proliferate the closer she gets to presumably announcing her candidacy.
If she is not hearing this from others, please feel free to forward this to her, I will play the bad guy here because I do not want her money and because she needs to hear this from her friends and she will sure as hell be attacked for this by her enemies, and it will be megaphoned throughout the media, and foreign donations and paid speeches and hustling gold mining deals by her brother are entirely legitimate issues that are self-created, and must self-corrected before it is too late....and I do not believe the Clintons fully understand the magnitude and immediacy of the danger in the current political and media climate.....Brent
Sent from my iPad Subscribe to *WIKILEAKS*
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
Get it on Bitch...Go for Broke!
AN ESTABLISHMENT IN PANIC
Pat Buchanan: Ruling class fears the people won't accept its political legitimacy
ELECTION 2016
Pressed by moderator Chris Wallace as to whether he would accept defeat should Hillary Clinton win the election, Donald Trump replied, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”
“That’s horrifying,” said Clinton, setting off a chain reaction on the post-debate panels with talking heads falling all over one another in purple-faced anger, outrage and disbelief.
“Disqualifying!” was the cry on Clinton cable.
“Trump Won’t Say If He Will Accept Election Results,” wailed the New York Times. “Trump Won’t Vow to Honor Results,” ran the banner in the Washington Post.
But what do these chattering classes and establishment bulletin boards think the Donald is going to do if he falls short of 270 electoral votes?
Lead a Coxey’s Army on Washington and burn it down as British Gen. Robert Ross did in August 1814, while “Little Jemmy” Madison fled on horseback out the Brockville Road?
What explains the hysteria of the establishment?
In a word, fear.
The establishment is horrified at the Donald’s defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority.
It may rule and run the country, and may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: Its ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.
Trump is “talking down our democracy,” said a shocked Clinton.
After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed “democracy” as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach.
Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England and France to bring Christianity to the New World.
Today, Clintons, Obamas and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to “establish democracy” among the “lesser breeds without the Law.”
Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to re-establish their true God.
And Allah is no democrat.
By suggesting he might not accept the results of a “rigged election” Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.
For none of the three – diversity, equality, democracy – is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.
When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of government they had created, he answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it.
Consider: Six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.
If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it.
And if felons decide the electoral votes of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that election?
In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority, the matter went to the House.
There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency to Adams – and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Adams himself.
Were Jackson’s people wrong to regard as a “corrupt bargain” the deal that robbed the general of the presidency?
The establishment also recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke’s declaration that it is now “torches and pitchforks time.”
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in “Points of Rebellion”:
“We must realize that today’s Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.”
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America they love, elitist enthusiasm for “revolution” seems more constrained.
What goes around comes around.