Screenshot of the defaced law firm's website. The firm has since taken the site down until further notice.
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Anonymous Hacks Law Firm That Defended Marine in Iraqi Killing Case
Jim Pethokoukis spotlights a new Health Affairs study on how Romneycare laid the foundation for Obamacare, and what it portends for the federal health insurance scene. In short: Expanded government coverage, higher taxpayer costs. Read here for details and analysis. His conclusion: The authors conclude that based on the Romneycare experience, Obamacare will improve coverage and not kill employer-based insurance, but containing costs will be a “considerable challenge.” That is probably the avenue Romney should use to a) attack Obamacare and b) present his own national health reform. But this study will perpetuate the meme that Romneycare was the prototype for Obamacare. Santorum hammered Romney on this point at the last debate more effectively than any other candidate throughout this campaign season, probably because he understands the issue better than his rivals. We’ll see if he or Gingrich follows up tonight. No surprises, of course. We already heard from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber in October: The Obama administration may have relied much more heavily on Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare legislation as a blueprint for Obamacare than was previously believed. White House visitor logs obtained by NBC News revealed that three of Romney’s healthcare advisers had up to a dozen meetings with senior administration officials, including one in the Oval Office presided over by President Barack Obama. “They really wanted to know how we can take that same approach we used in Massachusetts and turn that into a national model,” MIT economist and Romney healthcare adviser Jon Gruber told NBC. And back in September, I noted the analysis by Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute showing the depths of the economic damage that Romneycare did in the Bay State. Flashback: Romney’s baggage. It is so heavy: The Bay State’s controversial 2006 universal health-care plan — also known as “Romneycare” — has cost Massachusetts more than 18,000 jobs, according to an exclusive blockbuster study that could provide ammo to GOP rivals of former Gov. Mitt Romney as he touts his job-creating chops on the campaign trail. “Mandating health insurance coverage and expanding the demand for health services without increasing supply drove up costs. Economics 101 tells us that,” said Paul Bachman, research director at Suffolk University’s Beacon Hill Institute, the conservative think tank that conducted the study. The Herald obtained an exclusive copy of the findings. “The ‘shared sacrifice’ needed to provide universal health care includes a net loss of jobs, which is attributable to the higher costs that the measure imposed,” said David Tuerck, the institute’s executive director. …Despite Romney’s vaunted business acumen as a successful venture capitalist, Bachman said the former governor “was a little naive about what would become of the law.” The Beacon Hill Institute study found that, on average, Romneycare: • cost the Bay State 18,313 jobs; • drove up total health insurance costs in Massachusetts by $4.311 billion; • slowed the growth of disposable income per person by $376; and • reduced investment in Massachusetts by $25.06 million. And remember that RomneyCare relied on FedGovCare as a sturdy crutch: “He also noted the state’s health-care costs have been heavily subsidized by billions of dollars in federal aid through a Medicaid waiver program.” The SEIU may be attacking Romney in Floridanow, but Big Labor radicals made out well under Romneycare. I repeat: RomneyCare and ObamaCare share not only the same ideological architects, but similar waiver programs in part set up to benefit Big Labor – via Boston Globe in February: Massachusetts regulators granted more exemptions last year to residents who said they could not afford the health insurance required by the state, waiving the tax penalty for more than half of those who appealed, according to state data. State officials said they excused the majority of waiver applicants in large part because of the protracted sour economy, which made insurance unaffordable for more people. Under the 2006 state law that requires most residents to have coverage, regulators have significant latitude to authorize waivers by taking into account factors such as a home foreclosure. The number of people seeking exemptions in 2010 was about the same as in 2009, and state figures show that roughly 98 percent of residents were insured last year. Even as Republicans and many states wage a bitter battle in Congress and the courts to block the mandatory insurance requirement in the national health care law, the provision appears to retain broad acceptance in Massachusetts. Regulators’ flexibility may be part of the reason. “We aren’t going to make someone pay just to make them pay,’’ said Celia Wcislo, a director of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and a member of the Connector Authority, which oversees Massachusetts’ health care law and grants the exemptions. Refresher on the politicized “Connector Authority” via Cato: When Romney signed his plan he claimed “a key objective is to lower the cost of health insurance for all our citizens and allow our citizens to buy the insurance plan that fits their needs.” In actuality, insurance premiums in the state are expected to rise 10–12 percent next year, double the national average. …Although there are undoubtedly many factors behind the cost increase, one reason is that the new bureaucracy that the legislation created-the “Connector”-has not been allowing Massachusetts citizens to buy insurance that “fits their needs.” Although it has received less media attention than other aspects of the bill, one of the most significant features of the legislation is the creation of the Massachusetts Health Care Connector to combine the current small-group and individual markets under a single unified set of regulations. Supporters such as Robert E. Moffit and Nina Owcharenko of the Heritage Foundation consider the Connector to be the single most important change made by the legislation, calling it “the cornerstone of the new plan” and “a major innovation and a model for other states.” The Connector is not actually an insurer. Rather, it is designed to allow individuals and workers in small companies to take advantage of the economies of scale, both in terms of administration and risk pooling, which are currently enjoyed by large employers. Multiple employers are able to pay into the Connector on behalf of a single employee. And, most importantly, the Connector would allow workers to use pretax dollars to purchase individual insurance. That would make insurance personal and portable, rather than tied to an employer-all very desirable things. However, many people were concerned that the Connector was being granted too much regulatory authority. It was given the power to decide what products it would offer and to designate which types of insurance offered “high quality and good value.” This phrase in particular worried many observers because it is the same language frequently included in legislation mandating insurance benefits. At the time the legislation passed, Ed Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation reassured critics that “the Connector will neither design the insurance products being offered nor regulate the insurers offering the plans.” In reality, however, the Connector’s board has seen itself as a combination of the state legislature and the insurance commissioner, adding a host of new regulations and mandates. For example, the Connector’s governing board has decreed that by January 2009, no one in the state will be allowed to have insurance with more than a $2,000 deductible or total out-of-pocket costs of more than $5,000. In addition, every policy in the state will be required to phase in coverage of prescription drugs, a move that could add 5–15 percent to the cost of insurance plans. A move to require dental coverage barely failed to pass the board, and the dentists-along with several other provider groups-have not given up the effort to force their inclusion. This comes on top of the 40 mandated benefits that the state had previously required, ranging from in vitro fertilization to chiropractic services. Thus, it appears that the Connector offers quite a bit of pain for relatively little gain. Although the ability to use pretax dollars to purchase personal and portable insurance should be appealing in theory, only about 7,500 nonsubsidized workers have purchased insurance through the Connector so far. On the other hand, rather than insurance that “fits their needs,” Massachusetts residents find themselves forced to buy expensive “Cadillac” policies that offer many benefits that they may not want. Governor Romney now says that he cannot be held responsible for the actions of the Connector board, because it’s “an independent body separate from the governor’s office.” However, many critics of the Massachusetts plan warned him precisely against the dangers of giving regulatory authority to a bureaucracy that would last long beyond his administration. Industrial-strength nose plugs can’t cover the stench.
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Confirmed: Romneycare = Obamacare
Last weekend’s Boston Globe Magazine featured a gargantuan, 3600-word homage to rabid environmentalism in the form of a profile on 350.org founder Bill McKibben. The piece and President Obama’s disastrously short-sighted decision last Wednesday to reject permitting for Transcanada’s Keystone XL pipeline are both symptomatic of a much larger ailment plaguing liberal politicking in general and the Obama administration in particular: a continual willingness to sacrifice the well-being of the majority for an elite, hypocritical minority. The Keystone project, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would bring crude from Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast, has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect decent-paying American jobs and reduce our dependency on the oil of despotic, anti-western nations with questionably sane leaders. But radical environmentalists like McKibben – a second-generation jailed protestor and disciple of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry – seem either not to know or else don’t care what real poverty looks like. And McKibben is among the leaders of the voting contingent to which our president is pandering, purely for political reasons. The Harvard-educated McKibben, who was among the 1,252 people arrested during protests against the pipeline outside the White House last year, is on a mission to “end the tyranny of oil” and coal. Along with his worship of the false god of climate change, McKibben, like many leftist elitists, is committed to “social justice,” according to the Globe piece. What McGibben and his ilk overlook is that real social justice begins with a job, the dignity of work and the ability to care for and feed one’s own family. McKibben & Company’s quest is anti-jobs, and therefore anti- social justice. According to analysis released this month by the Brookings Institution, child poverty has risen 4% in the past five years. That’s an addition of 3 million impoverished kids, most of them added in the time Obama has been in office. The state with the highest rate: Mississippi, in the Gulf Coast – the very region in which many of the Keystone XL’s quarter-million jobs would have been created, and where the Obama administration’s six-month deepwater drilling moratorium cost Americans tens of thousands of jobs. T.V. talk show host – and Obama supporter – Tavis Smiley said recently, “Many of the ‘new poor’ are the former middle class.” Obama claims to be all-in for domestic energy production and job creation, but when handed a no-brainer like Keystone, he chooses to side with a radical minority. Why? As Michael Brune, the head of the Sierra Club said recently, “It shores up the base, definitely.” On Capitol Hill there has been almost universal silence from congressional Democrats on the matter. What does that say about what agenda really drives the Democratic Party? According to a “top Democratic fundraiser” has said the issues driving party donors are “Keystone and gay marriage.” But Obama and the Democrats may soon grow to regret the Keystone decision. There are about 25 million Americans unemployed or under-employed. If you’re out of work or struggling to get by, a politician focused on killing jobs and promoting gay marriage probably doesn’t sound like one with your best interests at heart. Besides all the jobs we now stand to lose out on thanks to Obama’s decision, we also face a considerable new security challenge in the form of a bolstered China. As Rep. Steve King ofIowa said this week: “ If we block [the pipeline] that oil will certainly go to China. It will enrich their economy.” Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper has no intention of waiting for the United States to reverse this wrongheaded move; his goal is to see Canada at the forefront of the energy game. Harper will travel to Beijing next month, where he will likely take part in talks on selling his country’s vast oil supplies to the Chinese government. And China is serious about quenching its thirst for oil. “Chinese firms aren’t just buying stakes, they’re buying whole operations,” reads a piece this month in Canada’s daily Globe and Mail. “It’s a new phase of China’s step-by-step Canadastrategy. It will change not just the oil patch but Canada’s foreign policy. And a game of international energy politics is afoot in Canada’s West.” When Obama finally turns around for a gander at his fellow Washington backers on this latest political choice, he will see he has precious few. Bob Beauprez is a former Member of Congress and is currently the editor-in-chief of A Line of Sight, an online policy resource. Prior to serving in Congress, Mr. Beauprez was a dairy farmer and community banker. He and his wife Claudia reside in Lafayette, Colorado. You may contact him at: http://bobbeauprez.com/contact/
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The cost of Obama’s ‘green’ appeasement
This was attached to the end of a nauseating Boston Globe article celebrating the amorous relations between Occupy protesters: Editor’s note: This story about relationships that began during Occupy Boston featured a man, Robert Stitham, who is a registered sex offender, according to state records. Had his status been discovered during reporting, the story would not have been published. Oops. The Boston Herald called out the Globe for its lazy vetting: Looks like somebody forgot to Google. The Monday Boston Globe featured a photo on the front page of its Metro section of a lip-locked couple who “found romance” at Occupy Boston. “Holding hands outside the food tent before the encampment disbanded,” read the accompanying story, “they were the archetype of an Occupy couple: he, a red-headed Mainer with tattoos on his arms; she, a petite upstate New York girl with a heart-shaped face and a boyish haircut, wearing a knit grandmother sweater three sizes too big.” Good details — but the story failed to mention one big one: Robert “Red” Stitham, the 25 year-old beau whose relationship with Anya Karasik, 18, is the focus of the piece, is a Level 3 sex offender. A quick Google search of his name turns up his sex offender notification — complete with his photo — on the website of the police department in Plymouth, where Stitham grew up. A search on the state Sex Offender Registry Board website shows Stitham now lives in a homeless shelter in Boston. “The Board has determined that these individuals have a high risk to re-offend and that the degree of dangerousness posed to the public is such that a substantial public safety interest is served by active community notification,” the registry site reads. In 2007, a Barnstable County jury convicted Stitham of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and he was sentenced to 18 months with time served, court records state. Bias? What bias? Congrats, Boston Globe. You get the Honorary Fishwrap of Record Award.
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Editor’s Note of the Day
**Written by Doug Powers I was sitting around the house trying to shake off a one-point Michigan State loss to Michigan when my Twitter feed went crazy with questions like “did Palin just endorse Gingrich?” It turned out that Sarah Palin was on with Sean Hannity tonight, where she had apparently given a rationed, carefully measured nod to Newt. Sarah’s husband Todd had previously endorsed Gingrich. Having missed Hannity tonight, I managed to find video of the segment at the always on-the-ball Right Scoop . Here’s my best effort at a transcript of the relevant portion: Hannity: We talked last time about Todd your husband going rogue — you haven’t gone rogue yet. You haven’t given an endorsement. Are you getting any closer to giving an endorsement? Palin: Well, I could tell you what I would do if I was a South Carolinian If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt, and I would want this to continue. More debates. More vetting of candidates. Because we know that the mistake in our country, four years ago, was having a candidate who was not vetted to the degree that he should have been so that we knew what his associations and his pals represented and what went into his thinking — the shaping of who our president today is. That vetting did not take place. I want to see that taking place this time because America is on that precipice — it’s that important. We need this process to continue. So, did Sarah just endorse Newt? Well, maybe, if we allow more qualifiers than the Boston Marathon. She’s saying that Romney shouldn’t be the default nominee at this point and that the process should go on a little longer so the GOP doesn’t have an un-vetted candidate like the Democrats did in 2008 — as if that’s possible. It’s not as if the media wouldn’t have stayed in the tank for Obama if only Hillary could have held out a little longer in the primary process. Click the pic to go to Right Scoop and roll tape of the segment. Decide for yourself if this is an endorsement of Gingrich, or the placement of a “proceed with extreme caution” sign on Romney. Also, will it move the needle at all for Newt in SC? **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Palin: If I Lived in South Carolina, I’d Vote for Newt
The New Hampshire attorney general’s office is investigating after a video surfaced that appears to show people using the names of deceased individuals to obtain ballots on the day of the state’s presidential primary, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported . The 10-minute video is from activist filmmaker James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, and is meant to expose flaws in New Hampshire’s lax voting regulations by showing poll workers readily handing over ballots in the names of dead individuals still on voter rolls. New Hampshire doesn’t require photo ID to vote as long as the person is registered. In the hidden camera footage, O’Keefe’s phony voters approach workers at multiple polling places and receive a total of nine ballots using the names of recently deceased individuals. No fraudulent votes appear to have actually been cast, with the person leaving after receiving each ballot. New Hampshire state law makes it illegal to use a false name to obtain a ballot. It’s also a crime to make an audio recording of someone without their consent or to ” record an election official without permission.” According to the Union Leader, state Associate Attorney General Richard Head said his office became aware of the effort on Election Day and began investigating immediately. “That investigation is ongoing,” he said. “Based on the information received on Election Day and the information on the video, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of voting procedures with the Secretary of State.” U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire John Kacavas told the newspaper he hadn’t heard of the video as of Wednesday. “If it’s true, it’s troubling to me,” he said. “I’m certainly going to look into it.” But not every ballot attempt appears to have gone smoothly. In one incident, the Boston Herald reported , an individual was stopped from obtaining a ballot because a poll worker recognized the name of the dead man, who had passed away two weeks earlier. The individual left before police could catch him, the newspaper said. That incident is not in the video. Nashua City Clerk Paul Bergeron is outraged, according to the Nashua Patch , and said he believes the filmmakers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “It’s against the law to steal, so if you go out and steal and then put up a video and say, ‘Look, I stole something,’ that’s a crime,” he said. “What these people did was a crime. They stole a person’s identity and used it to try to obtain a ballot that would be used in a state election.” And if the filmmakers crossed state lines to record the video, Bergeron believes they may have committed a federal crime as well. “They recorded it without election officials’ knowledge, which appears to be a violation of our New Hampshire wiretapping codes, and some of these are out of state residents, so I don’t know if violations of wiretapping or ID theft could hold up in court, but if they crossed state lines to commit these crimes, it may be a federal crime as well,” he said. “This is serious. We won’t tolerate voter fraud, regardless of what the intent might be.” The Republican mayor of Manchester, Ted Gastas, is also outraged, saying , ““They should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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NH AG Investigating O’Keefe Group for Undercover Vid Showing Them Posing as Dead Voters to Get Ballots
Two nights before Christmas, firefighter James M. Rice perished in a burning apartment in Peabody, Massachusetts, home to 38 weeks pregnant Lisa Jaber and her 8-year-old daughter Jayla. After giving birth to a second daughter this week, Jaber has decided to name the newborn in honor of the brave firefighter who left the world shortly before her baby entered it. The mother told The Boston Globe Friday that she has named her 7-pound, 9-ounce baby girl Bella Rice Jaber, “because he risked his life to save our house, and it just felt right, so I dedicated her name toward him and his family.’’ Lisa was at a doctor’s appointment when the fire broke out, and did not learn of the tragic news about Rice until hours later. On December 29, more than a thousand mourners waited outside a funeral home in the cold before they had the opportunity to pay their respects at the wake for the 42-year-old father of three young children. Lisa tells Fox 25 that it was at Rice’s funeral where she first got the idea of how to honor the fallen firefighter: Jaber told The Globe that she saw Rice’s family at his funeral, but did not speak to them. “I didn’t want to impose on them to say ‘Hey it’s me.’ (The funeral) was very touching. I cried a lot. My heart went out for his family — especially his children.” The building where the Jaber family lived has been called a total loss by inspectors, and The Globe reports that 13 people were displaced by the fatal fire. The Jabers lost nearly everything they had, and spent Christmas in a hotel room with hundreds of donated gifts to replace the ones lost in the fire. Fox 25 reports that investigators believe the fire was the result of an electrical issue.
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Mother to Name Newborn After Firefighter Who Died While Trying to Save Their Home
Can it really be true? Police dispatched to retrieve overdue library books from a five-year-old? It is. The chief of police in Charlton, Massachusetts sent a uniformed police officer to pay a visit to a home and demand the return of two overdue library books. A sergeant from the Charlton Police Department was dispatched to the home of Shannon Benoit and her five-year-old daughter. The sergeant’s task: to investigate two library books that were a few months overdue. The CBS affiliate in Boston covered the story :
You know, that’s the thing about progressives: When they encounter some embarrassing, incriminating facts, they lash out in anger and denial, and try to twist reality to conform to their demented views — views marinated and metastasized under their sick revolutionary progressive ideology. Racist Repsac3 has a big butthurt post whining about how he’s not really a racist anti-Semitic Jew-basher, despite endorsing a movement that was founded on property expropriation, revolution, and anti-Jewish and anti-Israel eliminationism. In fact, racist Walter James Casper spouts lies to cover up for his endorsement of the hate: The movement is about income inequality, joblessness, and ways to make the system (financial, and electoral) more fair. Money is not speech. Corporations are not people. Equitable taxation, where everyone above poverty wages pays their fair share on all they earn. The people should have more political power and access than those who can pay for it. Politicians and their votes shouldn’t be for sale. God, that’s so bad I don’t even know where to start. But first, to reiterate, it’s a lie. Walter James Casper III is lying again, attempting to blow a smokescreen over his extreme radical agenda, his live and let live, if it feels good do it, anti-capitalist, anti-American, anti-Israel revolutionary program. I’ve documented the facts here many times, and racist anti-Semite Walter James Casper III deliberately avoids the truth because he cannot answer for the hate. Progressive hate. Walter James Casper III is the epitome of the exterminationist, big-lie neo-commie hate-filled progressive. But let’s review: Recall that the origins of Occupy predate the Zuccotti Park mobilization by at least a couple of years, and I’ve covered much of that here at the blog. See my report from last month, ” On the Origins of the Occupy Movement .” The initial Occupy mobilizations were explicitly revolutionary, advocating militant collective action. They were not about this stupid “money is not speech” bullshit. Occupy is working to destroy capital altogether. The militants were about occupying the capitalist occupiers and expropriating the capitalist expropriators. Idiot racist Repsac3 stupidly parrots the Rachel Maddow talking points. It’s f-king embarrassing. Sheesh. Now, setting aside the original occupations, let’s continue with New York’s Occupy Wall Street. Recall that the impetus for the New York action is found in the agitation of
