What Happened to All of Obama's Technology Czars?

By Michelle Malkin
Why does the White House need a private-sector "tech surge" to repair its wretched Obamacare website failures? Weren't all of the president's myriad IT czars and their underlings supposed to ensure that taxpayers got the most effective, innovative, cutting-edge and secure technology for their money?
Now is the perfect time for an update on Obama's top government titans of information technology. As usual, "screw up, move up" is standard bureaucratic operating procedure.

Democrats Run for ObamaCare Cover

After weeks of vowing they wouldn't cave on the president's signature legislation, some Democrats are doing just that.

By Kimberley Strassel
Jeanne Shaheen doesn't sound like a Democrat who just won a government-shutdown "victory." Ms. Shaheen sounds like a Democrat who thinks she's going to lose her job.
The New Hampshire senator fundamentally altered the health-care fight on Tuesday with a letter to the White House demanding it both extend the ObamaCare enrollment deadline and waive tax penalties for those unable to enroll. Within nanoseconds, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor had endorsed her "common-sense idea." By Wednesday night, five Senate Democrats were on board, pushing for . . . what's that dirty GOP word? Oh, right. "Delay."
After 16 long days of vowing to Republicans that they would not cave in any way, shape or form on ObamaCare, Democrats spent their first post-shutdown week caving in every way, shape and form. With the GOP's antics now over, the only story now is the unrivaled disaster that is the president's health-care law.
Hundreds of thousands of health-insurance policies canceled. Companies dumping coverage and cutting employees' hours. Premiums skyrocketing. And a website that reprises the experience of a Commodore 64. As recently as May, Democratic consultants were advising members of Congress that their best ObamaCare strategy for 2014 was to "own" the law. Ms. Shaheen has now publicly advised the consultants where they can file that memo.
...The White House has lived in fear of this moment, and the administration's biggest problem is that it has no quick bandage for this bleed. Healthcare.gov is weeks or months from being fixed—if it is fixable at all. Enrollment numbers will thus remain dismal. The insurance horror stories are only beginning. The congressional hearings, too. The administration could sack Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, but it knows that getting a replacement nominee through the Senate would likely prove more painful than keeping her.
Democrats will do their best to keep shifting blame to the GOP, but those complaints are losing traction. This week was a turning point.

Obamacare’s Ticking Clock

With every passing day, it's less likely the law's disastrous rollout can be fixed

By Jonah Goldberg
...Still, the barely holding conventional wisdom on the right and left is that the website will get fixed eventually, the glitches will be de-glitched, and one day we’ll all look back and laugh at the fuss. That’s possible. But with every passing day it’s less likely. And if more Democrats join the movement to delay the individual mandate (Republican senator Marco Rubio has already drafted legislation to do exactly that), the whole thing could start to unravel almost overnight.
That’s because insurance companies cannot survive Obamacare without the individual mandate. Under the law, they must offer insurance to anyone who needs it — often at an artificially low price at that. The only way they can make a profit is if the government upholds its promise to get millions of young, healthy people to sign up for more expensive insurance than they need. Take away the mandate — i.e., the penalty — and you make that virtually impossible. If the government tells insurance companies they still have to provide insurance to bad risks, it will be like the government telling Apple it has to sell iPhones at a loss. The insurance companies will sue. And as Dan McLaughlin of The Federalist notes, their lawyers will invoke the Obama administration’s arguments before the Supreme Court that the mandate was inseparable from the “must-issue” requirements under the law.
But even if, somehow, the insurance companies can be compensated for their losses on that front, the fact remains that the only people willing to put up with the North Korean–level customer service are people understandably desperate for health insurance. Those people aren’t likely to be young and healthy.
So, sure, the website is just one small part of Obamacare. But your jugular is only one small part of your anatomy, too.

The Podesta Era

Column: How the Center for American Progress conquered America

The partygoers had reason to celebrate. Over the last decade the Center for American Progress, also known as CAP, and its political arm, the CAP Action Fund, have established themselves among the most influential policy and activist organizations in America. CAP has revenues of $34 million. Its alumni occupy positions inside the Obama administration, in media, in business, and in the academy. Speakers at its policy conference this week included cabinet secretaries Kerry, Perez, and Lew; the presidents of the NAACP and the SEIU; the two liberal hosts of Crossfire; the leaders of left-wing parties in Canada and Australia; and Al Gore. President Obama, President Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid all said nice things about CAP in its anniversary video. From its headquarters on H Street, in downtown D.C., CAP exerts a pull over the Democratic Party like no other liberal institution. The right has no equivalent.

Hillary builds her liberal firewall

By Chris Stirewalt
Hillary Clinton was the star attraction at the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress’ annual gala, what the group calls its “Progressive Party.” Clinton, who was tossed aside by liberal voters in the 2008 Democratic primaries, isn’t taking any chances for 2016. “Progressive ideas have helped make this country the greatest force for human liberty, dignity and opportunity the world has ever known,” she said. She also noted the country’s challenges, which leave it “careening from crisis to crisis” and said she sought a strategy based on “data and evidence, not ideology.” Clinton joked of the group’s 10^th anniversary: “When does the cake come out? I was going to jump out of the cake.” Watch video from the group here.

The Guardian: NSA Eavesdropped on 35 World Leaders

US spies eavesdropped on the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after White House, Pentagon and State Department officials gave them the numbers, The Guardian reported Thursday.
A classified document provided by fugitive intelligence leaker Edward Snowden said the National Security Agency worked closely with the "customer" departments of the US government to secure the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians.
One unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the world leaders who were immediately "tasked" for surveillance by the NSA, according to the document