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Purveyor's JournalObamacare: Fear, Doubt And Confidence Crisis, Dem Senator Warns
By STEPHANIE CONDON / CBS NEWS/ November 5, 2013, 11:25 AM
A top administration official assured a Senate committee Tuesday that the administration has a plan to restore confidence in the Affordable Care Act and recruit young people to enroll in the new insurance marketplace once HealthCare.gov, the glitchy Obamacare marketplace website, is running smoothly.
"Our goal is to stabilize this website this month," Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Once that's complete, the administration plans to roll out a "targeted plan" to encourage young people and other contingents of largely uninsured Americans. Asked if the Obama administration can restore confidence in the law, Tavenner said unequivocally, "Yes."
Tavenner was responding to concerns from Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who told her the rollout of the Obamacare marketplace "has been more than bumpy."
The botched website launch, combined with the fact that millions of Americans on the individual market are being dropped from their plans, has created "fear, doubt and a crisis of confidence," Mikulski said, noting that around 73,000 people in her state of Maryland alone have reportedly had their plans cancelled.
"What I worry about is there's such a crisis of confidence, that people won't enroll... particularly our young people," Mikulski said.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57610872/obamacare-fear-doubt-and-confidence-crisis-dem-senator-warns/
Justices Suggest They May Curb Congress’s Power in Poison Case
By Greg Stohr - Nov 5, 2013
U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated they may put new limits on Congress’s power as they debated the case of a microbiologist who tried to poison her husband’s lover.
Hearing arguments today in Washington, the court’s Republican-appointed justices today suggested they viewed Carol Anne Bond’s crimes as local ones that shouldn’t have opened her to prosecution under a chemical-weapons law enacted by Congress to implement a treaty.
It is “unimaginable that you would bring this prosecution,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said.
The case poses the most important test of the federal government’s authority since the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s health-care law last year. The central question is whether Congress can use its treaty-implementation power to regulate local conduct that otherwise would be beyond the federal government’s reach.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/justices-suggest-they-may-curb-congress-s-power-in-poison-case.html
Hagel Calls for Smaller Force to Protect Technology Edge
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel today argued for troop reductions to preserve spending on advanced technology from defense contractors amid more than $500 billion in automatic budget cuts scheduled through 2023.
“In some cases we will make a shift, for example, by prioritizing a smaller, modern, and capable military over a larger force with older equipment,” Hagel said in remarks prepared for an address before the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a policy research group in Washington.
The statement reflects a determination in the Pentagon to protect sophisticated and costly weapons, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 fighter, that are seen as giving the U.S. military a competitive advantage.
Hagel straddled the options in July, when he presented results of a “Strategic Choices and Management Review.” At that time, he said the Pentagon would have to make the choice between a “much smaller” force and a decade-long “modernization holiday” unless Congress and the president reached an agreement to call off the automatic cuts known as sequestration.
Today, he said the reduction in forces is also being driven by the drawdown of troops in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the need to focus on cyberdefense, space, special operations and surveillance technologies.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-05/hagel-calls-for-smaller-force-to-protect-technology-edge.html
Service Sector's Growth Accelerated In October, ISM Index Indicates
Source: Los Angeles Times
By Jim Puzzanghera
November 5, 2013, 8:15 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The service sector, a crucial driver of the U.S. economy, expanded more than forecast last month as business activity surged in a sign the partial government shutdown was not a drag on sales, a widely watched index indicates.
The Institute of Supply Management said Tuesday that its purchasing managers' index for the service sector rose to 55.4 in October from 54.4 the previous month. Economists had projected just a slight increase to 54.5.
Index readings above 50 indicate the sector is growing.
The increase came after the index tumbled in September from a more than five-year high in August.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-ism-service-economy-20131105,0,2283521.story#axzz2jn8M35uB
North Korea Using Russian Tech To Create ‘Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons’
By Agence France-Presse
Monday, November 4, 2013 10:43 EST
South Korea’s spy agency said Monday that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralysing military electronic equipment south of the border.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament that the North had purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own versions.
EMP weapons are used to damage to electronic equipment. At higher energy levels, an EMP event can cause more widespread damage including to aircraft structures and other objects.
The spy agency also said the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un sees cyberattacks as an all-purpose weapon along with nuclear weapons and missiles, according to lawmakers briefed by the NIS.
The North is trying to hack into smartphones and lure South Koreans into becoming informants, it said.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/04/north-korea-using-russian-tech-to-create-electromagnetic-pulse-weapons/
Iran Burning Gas Worth Billions Set to Lead Exporters Group
By Robert Tuttle and Yeganeh Salehi - Nov 4, 2013
Iran will lead a club of the world’s biggest natural gas exporters as its own shipments abroad are hampered by U.S. and European Union sanctions that force the country to burn off billions of dollars worth of the fuel.
Mohammad Hossein Adeli, the country’s former deputy foreign minister, was elected secretary-general of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, whose 13 member countries hold 60 percent of the world’s reserves, the group said yesterday in a statement. Adeli, who will replace Leonid Bokhanovsky of Russia next year, vowed to turn the Persian nation into a “major player among the gas exporting countries,” he told reporters after a group meeting in Tehran.
U.S. and EU trade sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program have cut the Persian nation’s crude exports, its largest revenue source, by half since 2011 and are stifling projects to export some of its gas reserves, the world’s largest. Iran is one of three GECF members that are net importers as the group faces increased competition from liquefied natural gas projects from the U.S. to Australia.
The vote is “a signal that attitudes toward Iran perhaps are thawing, and tension easing, since they were elected to represent this group on the international stage,” Tom James, a Dubai-based managing director of Navitas Resources Ltd., an energy and commodity markets adviser, said yesterday by e-mail.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/iran-burning-gas-worth-billions-to-lead-exporters-amid-sanctions.html
Firearm Ban After Assault Left Intact by U.S. High Court
By Greg Stohr - Nov 4, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a new gun-rights case, turning away an appeal from a man barred from owning a firearm because of a misdemeanor assault conviction 45 years ago.
The appeal by Jefferson Wayne Schrader contended that the ban violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.
The justices have repeatedly turned away gun-rights appeals in the last three years. The court hasn’t considered a Second Amendment case since 2010, when it said people have a right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense purposes.
Schrader was convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery after getting into a fistfight with a gang member in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1968. He received a $100 fine and no jail time. Since then, he says, he served in Vietnam, received an honorable discharge from the Navy and has had no meaningful encounters with law enforcement in the last 45 years.
Schrader sued after he failed federal background checks while trying to acquire a shotgun and a handgun in 2008. The Bellevue, Washington-based Second Amendment Foundation joined Schrader in pressing the suit.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/firearm-ban-after-assault-left-intact-by-u-s-high-court.html
Tea Party Test in Virginia Harbinger for 2014 Senate Race
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Nov 4, 2013
Call it a test case for the 2014 congressional elections. Tomorrow’s contest for Virginia’s next governor is drawing attention as a national harbinger, and it’s giving Republicans plenty to worry about.
Polls show Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the former national party chairman and fundraiser, ahead of Republican rival, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. If that’s the outcome of the race, McAuliffe would become the first candidate of a sitting president’s party in almost four decades to win election in the Old Dominion, a state that voted twice for both former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.
“As Republicans, we have to ask, is there a business model issue here?” said former Virginia Republican Representative Thomas M. Davis III, director of federal affairs for Deloitte Consulting LP. “We have a Republican who’s opted to go the Tea Party route, and it’s absolutely clear it’s a losing strategy -- that’s going to be the message of this” election.
The contest has taken on national significance in its closing days, with each candidate working to portray his opponent as a poster boy for all that is wrong with his party.
McAuliffe, 56, who campaigned with Obama yesterday and appears with Vice President Joe Biden today, is painting Cuccinelli as an ally of the small-government Tea Party movement that orchestrated last month’s 16-day federal government shutdown.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/tea-party-test-in-virginia-harbinger-for-2014-senate-race.html
Feds: Navy Secrets Bought With Hookers, Gaga Tix
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Nicknamed "Fat Leonard," the gregarious Malaysian businessman is well known by U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific, where his company has serviced warships for 25 years.
But prosecutors in court papers say Leonard Francis worked his connections to obtain military secrets by lining up hookers, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander, in a scandal reverberating across the Navy.
The accusations unfolding in a federal court case in San Diego signal serious national security breaches and corruption, setting off high-level meetings at the Pentagon with the threat that more people, including those of higher ranks, could be swept up as the investigation continues. A hearing Nov. 8 could set a trial date.
Navy commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz passed confidential information on ship routes to Francis' Singapore-based company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd., or GDMA, according to the court documents.
Misiewicz and Francis moved Navy vessels like chess pieces, diverting aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships to Asian ports with lax oversight where Francis could inflate costs, according to the criminal complaint. The firm overcharged the Navy millions for fuel, food and other services it provided, and invented tariffs by using phony port authorities, the prosecution alleges.
more...
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NAVY_BRIBERY_SCHEME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-03-23-39-14
For Consumers Whose Health Premiums Will Go Up Under New Law, Sticker Shock Leads To Anger
Washington Post - 10 minutes ago
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Lena H. Sun, Sunday, November 3
Americans who face higher insurance costs under President Obama’s health-care law are angrily complaining about “sticker shock,” threatening to become a new political force opposing the law even as the White House struggles to convince other consumers that they will benefit from it.
The growing backlash involves people whose plans are being discontinued because the policies don’t meet the law’s more-stringent standards. They’re finding that many alternative policies come with higher premiums and deductibles.
After receiving a letter from her insurer that her plan was being discontinued, Deborah Persico, a 58-year-old lawyer in the District, found a comparable plan on the city’s new health insurance exchange. But her monthly premium, now $297, would be $165 higher, and her maximum out-of-pocket costs would double.
That means she could end up paying at least $5,000 more a year than she does now. “That’s just not fair,” said Persico, who represents indigent criminal defendants. “This is ridiculous.”
If the poor, sick and uninsured are the winners under the Affordable Care Act, the losers appear to include some relatively healthy middle-income small-business owners, consultants, lawyers and other self-employed workers who buy their own insurance. Many make too much to qualify for new federal subsidies provided by the law but not enough to absorb the rising costs without hardship. Some are too old to go without insurance because they have children or have minor health issues, but they are too young for Medicare.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-consumers-whose-health-premiums-will-go-up-under-new-law-sticker-shock-leads-to-anger/2013/11/03/d858dd28-44a9-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html
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