ACA website problems and unintended consequences

Do the GOPers not realize that by complaining that it is hard for people to enroll (for now) they are reframing their message from "it will kill your granny" to "it should be easier for you to get this thing"?

BTW I think extending the enrollment period because of the initial tech glitches is a good idea.

Obamas "impeachable" threats against syria produce

Koch Brothers

The greatest threats to the American worker
in our time. Their goal is to destroy the social safety net for the working poor and eliminate opportunities for social mobility for the middle class.

They are reactionary malefactors of great wealth and must be made political poison and untouchables even (especially) to Wall Street money types whose interests endanger.

dfk

just got my Geno 2.0 kit from National Geographic

Can't wait to see if I am part Neanderthal. Anyone else done this?

The GOP war on the poor

The way the program to provide the poor with the bare minimum of daily nutrition has been handled is a metaphor for how the far right in the House is systematically trying to take down the federal government. The Tea Party radicals and those who either fear or cultivate them are now subjecting the food-stamp program to the same kind of assault they have unleashed on other settled policies and understandings that have been in place for decades. Breaking all manner of precedents on a series of highly partisan votes, with the Republicans barely prevailing, the House in September slashed the food-stamp program by a whopping $39 billion and imposed harsh new requirements for getting on, or staying on, the program. The point was to deny the benefit to millions.Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-republicans-war-on-the-poor-20131024#ixzz2igNkElaU Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

a bit of a clusterfuck: when allies spy on each other

Q: Do other countries spy like this on the United States?

A: They do, but most don't have the U.S. technology or financial resources -- $10.8 billion for fiscal 2013, according to a budget document Snowden leaked. The NSA is rivaled only by Britain's code-breaking Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, an agency the U.S. works with closely, according to the Snowden documents. U.S. ally Israel is considered one of the top counterintelligence threats. U.S. spies and diplomats who work in Israel expect to have phone calls intercepted, and their intelligence work disrupted. Israeli security services are even suspected of breaking into the homes of the successive CIA station chiefs and tampering with sensitive equipment.___

http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/why-spy-on-friends-a-qanda-explaining-why-nsa-might-listen-in-on-a-foreign-leaders-calls/2013/10/24/2596d972-3ce0-11e3-b0e7-716179a2c2c7_story.html

anyone seen 5th estate? nt

ok. here is my contribution to words I am tired of hearing

"Boots on the ground" from talking heads on the teevee.

If they are active duty or retired military or part of the military's civilian chain of command, fine. But if they are some pasty think tank mouthpiece. I dont want to hear it.

the most expensive civil war reenactment ever