Month: October 2013

White House gives up, will reopen White House to tours.

I have to go with Erika Johnson, here: this is a bit of a cave from the Obama administration. Or at least a tacit admission that its Let’s be Blue Meanies to the American People! strategy just didn’t work.

White House tours will resume on “a limited basis” starting Nov. 5, the White House announced Friday, while it will reopen its gardens and grounds to visitors on Oct. 26 and 27.

Secret Service spokesman Robert Novy said the tours would continue through Jan. 15 and occur three days a week, on average, though the exact number of days would vary. Before the White House halted the tours in March, they had taken place five days a week.

Also: do you think this particularly sounds like a House ready to defer to the President? Because I don’t think that that this particularly sounds like a House leadership ready to defer to the President. Continue reading White House gives up, will reopen White House to tours.

Tweet of the Day, Nah, @BarackObama’s A Technocrat edition.

Which is like being a liberal, only far less competent*.

Moe Lane

*Actually, quite a bit of the art, music, literature, and architecture that I like and respect comes from liberals. They just can’t govern worth a tinker’s dam, that’s all.

Cover Oregon down to enrolling by hand; next step, parchment and quills. #obamacare

I kind of feel sorry for Cover Oregon: those stupid songs put and kept them on my radar.  But, really, this is not a good sign:

With the state’s online health insurance exchange still not able to enroll people, Cover Oregon officials have turned to processing forms by hand rather than electronically.

On Tuesday, Cover Oregon staff began processing eligibility applications manually as a first step prior to helping people get enrolled in either a government program or the commercial insurance of their choice. Continue reading Cover Oregon down to enrolling by hand; next step, parchment and quills. #obamacare

#Obamacare Watch: This Is What Technocracy Looks Like edition.

And this is why we left that particular political philosophy in the Thirties, where it belongs.

Grim reading on the Obamacare exchanges here from Yuval Levin (short version: the exchanges are in one whole joojooflop situation), with an important caveat:

The character of the conversations I had with these very knowledgeable individuals in the last few days reminded me of something: It reminded me of the daily intra-governmental video conferences and calls in the wake of hurricane Katrina in 2005. I was witness to many of those, as a White House staffer. What I saw in the first days of the disaster quickly fell into a pattern: local, state, and federal officials on the ground would report on what they knew directly—which was often grim—and then they would pass along information they’d heard but hadn’t gotten first hand, which was often much more grim but almost always ultimately turned out not to be true. Some of these stories went public (remember the shootings at the Superdome? They never happened). Some didn’t. They were often reported with a kind of detached authority that made them believable, and they were a function of living in panic amid an unbelievable situation over time.

[snip] Continue reading #Obamacare Watch: This Is What Technocracy Looks Like edition.

Swallow your pride and call in George W Bush, @BarackObama. You need his competence. #obamacare

And that’s not just my assessment of the man’s abilities: that’s USA Today‘s.

[Barack Obama’s Chief Technology Adviser Todd] Park said the administration expected 50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users. It got 250,000. Compare that with the similarly rocky debut seven years ago of exchanges to obtain Medicare drug coverage. The Bush administration projected 20,000 simultaneous users and built capacity for 150,000.

That’s the difference between competence and incompetence.

Via Mary Katharine Ham, and note that that assessment was made ten days ago. Things have not improved for the administration since.  Heck, it’s an open question whether or not HHS is going to get sued for, God help us all, software piracy: Continue reading Swallow your pride and call in George W Bush, @BarackObama. You need his competence. #obamacare