“Frustrated and Angry as Anyone”
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Vol. 2, No. 306
Sick Day: Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is on the congressional hot seat this morning to answer for the Obamacare website debacle. In her opening statement she said, “I am as frustrated and angry as anyone.”
The Administration delivered its first apology through a stiffly read statement yesterday by Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “To the millions of Americans who’ve attempted to use HealthCare.gov to shop and enroll in health-care coverage,” she said, “ I want to apologize to you that the Web site has not worked as well as it should.”
Tavenner said 700,000 Americans have registered with the website, but declined to say how many have actually bought insurance policies.
House Ways and Means Chairman David Camp, (R-MI) said 146,000 people in his state have received cancellation notices from their current insurers, far more than the number who have bought Obamacare.
Spycraft 101: US intelligence chief James Clapper defended the practice of spying on foreign leaders as one of the essential plays of the intelligence game. Speaking to the House Intelligence Committee, Clapper said spying on foreign leaders is “one of the first things I learned in intelligence school in 1963. It’s a fundamental given.”
Without saying the President knew exactly what the NSA was doing, Clapper said the White House knew generally what was happening.
At the same hearing, NSA boss Gen. Keith Alexander said the US had not unilaterally gathered information on European phone calls as reported in several publications. In one of the definition-splitting denials that have been issued in recent days he said, “It represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations.”
Under the Radar: The Navy has quietly launched its first stealth destroyer, the USS Zumwalt. The angular hull and superstructure look a little like the Civil War’s Merrimac ironclad. But this ship depends on never being detected, let alone hit.
World: Chinese police have detained five suspects in the fiery car crash that took five lives Monday in Tiananmen Square. The three who died in the car were Muslim Uighurs from the western region of Xinjiang. Police said the incident that also injured 38 was a “violent terrorist attack.”
- At least 40 people died in a fire on a luxury bus in southern India. The bus hit a culvert and burst into flames. Only seven passengers and the driver survived.
Siren’s Call: The captain’s girlfriend was on the bridge of the Costa Concordia when it ran aground in 2012, killing 32 people, trial testimony revealed. Domnica Cemortan, a Moldavan dancer, had met Capt. Francesco Schettino weeks earlier while working aboard ship. The night the ship hit the rocks in Italy, she was a non-paying passenger. She said, “When you are someone’s lover, no-one asks you for a ticket.” Schettino is charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship.
Family Circle: The Jonas Brothers, who are brothers, announced they are breaking up their music act over creative differences. You guys think Thanksgiving was bad last year?
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