OBAMACARE'S FAILURE:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius cancelled the law’s government-run long-term care insurance program, the CLASS Act, last year after she admitted it was financially unsustainable and Congress formally repealed it in January’s fiscal cliff deal. Enrollment in Obamacare’s high-risk pools for individuals with pre-existing conditions was so low that that program was also cancelled. The nation’s best health care providers, chosen as models of cost savings, have dropped out of Obamacare’s unworkable Accountable Care Organization program. The tax credits that were meant to help small businesses afford coverage, have proved to be so complicated that only 7 percent of the 4.4 million businesses the program was designed to help, have claimed the credit. And no one expects the Obama administration to have health insurance exchanges up and working by this year’s October deadline.

But other than that, everything's working just fine.

MEDICAID FOR FELONS. It seems like a small and reasonable thing to do, but here's the core concept writ large:

As Bloomberg’s recent soda campaign so aptly demonstrated, once health care becomes a public expense, personal choices become a public concern. Taxpayers can expect to be nagged about small poor life choices like opting for a bigger beverage or a higher-calorie meal choice.

If you are unwilling to take personal responsibility, someone else will take control. And they will not have your best interests at heart.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Confessions of a Counter-Revolutionary.

It's come to this since Obama took office....

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Frankly, I don't know what it is about California , but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine , even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington , we're Number One. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words.

It's old, but it does explain California quite succinctly.

LEGISTORM: Hill staffers upset. I'm amused. The government doesn't respect my privacy, and they expect me to respect theirs?

CALIFORNIA: Where is the Pension Fairy when you need her? (Maybe Walt Disney could ask Tinkerbell to help....)

YES, ABSOLUTELY: Vote for the crook for Virginia governor.

I'll be very interested in how the Washngton Post skirts this when they choose to endorse McAuliffe for Governor in 2014.

ANN COULTER: "The one clear thread that unites all the mass murders currently being exploited by the Democrats is that they were committed by visibly crazy people who were unaccountably not institutionalized."

Yet not item -- not one! -- in the current gun control bill before the Senate addresses mental illness.

SEE? Global warming does cause global cooling.

Told ya so....

OBAMA’S SUCCESS: The Poor Get Poorer, And The Rich Get Poorer. And in the end, we're all equal.

The late Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, explained it to us:

“The honorable gentleman is saying that he would rather that the poor were poorer provided that the rich were less rich,” she said, explaining the certain type of wealth-envy by which liberals plague the rest of us. “That way one will never create the wealth for better social services, as we have. What a policy. Yes, he would rather have the poor poorer, provided that the rich were less rich. That is the Liberal policy.”

Redistribution properly defined.

CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS mandated insurance for 'gay infertility'. If this doesn't qualify as insanity, what does?

A DOCTOR on ObamaCare's unintended consequences.

A group of bureaucrats in Washington have determined what they believe is best for all Americans when it comes to their healthcare, without any proof that their ideas will work. They have decided what a health insurance policy should look like, who may deliver healthcare, where the care will be delivered and how much it should cost. Very soon, these same bureaucrats will determine the care people are entitled to or worse- what care can be denied to certain individuals. Just as it was with the ACGME, the unintended consequences were not considered.

The 2700 pages of the ACA has spawned 20,000 pages of regulations -so far. The $980 Billion that the ACA was promised to cost has ballooned to $2.7 Trillion and climbing. The “simple” process of signing up for subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges is now a 21 page form with a 61 page appendix, inquiring about every aspect of your life. Instead of insurance premiums decreasing by $2500 per family, they have soared and now on average have increased by $3065. According to Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna, these rates will go up 20-50% more in 2014. The ACA may create government jobs thanks to the 159 new agencies created by this massive law, but the private sector stands to lose as many as 800,000 jobs because of the mandate to provide insurance to employees.

When a small group of people decide that they know what is best for the rest of us and are determined to make changes, ignoring the potential unintended consequences, it is time to strip them of this power, replace them , and protect the institutions that are so vital to our well-being.

Remember Campbell's Law. Another Campbell (John, long deceased editor of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact) had a similar law that I think is also appropriate: "You can never do just one thing."

TED CRUZ PRESS RELEASE: Senate to Vote on Gun Bill No One Has Read. Remember the last time Congress passed legislation no one had read? It's called ObamaCare.

OBAMA'S 2014 BUDGET: borrow more, tax more, spend more. All that's left is to steal more, and he's working on that.

HEH. Marylanders, get ready to pay your ‘rain tax’. And note:

[S]tate lawmakers exempted government-owned property from the rain tax but imposed it on religions and nonprofits (which own big roofs and parking lots).

If they tried it in Virginia, my driveway would immediately become gravel....

NANNY BLOOMBERG: next let's ban pacifiers.

Surely there's a pothole or two that New Yorkers can shove him in....

ADIOS, CONNECTICUT: another gun manufacturer packs up to leave.

TIM PHILLIPS: The budget priorities of Democrats. It's not about the budget; it's about control.

YOU KNOW commercial space will be successful when governments declare it can't be done.

TEXTING WHILE FLYING may be hazardous to your health.

GOOD QUESTION: Why does the Congressional Black Caucus hate poor blacks?

THOMAS SOWELL: Tests and Tiger Moms.