"Do you want [the internet] to be governed by engineers and entrepreneurs or do you want it to be run by bureaucrats and lawyers here in Washington?"

"The net neutrality truth is nowhere near the media's scaremongering" https://t.co/fki0Kmmkvo pic.twitter.com/B3DiwIc2aQ

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) November 24, 2017

Now is the time to end government micromanagement of the internet and let it thrive without federal, state, or local meddling: https://t.co/AwrXQcSrpZ

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 21, 2017

.@AjitPaiFCC to @trish_regan on net neutrality: "Do you want [the internet] to be governed by engineers and entrepreneurs or do you want it to be run by bureaucrats and lawyers here in Washington?" pic.twitter.com/yVsD3ojnxm

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) November 22, 2017

NY AG probing "massive scheme" to influence FCC on net neutrality with fake public comments https://t.co/ilisPq0RcY pic.twitter.com/xTqSJt2zYj

— The Hill (@thehill) November 22, 2017

On Net Neutrality https://t.co/lfjvBg83jW | Written in 2006. Still on point.

— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) November 23, 2017

Bureaucracy: With surprisingly little fanfare, President Trump has set about doing something that has evaded presidents of both parties for decades: reshaping, resizing and reforming our vast, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy. If he succeeds, all Americans will be the better for it.

It's Official: Trump's Swamp-Draining Begins https://t.co/icHp3V6FwI #tcot #tlot

— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) April 13, 2017

"A bureaucrat's success depends on his political pull." - #AynRand

"A bureaucrat's success depends on his political pull." - #AynRand #AtlasShrugged pic.twitter.com/kmc54BlZe7

— Atlas Shrugged (@AtlasShrugged) January 9, 2017

Here's Hillary's plan for higher education: expand the federal government’s role and spend an extra $350 billion.

Here's Hillary's plan for higher education: expand the federal government’s role and spend an extra $350 billion. http://t.co/PaRL7VgYub

— Watchdog.org (@Watchdogorg) August 14, 2015

“It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

◼ The decline of the Democratic party has arrived - Robert W. Merry/National Interest Magazine

(S)ometimes there are genuine signs in the election returns that something significant may be happening. And the returns of November 4 may reflect such a development. Two articles written since the Republican blowout explore these intriguing signs.

One was a New York Times commentary, published on November 11, by Thomas B. Edsall, who has few peers as a political analyst of the left. Entitled ◼ “The Demise of the White Democratic Voter,” the piece pulled together voting and polling statistics suggesting that the Democratic Party is in danger of losing the white vote almost entirely....

The next day the Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger weighed in with a piece entitled, ◼ “It Wasn’t Just Obama.” (image source) He covered much of the same territory as Edsall in assessing the significance of the election returns—the stunning GOP victory in Maryland, Scott Walker’s reelection in Wisconsin, Republican gubernatorial wins in Massachusetts and Illinois. And he goes further in exploring the Democratic tax-and-spend policies that seemed to stir voter ire at the polls. Particularly noteworthy was the tax spree of Maryland’s outgoing Democratic governor, Martin O’Malley, who in two terms raised some forty taxes and fees. These included the corporate income tax, sales tax, personal income tax and a “millionaire’s tax,” as well as a passel of fees on license plates, liquor, fishing, birth and death certificates, “even something called ‘stormwater management fees’ based on the size of people’s roofs, driveways, patios and such.”

The Henninger observation overlaps significantly with the Edsall analysis, but goes a step further in identifying the underlying problem for Democrats. They have constructed a governing coalition—government bureaucrats, public employee unions, recipients of transfer payments—that requires more financial resources than the party can generate without alienating the middle class. You can’t govern without the middle class. Henninger captures it with the best line since election night: “It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham.” KEEP READING...

3 things White House doesn't want you to know about ObamaCare, plus 3 things coming in 2015 you aren’t going to like

◼ ObamaCare architect and MIT professor Jonathan Gruber’s remarks about the "stupidity" of the American voter and the passage of ObamaCare is bad enough. What is even more disturbing are his comments about the bill’s deliberate lack of transparency. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest’s denials Thursday were also absurd. - FOX

The arrogance and condescension that has too often characterized the Obama administration’s policies have put the American public in the unfortunate position of having to learn about the health care changes the hard way, on their own.

Here are three crucial changes that the president clearly didn’t want you to know about:

1. HUGE DEFICITS AND NEW TAXES.
2. BUREAUCRACY.
3. STILL MORE BUREAUCRACY.

Here are three new things coming up in 2015 that you aren’t going to like:

1. PENALTIES WILL RISE – INDIVIDUAL MANDATE.
2. SERIOUS RATE HIKES FOR CHEAPER OBAMACARE PLANS.
3. EMPLOYER MANDATE WILL TAKE EFFECT.

After being delayed for a year, large businesses (100 or more employees in 2015, 50 or more in 2016) will be required to offer affordable (and subsidized) health plans to at least 70 percent of their full time employees or face a $2,000-$3,000 penalty per employee.

This mandate will lead to fewer full time employees being hired.

The latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll in July revealed that 53 percent of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of ObamaCare.

Just What Exactly Is Net Neutrality? And Why You Should Be Worried About It.

◼ As always, the problem can be traced back to a Obama administration bureaucracy... - RedState

...the ultimate irony of the FCC’s discriminatory approach to net neutrality. It has been sold as a means of protecting Internet startups when its real purpose is to protect existing or emerging non-ISP monopolies in mobile operating systems, search engines, online advertising, and online video distribution. In addition to stifling competition with their direct rivals, these monopolies could become so powerful that they stifle competition among mobile ISPs as well. The end result wouldn’t protect the ‘open Internet’ — it would merely shift net neutrality advocates’ concerns over gatekeeper control upstream from ISPs to other participants in the Internet ecosystem.

If the FCC wishes to preserve competition in the mobile Internet segment, its best bet is too maintain a light regulatory touch that maximizes opportunities for market negotiation. If the FCC won’t do that, then it should apply whatever net neutrality rules it adopts to all mobile Internet gatekeepers, ISP and non-ISP alike.

Reinstating the FCC’s ISP-only approach to Internet regulation is by far the worst option for regulating the mobile Internet. We already know where that market distorting road leads: To new monopolies in the middle.

"I thought to myself, if a Princeton and Harvard educated professional woman doesn’t know how to adequately feed her kids, then what are other parents going through who don’t have access to the information I have?"

◼ Michelle Obama Neatly Summarizes the Entire Progressive Agenda During a Nutrition Interview - IJ Review

Is it really that hard?

As a parent of five, it didn’t take a pediatrician consult for me to figure out what to put on my kids’ plates. It may surprise the Obamas to discover that many parents have successfully fed their offspring without Princeton and Harvard degrees, in addition to not needing “access to information.”

Lastly, as many “working” moms don’t earn $316,912 a year, in addition to a husband who was earning $162,100 as a Senator, perhaps the First Lady protesteth a tad too much.

Then she spilled the milk, so to speak:

It’s so important for our schools to make the hard calls for our kids, because parents are struggling enough at home.

Excuse me, who should be making the hard calls for “our” kids? Our schools, who admittedly have a tough job to do, are not and should not be given the right to make “hard calls” in our place. It seems like the education geniuses are having a hard enough time making the call about how to teach kids simple addition.

Maybe he should switch to Fox News... White House says Obama only learned of VA wait-list scandal on TV (just like the IRS, Fast and Furious and reporter snooping scandals)

◼ Krauthammer: Obama Acts Like He Stumbled Upon The Presidency & All This Horrible Stuff Is Happening - IJ Review

◼ White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president didn't know about explosive Veterans Administration scandal until he saw news reports - Daily Mail

◼ ABC, NBC Ignore Report Showing Obama Administration Knew About Ongoing VA Problems - Newsbusters
◼ Video: Obama routinely shocked, angered by things happening within his own administration - Guy Benson/HotAir

...This White House’s “we found out on the news” formulation has become such predictable boilerplate that Allahpundit didn’t even have to spell it out in his earlier headline, and the “anger” charade is its inevitable counterpart. Nobody is madder — “madder than hell” in this case — than the president, you guys. But as MKH noted last week, the president’s ostentatious fury generally recedes into “we can’t comment on an ongoing investigation” territory, followed by “only wing-nuts are still talking about this phony scandal — which, by the way, happened a long time ago, brah.” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl pressed Jay Carney about the Robert Petzel kabuki “resignation” yesterday, which Carney deflected by hiding behind a statement from the American Legion:...



◼ VA Whistleblower Says He's Been Demoted, Bullied - CBS St. Louis
◼ More Coming Forward - USNews&WorldReport
◼ When will Obama address? - FOX
◼ Empty Anger: Why VA hospital scandal is hurting the administration’s credibility - FOX
◼ FOURNIER: Quiz: How Dumb Does Obama Think We Are? Policy fiasco magnified by insulting public relations - National Journal
◼ FLASHBACK: Obama Assailed Bush VA For 'Deplorable Conditions' - Jim Geraghty/National Review

A Health and Human Services official has resigned after dealing with the frustration of the “profoundly dysfunctional” federal bureaucracy, which left him “offended as an American taxpayer.”

◼ HHS official resigns, pens a must-read rebuke of federal bureaucracy - Caroline May/Daily Caller

...“As for the rest, I’m offended as an American taxpayer that the federal bureaucracy — at least the part I’ve labored in — is so profoundly dysfunctional. I’m hardly the first person to have made that discovery, but I’m saddened by the fact that there is so little discussion, much less outrage, regarding the problem. To promote healthy and productive discussion, I intend to publish a version of the daily log I’ve kept as ORI Director in order to share my experience and observations with my colleagues in government and with members of the regulated research community,” he wrote.

AIDS patients in Obamacare limbo as insurers reject checks

◼ Hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS in Louisiana trying to obtain coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform are in danger of being thrown out of the insurance plan they selected in a dispute over federal subsidies and the interpretation of federal rules about preventing Obamacare fraud. - Sharon Begley & Julie Steenhuysen/Reuters

...The dispute goes back to a series of statements from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the lead Obamacare agency.

In September, CMS informed insurers that Ryan White funds "may be used to cover the cost of private health insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-payments" for Obamacare plans.

In November, however, it warned "hospitals, other healthcare providers, and other commercial entities" that it has "significant concerns" about their supporting premium payments and helping Obamacare consumers pay deductibles and other costs, citing the risk of fraud.

The insurers told healthcare advocates that the November guidance requires them to reject payments from the Ryan White program in order to combat fraud, said Robert Greenwald, managing director of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, a position Louisiana Blue still maintains.

"As an anti-fraud measure, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana has implemented a policy, across our individual health insurance market, of not accepting premium payments from any third parties who are not related" to the subscriber, Maginnis said.

High-speed rail consultant costs near $600 million even before construction starts

◼ The latest accounting by the California High-Speed Rail Authority to state lawmakers indicates that the agency has spent almost $600 million on engineering and environmental consultants -- all without turning a shovelful of dirt on construction. - Fresno Bee

To date, the only section for which the rail authority and the Federal Railroad Administration have certified environmental review is the Merced-Fresno section -- and even that omits the area around Chowchilla, in Madera County, as consultants evaluate options for a junction where the San Jose-Merced rail line would join with the Merced-Fresno line.

The rail authority initially anticipated that all of those environmental certifications for sections between Merced and Los Angeles would be done by early 2014. The project report now indicates that some of those environmental reports won't be done until late 2015 -- more than two years behind schedule.

Clunker progressivism

◼ Barack Obama’s presidency has become a feast of failures whose proliferation protects their author from close scrutiny of any one of them. - George F. Will/Washington Post

“Cash for Clunkers” was born with Obama’s administration as a component of his stimulus. Its fate is a window into both why the recovery has been extraordinarily weak and what happens when progressives’ clever plans collide with recalcitrant reality....

Cash for Clunkers lasted 55 days and ended with confusion that was a preview of things to come. The New York Times explained in August 2009 the final surge of demand for clunker funds:

“Around the country, dealers had put off the laborious task of applying for the rebates . . . which requires entering the 17-character identification numbers of each vehicle to be scrapped, scanning images of proof of insurance and filling out other paperwork. The computer system was overloaded, according to the dealers. They said they would finish one page in the application, hit enter and nothing would happen. Eventually a message would appear notifying the dealer that the page had ‘timed out.’ Tom Frew, the business manager at Galpin Motors in Los Angeles, said that he needed 35 tries to register just one of the company’s 11 dealerships on the day that the program opened because of problems with the government Web site. On Friday, he spent an hour processing just one rebate application, he said.”

The recovery from the recession began in June 2009; 53 months later, vehicle sales still have not yet reached the pre-recession peak. Cash for Clunkers was prologue for the government’s vastly more ambitious plan to manage health care’s 18 percent of the economy....

The present, too, is prologue. There is heated debate about Common Core, whose advocates say it merely involves national academic targets and metrics for primary and secondary education. Critics say it will inevitably lead to a centrally designed and nationally imposed curriculum — practice dictated by targets and metrics. Common Core advocates say, in effect: “If you like your local curriculum, you can keep it. Period.”

State Threatens To Seize Infant Who was Fed Goat’s Milk Instead of Approved GMO Soy Formula

◼ A young mother in Maine is being threatened by the Department of Health and Human Services to have her infant child taken away and put into foster care. Her crime? Feeding him goat’s milk instead of commercial infant formula. - healthimpactnews.com

The young mother made a huge mistake, however. She told her pediatrician about the formula. The doctor turned her in to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), which resulted in home visits, an overnight stay in the hospital, a directive to buy “approved” commercial infant formula (most of which contain GMOs and soy) and threats to remove the baby and place him into foster care.

The local mainstream media apparently is confused by this action, and has covered the story. WABI even interviewed another family doctor in the area who said: “I’ve got plenty of kids in my practice that have been given goat’s milk, for example, and they’re growing and developing fine.”

Indeed, goat’s milk is generally considered healthier, more easily digested, and less allergenic than cow’s milk. It has been fed to infants in traditional cultures for probably many thousands of years. So why the uproar and threats? The local media tried to interview the DHHS, but they refused, and instead referred them to government websites that stated goat’s milk was not suitable for infants.

◼ “I’m trying to do the best for my child, and I’m getting in trouble for it,” Gellerson said at the protest that drew about 40 people, including nine who spoke at the event. (a rally Thursday at Cascade Park in Bangor to make a statement against DHHS)

Bureaucrat: "Someone lives and someone dies”

◼ Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius won’t waive regulation for girl with five weeks to live: ‘Someone lives and someone dies’ - Joel Gehrke/ Washington Examiner @joelmentum

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rebuffed an appeal from Rep. Lou Barletta on behalf of a girl who needs a lung transplant but can’t get one because of a federal regulation that prevents her from qualifying for a transplant.

“Please, suspend the rules until we look at this policy,” Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, asked Sebelius during a House hearing Tuesday on behalf of Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old girl who needs a lung transplant. She can’t qualify for an adult lung transplant until the age of 12, according to federal regulations, but Sebelius has the authority to waive that rule on her behalf. The pediatric lungs for which she currently qualifies aren’t available.

“I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies,” Sebelius replied. “The medical evidence and the transplant doctors who are making the rule — and have had the rule in place since 2005 making a delineation between pediatric and adult lungs, because lungs are different that other organs — that it’s based on the survivability [chances].”