Free Republic

Obama Threatens To Penalize Putin Over Ukraine By Kathleen Hennessey March 1, 2014 WASHINGTON -- President Obama told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the U.S. may boycott an upcoming economic summit in Russia and threatened further penalties if Moscow does not recall its military forces from Ukrainian territory. In a 90-minute telephone call, Obama warned Putin that Russia faces "greater political and economic isolation," according to a White House description of the call. The president suggested the United Nations would take action for what he called a "breach of international law." http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-fg-wn-obama-ukraine-20140301,0,3474561.story#ixzz2ul7lzoFV

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin made what has turned out to be a prescient remark about the relevance of a U.S. president's resolve and its potential impact on Russia's posture with the old Soviet Union's satellite states. She observed: "After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine next." Many in the press ridiculed that notion. Among them was Blake Hounshell, who was then blogging at Foreign Policy Magazine. Characterizing Palin's...

How much does it cost taxpayers to sign up one ObamaCare enrollee? In President Obama's home state of Hawaii, it's $56,819. The Obama administration gave Hawaii $205 million in grants over the past three years to set up its state-run exchange. But so far, only 3,614 Hawaiians have filled out applications — just 40% of the state's enrollment goal. Even if Hawaii were to reach its 9,000 target, it would still cost nearly $23,000 for each enrollee. Hawaii's low sign-up numbers have state officials scrambling to figure out what to do next year, when its exchange is supposed to rely...

A “massive and concerted attack” has been launched by a bot system on numerous bitcoin exchanges, Andreas Antonopoulos has revealed. This has lead to popular exchange Bitstamp putting a temporary halt on all bitcoin withdrawals. Antonopoulos, who is the chief security officer of Blockchain.info, said a DDoS attack is taking Bitcoin’s transaction malleability problem and applying it to many transactions in the network, simultaneously. “So as transactions are being created, malformed/parallel transactions are also being created so as to create a fog of confusion over the entire network, which then affects almost every single implementation out there,” he added.

Enough people were upset with my previous post claiming that Mt. Gox is suffering a bitcoin bank run because it is holding only a fractional bitcoin reserve that it caused me to think twice about the claim.I could have been wrong, but I doubt it.Actually, the backlash was strong enough that it made me think that perhaps I was using some common terms in strange ways. I referred to Mt. Gox as a bank, which is a stretch by some definitions, but it definitely stores bitcoin for clients and as such, acts as a custodian.Maybe it was the term “bank...

One in five Obamacare "enrollees" could have their plans cancelled for failure to pay their first month's premium. That figure is based on reports from health insurers themselves, some of whom have made 10 attempts to collect the first payment.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, listening to that excerpt from Ed Henry, you would think that's the campaign speech of someone running against Barack Obama. Obama is indicting the four years, the five years he's been president. He said the rich have done well, everybody else has stalled, inequality has increased. Well, the four years, the five years are his years. Essentially, he's saying my job now is to undo what I have done in the five years of my presidency. It's hardly sort of a ringing call to arms. I'm sure they now tested all of these words, inequality, opportunity, all...

“We were flat out wrong." That’s the message Cracker Barrel is sending to enraged customers after the restaurant chain removed Duck Dynasty items from its stores over fears it might offend people. “Our intent was to avoid offending but that’s just what we’ve done,” Cracker Barrel said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. “You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren’t shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings.” One of those customers was Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. He said his...

Oregon, once touted as a model for President Obama's health care law, signed up just 44 people for insurance through November, despite spending more than $300 million on its state-based exchange. The state’s exchange had the fewest sign-ups in the nation, according to a new report today by the Department of Health and Human Services. The weak number of sign-ups undercuts two major defenses of Obamacare from its supporters. One defense was that state-based exchanges were performing a lot better than the federal healthcare.gov website servicing 36 states. But Oregon's website problems have forced the state to rely on paper...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama blamed Republicans on Tuesday for contributing to the troubled rollout of his signature healthcare insurance plan and said it will be hard to "rebrand" Obamacare after his administration fixes a website used to sign up for the program. "We should have anticipated that that would create a rockier rollout," Obama told a Wall Street Journal conference."One of the problems we've had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure," Obama said.Obama said he thinks the website will be fixed on time for people to "catch up" and shop for insurance by key deadlines,...

WASHINGTON - President Obama will allow insurance companies to continue offering individual health plans that do not meet the standards of the Affordable Care Act through next year, according to a Democratic source on Capitol Hill familiar with the plans. The plan, which the president will announce Thursday morning, is intended to placate millions of consumers who have received cancellation notices from insurers in recent weeks. Obama had repeatedly promised that consumers would be able to keep plans that they liked. The president was under intense pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill to find a fix. House Democrats have increasingly...

Before Healthcare.gov’s troubled launch on Oct. 1, the White House estimated nearly 500,000 people would enroll in the Obamacare health exchanges within the first month and an estimated 7 million were expected to gain private coverage by the end of March, when the open-enrollment period is scheduled to end. Now – even before the administration can deliver on its promise to release an official head count of how many people have enrolled for insurance coverage in the first full month of operations – insurance industry analysts on Monday released figures showing the government has signed up a mere fraction of...

Update #2 after numerous requests from readers to update this story. The original posting is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3079644/posts Update #1 is here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3083078/posts And now, update #2: The last contact I made was on October 31st, asking why the promised call back after 2 business days hadn't happened. I was told that they'd escalate it again and I'd get a call back within 48 hours, not including weekends. On November 6th I called in o tell them that those two days had elapsed and no call back had occurred. I asked for a supervisor who told me that the callback standard...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was in Memphis, Tenn., for an education and outreach session about the health care marketplace, when a state senator presented her with a gift she didn’t appear to be happy to receive.

Call it "Survivor: White House" edition. Over the past week, one high-profile cabinet secretary managed to dodge an onslaught of Republican demands for her resignation while a lesser-known national security aide got the boot for a series of snarky anonymous tweets. In fact, history has shown that it's actually not that easy to get fired from the Obama administration. Over the past five years, just a few of those who serve at the pleasure of the president have been forcibly shown the door. Many more have weathered controversy and embarrassment and figured out a way to hold on for dear...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday said there was "no excuse" for the cascade of computer problems that have marred the rollout of key elements in his health care law, but declared he was confident the administration would be able to fix the issues. "There's no sugarcoating it," Obama said. "Nobody is more frustrated than I am." The president said his administration was doing "everything we can possibly do" to get the federally run websites up and running. And he guaranteed that everyone who wants to get insurance through the new health care exchanges will be able to....

The much-anticipated Windows 8.1 update was finally released on Thursday. Since then, however, early reports of bricked devices and lost data from some users indicate that the release may have been premature. In response, Microsoft took its Windows 8.1 update offline until further notice on Saturday. The Redmond, Wash. company posted the following a message to its website: Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT device to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the...

ObamaCare's impact on jobs is hotly debated by politicians and economists. Critics say the Affordable Care Act, with its employer mandate to provide health insurance, gives businesses an incentive to cut workers' hours. This year, report after report has rolled in about employers restricting work hours to fewer than 30 per week — the point where the mandate kicks in. Data also point to a record low workweek in low-wage industries. In the interest of an informed debate, we've compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare's employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing...

President Obama vowing that Syria would “cross a red line” by using chemical weapons is far from the only marker he’s laid down or promise he’s tried to keep since running for president in 2008. The president has made more than 500 campaign-related promises alone. And just last week he re-drew a line in the sand for congressional Republicans flirting with shutting down the government over his Affordable Care Act and looking for spending cuts as part of a separate deal to increase the federal debt limit. “That’s not happening,” Obama said. “I will not negotiate over the full faith...

The same day that the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee announced last week that the Fed would continue to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and $45 billion in U.S. Treasury securities per month, the Fed also released its latest weekly accounting sheet indicating that it had already accumulated more Treasuries and MBS than the total value of the publicly held U.S. government debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington though Bill Clinton. Since the beginning of September 2008, in fact, the Fed’s ownership of Treasury securities and MBS has increased sevenfold. As of the close...