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If you've read this, or this, or this, or this, today's Washington Post report is hardly a shocking bulletin: Software problems with the federal online health insurance marketplace, especially in handling high volumes, are proving so stubborn that the system is unlikely to work fully by the end of the month as the White House has promised, according to an official with knowledge of the project. The insurance exchange is balking when more than 20,000 to 30,000 people attempt to use it at the same time — about half its intended capacity, said the official, who spoke on the condition...

An internal government memo, obtained by CNN today and written just days before the Obamacare website opened, warned of a "high" security risk because of a lack of testing of the website. "Due to system readiness issues, the (security control assessment) was only partly completed," said the memo from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations."

Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif) blamed the contractors hired by the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department for the website failures that are bogging down the launch of Obamacare. “These private sector sharks exploited Secretary Sebelius’ ignorance and sold her a bad product,” Waxman contended. “In effect they bilked her and America out of millions of dollars with a shoddy piece of merchandise.” CGI, one of the principal contractors for the website contested Waxman’s characterization. “There were numerous checkpoints every step of the way,” said CGI’s Senior Vice President Cheryl Campbell. “We have hundreds of invoices signed by various HHS personnel...

CGI Federal Inc., the mastermind behind healthcare.gov, is assisting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the distribution of $1.7 billion in relief for Hurricane Sandy. In a memo obtained by FreedomWorks titled, “Minutes of the 295th meeting of the members of the Housing Trust Fund Corporation held on May 9, 2013, at 8:30 a.m.,” CGI Federal is tasked with implementing the Disaster Housing Assistance Program. Additionally, they are asked to aid in the implementation of the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, an assistance program that had recently obtained $1.7 billion. Item five of the...

Perhaps, but I don't know which. Maybe He is simply a bad person. A psychiatrist would need to examine Him professionally to draw any useful conclusions. Still, it can be fun to guess.Here's a Trifecta video that raises the question about his boredom or incompetence. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nt0eBMQcO4&w=640&h=390] Video linkA psychiatrist friend once told me (in jest, of course) of three categories into which psychiatric patients fall: sad, mad and bad. I don't know whether President Obama is sad, mad, bad, bored or incompetent. However, it seems clear that He is either maliciously competent enough to fail America intentionally or that He is an...

Upset at President Barack Obama's policies on Iran and Syria, members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family are threatening a rift with the United States that could take the alliance between Washington and the kingdom to its lowest point in years. Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief is vowing that the kingdom will make a 'major shift' in relations with the United States to protest perceived American inaction over Syria's civil war as well as recent U.S. overtures to Iran, a source close to Saudi policy said on Tuesday. Prince Bandar bin Sultan told European diplomats that the United States had failed to...

The prime contractor to build the Obamacare exchange, which has been riddled with glitches and became the laughing stock of many, appears to have had a poor track record for other projects in recent years, according to reports. CGI A screenshot of CGI website. (Image source: CGI.com) CGI Federal in the U.S., which is a subsidiary of the Canadian-based CGI Group, was contracted to build most of healthcare.gov, the federal healthcare exchange that launched on October 1. According to Sun News anchor Brian Lilley, if the U.S. government awarding the group the contract in 2011 had looked “north of the...

One thing that the past few weeks have accomplished is the total destruction of Obama's "towering intellect" persona.This is one the standard lenses through which Obama is viewed, with differing but complimentary angles from each end of the spectrum: the liberal "reigning intellect of his age" as opposed to the conservative "master chess player with a plan for destruction."The basis of Obama's reputation for intellectual superiority lies in a mixture of Democratic propaganda and PC indoctrination. The Democratic stance has been steadily maintained for years and prevails in some circles impervious to embarrassment or shame. Obama was an Ivy-league man!...

Yes, really. As you read this morning, I was expecting a some perfunctory contrition and token acceptance of responsibility from President Bystander during his Obamacare remarks in the Rose Garden today. I was wrong. The appearance was more of a pep rally, replete with upbeat promises and applauding supporters. Aides might as well have hung a large "mission accomplished" banner over Obama's head. The fact that the Obamacare websites -- a core element of the law functioning -- are in total shambles and won't be fixed for many weeks or even months were all but shrugged off as an afterthought....

We know using HealthCare.gov has been frustrating for many Americans. The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better. We’ve been gathering feedback since the day we launched – from our customer service representatives, social media channels, and online surveys and comments. And we’re listening. We’ve been making changes to respond directly to your feedback and will continue to do so. A few of our most important changes so far: •You can now preview plans and prices available in your area without filling out the online...

What to make of all the polls on the government shutdown? You know, the ones that say that, to varying degrees, congressional Republicans are being blamed more than Democrats and Barack Obama. Let me give a roundabout answer, based on a theory that people sometimes try to send messages through their responses to poll questions. I developed this theory after watching British political polls since the 1960s. For the large majority of that time -- the major exception was the first eight years of Tony Blair's prime ministership -- voters have given negative job ratings to the governments of the...

A follow-up to this morning's post chronicling Obamacare's myriad failures; CBS News surveys the wreckage and renders an unavoidable verdict (via Hot Air): CBS Calls Obamacare Website Launch 'Nothing Short of Disastrous' "The president's signature achievement has become the butt of late night jokes...no one knows how many people have managed to enroll, and the administration refuses to release those numbers. The website's launch has been nothing short of disastrous. Media outlets have struggled to find anyone who's actually been successful." If a one-year delay of the Obamacare mandate tax is good enough for Jon Stewart, Wolf Blitzer and...

We are two weeks away from the lauch of the Obamacare exchanges. Yet, as Christopher Weaver, Timothy Martin, and Jeniffer Corbett Dooren report over at the Wall Street Journal, at this point the government’s $88 billion software used to determine how much people will need to pay for coverage and how much subsidies they are eligible for is suffering from a glitch. This is a pretty big deal since, as the Journal explains: At their front end, the exchanges are essentially websites that consumers use to compare health plans and enroll in coverage. These websites link to data from other...

(CNSNews.com) - During the four years that marked President Barack Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627 and the number of people in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000, according to data released today by the Census Bureau. The record total of approximately 46,496,000 people in the United States who are now in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, is more than twice the population of Syria, which, according to the CIA, has 22,457,336 people. In 2008, the year Obama was elected, real median household income in the United States was $53,644 according...

WASHINGTON — President Obama, to his supporters, is a deliberative leader whose willingness to recalibrate his response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons potentially helped avert military strikes and further US involvement in a civil war half a world away. But to his critics, Obama is like a character in a Shakespearean comedy, where the hapless protagonist succeeds despite himself. It was, after all, only after Secretary of State John F. Kerry made an offhand comment last Monday morning in London — and Russian leaders seized on it — that renewed diplomatic discussions began. Now those discussions have led to...

STRELNA, Russia — President Obama ran into an impasse on Friday in his bid to rally international backing for a military strike on Syria as world leaders wrapped up a summit meeting here remaining deeply divided over the right response to what the Americans have called the deadliest nerve gas attack in decades. After a dinner debate that lasted into the early morning hours of Friday, Mr. Obama emerged with a few supporters but no consensus, as other leaders urged him not to attack without United Nations permission, which is not forthcoming. Instead, the president had to resign himself to...

The stakes of the Syria vote couldn’t be higher for President Barack Obama: If Congress doesn’t back him up, his already troubled second term would be dealt another blow in the twin arenas of domestic and foreign politics. (snip) Some of Boehner’s colleagues in both parties read his moves as an indication that he would not stand in the president’s way in launching strikes. But Obama had grown frustrated with both international and domestic leaders who gave him tacit approval but declined to jump to his aid. He was taking all the risk and responsibility for a Syria strike, and...

Evidence of the astonishing incompetence of the Obama administration continues to roll in. It started with the stimulus package. One-third of the money went to public employee union members -- a political payoff not very stimulating to anyone else. Billions went to green energy loans, like the $500 million that the government lost in backing the obviously hapless Solyndra. Infrastructure projects, which the president continues to tout, never seem to get built. He's been talking about dredging the port of Charleston, for example, to accommodate the big container ships coming in when the Panama Canal is widened. The canal widening...

The chill in relations between the US and Russia grew still frostier yesterday as President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister told the White House to start behaving like "grown-ups". Sergei Lavrov chided the US administration two days after President Barack Obama scrapped a summit with Mr Putin when Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, the fugitive US spy.

In warning about possible al Qaeda attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials may have provided too much detail about intercepted chatter and the source of the information, and that may make it more difficult to get such tips next time, former and current intelligence officials say.(snip) Intelligence officials are dismayed that the administration provided so much detail on what prompted the closings, and that the disclosures could work against obtaining new information. Militants are now likely searching for the sources of the information to both the U.S. and Yemeni officials, and almost certainly will kill anyone they suspect of working...