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JERUSALEM, Israel -- While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry presses ahead with trying to create a Palestinian state by this spring, a senior Israeli government minister says Kerry doesn't know what he's talking about. "The only thing that can 'save us' is for John Kerry to win a Nobel [Peace] Prize and leave us in peace," Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said. Ya'alon made headlines Tuesday over remarks he reportedly made in private conversations both abroad and at home, according to the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. "Secretary of State John Kerry, who came here very determined and operates based on...

Many of us can identify with the frustrating experience that Karri Kinder, a mother of two from Auburn, Alabama, has had with Obamacare. She penned this open letter to share her story:

The Obama Administration's cadre of experts in charge of the Afghan War testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week and revealed a profound ignorance of what is going on. None of the witnesses had any idea on what the war cost last year or how many Americans have been killed in the last 12 months. James Dobbins, The State Department’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, complained that the questions were unfair, “No one told us there might be a quiz. Anyway, isn't there some website where people can get these statistics? Why should we be expected to...

Politico writer David Nather says the Obama Administration's announcement that the small business Obamacare system will not be ready for the website's Saturday relaunch dashes all Democratic hopes for declaring the relaunch a victory.

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from the federal Obamacare marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning that a significant fraction of that online insurance marketplace has yet to be constructed. (Read more: Low-bamacare enrollment) Getty Images Henry Chao, deputy CIO and deputy director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of Information Services, testifies during a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We still need...

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...