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November 04, 2013, 02:23 pm HealthCare.gov down, press call canceled By Elise Viebeck Federal health officials canceled a regular call with reporters Monday as ObamaCare's struggling online enrollment portal briefly crashed again. HealthCare.gov was down and preventing users from starting applications for healthcare coverage on the federal marketplace as of mid-afternoon Monday. ADVERTISEMENT A regular 1:30 p.m. call with the media was then rescheduled at 1:45 p.m., prompting questions about the nature of the outage. The site appeared functional again around 2:20 p.m. An official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) blamed the call's postponement on change...

Mr. Obama needs Republicans in the House of Representatives to initiate an immigration bill. Why? Because the Senate bill raises revenue and the Constitution requires all bills raising revenue to originate in the House, not the Senate.

Central Connecticut State University is in full lock down this afternoon and administrators are repeatedly urging students to stay indoors after an armed man was spotted on campus. Preliminary reports indicate that officers have contained the man in James Hall, a dorm at the university in New Britain, Connecticut. Shortly after the lockdown began, the Central Connecticut State website was taken down and replaced with a short, urgent warning: ´Campus Emergency. Remain Inside buildings. Stay in place! Stay away from Windows. Police are on the Scene.´

While the Obama administration last month worked on resolving issues with HealthCare.gov, it had concerns that it was misleading consumers by suggesting they'd make more progress signing up for an Obamacare insurance plan with a paper application, documents recently turned over to Congress show. "The paper applications allow people to feel like they are moving forward in the process and provides another option; at the end of the day, we are all stuck in the same queue," the notes from an Obama administration meeting on Oct. 11 say. Notes from an Oct. 15 meeting say, "Navigators are seeing people very...

The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether or not the sectarian prayers offered at a New York town's meetings are constitutional. The highest court in the land will hear an appeal from a lower court decision regarding Greece, N.Y.'s practice of having explicitly Christian prayers open town meetings. Known as Galloway v. Town of Greece, the lawsuit was filed by two residents of Greece who felt the sectarian prayers made them feel excluded from the public affairs of the town. Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, the two plaintiffs, are being represented by the Washington, D.C.-based group...

For four years we've watched the public political spat over President Obama's Affordable Care Act, but the Washington Post has given us a view into what it looks like when a political fight gets into the twitch muscles of an administration. In an in-depth investigation into the implementation of the president’s health care law, the paper's reporters describe the creation of a jalopy built by a deeply flawed system. The problems piled up over years, flowing from both Republican obstructionism and the hyper political sensitivity of the Obama administration. This mix led to decisions based on politics instead of efficiency,...

The parents of a 13-year-old Santa Rosa boy killed by a sheriff's deputy who thought the airsoft rifle he was carrying was real, plan to file a federal lawsuit in San Francisco on Monday, claiming the deputy who shot their son violated the boy's Fourth Amendment rights as they pertain to limits on police authority..... The Fourth Amendment states that citizens have the right to be secure against unreasonalbe searches and seizures. In an interview with NBC Bay Area on Monday morning, he said he will also allege that Gelhaus has been involved in prior instances of "excessive force" and...

<p>Nov. 4, 2013 (FRC) - If the White House told insurance execs to "keep quiet" about ObamaCare, they certainly listened when it came to abortion coverage. Last week, even the boss of the entire system, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, managed a surprised expression when Congressman John Shimkus (R-Ill.) asked her why the agency was hiding coverage details from pro-lifers. Without skipping a beat, the HHS chief insisted she didn't know what she so clearly knew in 2009, which is that ObamaCare is the biggest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in U.S. history.</p>

Former green jobs czar Van Jones, during a roundtable discussion over the rollout of Obamacare on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous,” said President Barack Obama’s detractors have “Obama Derangement Syndrome.” “It’s silly season. Literally, they have this sort of Obama Derangement Syndrome where Obama is this absent, weak, ineffectual dictator and tyrant who’s destroying America,” Jones said. …

'Three killed' in Norway bus hijack Breaking news Three people have been killed in the hijacking of a bus in Norway, media reports say. The suspect, a man in his 50s of foreign origin, has been arrested, police told Norway's TV2 news channel. The man was said to have been armed with a knife. There were no immediate details of the number of injured. The attack - which was initially reported as a traffic accident - took place around 17:30 local time (GMT) in the central town of Ardal.

President Obama's former press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says it was "certainly" wrong for the president to continuously promise that people would be able to keep their health care plans under Obamacare ..."Well, look, I don't recall significant discussions around some of the verbage on this, to be a hundred percent honest with you," said Gibbs this morning. "But do you agree it was a wrong move?" "Oh, well, certainly," said Gibbs. "I mean, I don't think anybody dealing with this today finds what was said. Now, I do think some explanation in terms of the fact that policies that were...

South Korea's spy agency said Monday that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralysing military electronic equipment south of the border. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament that the North had purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own versions.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which will come up for a cloture vote in the Senate today, mandates that employers in the United States permit men to dress as women at work and women to dress as men as long as they otherwise adhere to “reasonable dress or grooming standards.” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the bill’s primary sponsor, has been joined by 55 co-sponsors. So the bill already has the backing of a 56-vote majority in the 100-member Senate. …

"......“I said this to the RNC last summer,” Christie said aboard his bus later that day, referring to the Republican National Committee, “I’m in this to win, because if you don’t win, you can’t govern. If you can’t govern, you can’t move the country, the state, the city — whatever you’re running for — in the direction it needs to be moved in. I think we’ve had too many people [in the Republican Party] who’ve become less interested in winning an election and more interested in winning an argument.” Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia will highlight both...

Sen. Ted Cruz won't be talking politics when he addresses some 400 pastors Monday in South Carolina. The Texas Republican will focus his remarks on his faith and values. The event is sponsored by the American Renewal Project, the brainchild of evangelical political operative David Lane, The State newspaper reports. Cruz, a tea party favorite and one of the most vocal Congressional opponents of the Affordable Care Act, was a driving force behind shutting down the federal government in an effort to defund Obamacare. Cruz, a freshman, is weighing a run in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries. Sen. Tim Scott...

November 4, 2013, 1:00 PM ET Holder: ‘I Was Right’ on Holding 9/11 Trial in NYC ByDevlin Barrett Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that the slow pace of the military commission trial of the accused 9/11 plotters shows he was right four years ago to try to put those suspects on trial in New York City. The trial of those defendants, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is still enmeshed in pre-trial hearings, and the trial itself is not expected to begin for at least another year. It was four years ago that Mr. Holder announced Mr. Mohammed...

I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 

-- Romans 12:1 


With Zeke Emanuel on set, Morning Joe played a montage of Obama saying 20+ times, "you can keep your doctor...you can keep your insurance." At 15:10, Mika has a "face/palm" moment that's just too damn funny. At 17:10, Joe is overheard yelling, "that's garbage, Zeke!"

My quick translation: A non ethnic Norwegian entered a bus n the fjordlands of Western Norway, then proceeded to slay all the passengers with a knife. There were only 3 passengers onboard so casualties are relatively low I suppose.

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