WASHINGTON — More than 6 million people have enrolled in the federal and state health exchanges as of Thursday, President Obama announced this afternoon.
This means the administration has met its latest goal, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, to ensure the insurance system is sustainable.
Obama made the announcement on a conference call with health care navigators and volunteers while he was traveling in Italy. He thanked them for their help.
The latest milestone comes after the troubled opening of the federal exchange Oct. 1. Software problems and other issues rendered the site virtually unusable for weeks, and it took a surge of technology support to have it fixed by Nov. 30. Since then, however, enrollments have risen dramatically, particularly as the Dec. 31 and March 31 deadlines approached.
Sometimes, some people just don’t get it, and in this case, Kobe is one of those people.
Kobe Bryant was recently asked by The New Yorker magazine to weigh in on a widely publicized Miami Heat photo where the team posed in hoodies to show their support for the late Trayvon Martin and his family.
Bryant’s comments have been interpreted by some as an insult to the reigning NBA champions.
“I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American. That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.”
Bryant was quickly pounced on by commentators on social media.
“Kobe could’ve just shouted out love for Trayvon’s parents, said he couldn’t imagine their loss and kept it breezy. He didn’t,” tweeted Grio columnist Goldie Taylor.
“My issue is that Kobe reduces the Trayvon Martin outrage to blind racial solidarity, when it was about so much more than that,” added ESPN commentator Jemele Hill.
Bryant has yet to respond to the backlash towards his remarks.
Miami Heats in hoodies as tribute to Trayvon Martin
Columbus Short, a lead actor on the television series “Scandal,” was arrested Wednesday on a felony charge that he seriously injured a man during an altercation at a restaurant earlier this month.
Short was arrested by police in Claremont on a warrant issued in a case that alleges he committed a battery that caused serious bodily harm.
The actor was involved in a dispute with a man at a West Los Angeles restaurant March 15 before Short hit the man and knocked him out, according to Los Angeles police and prosecutors. Further details about the altercation were not released.
Short, 31, plays attorney Harrison Wright on ABC’s hit series “Scandal.” Records show he was released Wednesday after posting $50,000 bail.
You’re a Republican and running for public office? Here’s your sure and simple way to get elected. No policy ideas needed, just show your gun and maybe shoot at a copy of Obamacare.
That’s it. That’s all you need to do to satisfy the small minded, two-issue voter base of today’s Republican party. Alabama congressional candidate Will Brooke realizes this fact and his campaign video showing him shooting at the healthcare law means he has already won.
“We’re down here to have a little fun and talk about two serious subjects,” Brooke says. “The Second Amendment and see how much damage we can do to this copy of Obamacare.”
Yep. Those are the two major issues plaguing this country. The Republican brain at work.
A Belgian husband has spoken of his ‘horror’ after learning his wife of 19 years used to be a man.
The duped 64-year-old – named only as Jan – said he had ‘no clue’ his bride had been born a boy.
The shocking revelation only emerged after almost two decades of marriage when a cousin from his wife’s native Indonesia finally exposed the truth.
Jan told how he met ‘Monica’ in 1993 when she arrived in his home town of Antwerp as an au-pair to his sister’s children.
Picturesque: The city of Antwerp, where the pair have lived since they married 19 years ago. The marriage is on the rocks after Jan discovered ‘Monica’ was born a man and had undergone a sex change operation
He described as her ‘very beautiful and feminine’ – but said he now understood why she was ‘no good at ironing’.
Jan told Belgium’s Nieuwsblad daily paper: ‘My second marriage was on the rocks at the time and we quickly fell in love.
‘I thought she was an attractive woman, and she was all woman – she had no male traits.
‘She was 27 years old at the time, so I asked her if she wanted children.
‘I was glad when she said she didn’t as I was 44 and already had two of my own.
‘Over the years she said she was taking the pill, and even during sex I never noticed anything, though now I understand why she always used a lubricant, which is apparently normal among transexuals.
‘She was always a good mother to my children, and also a fantastic cook, though we wasn’t that great at cleaning and ironing – and now I know why!’
But Jan said the relationship had begun to suffer over the past two years as she insisted on staying out late on her own wearing ‘very revealing outfits’
He added: ‘She would wear tiny tops that revealed a lot of flesh and had more than 100 pairs of shoes.
‘I also caught her ogling pictures of young men on the Internet.
‘But I didn’t suspect a thing until a cousin of hers came to visit and let something slip.
‘I mentioned it to my son and he said he’d heard a rumour too that Monica used to be a man.
‘One evening I confronted her and she finally confessed she had been born a boy and had a sex change operation.
‘My world collapsed in a few seconds. I was horrified. I feel like have been violated for almost 20 years.’
The couple are still living under the same roof after a judge refused to grant Jan an order to evict her.
But he added: ‘We live in separate rooms and rarely speak. What Monica has done to me and my family is unforgivable. I just want her out of my life.’
A Salvadoran thug who executed his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend and let fellow gang members shoot her terrified two-old-son as he grabbed his leg for help has been added to the FBI’s ‘Ten Most Wanted Fugitives’ list.
MS-13 gang member Juan Elias Garcia, 21, whose last reported sighting was somewhere in Honduras in 2011, is the fourth person sought by federal authorities in the Long Island killings of 19-year-old Vanessa Argueta and her 2-year-old son Diego Torres, said George Venizelos, the FBI assistant director of the New York field office.
Garcia, who is 5 feet 4 inches tall, and weighs 125 pounds is a native of El Salvador and is the first MS-13 gang member to make the bureau’s most wanted list.
He allegedly brought Argueta to the woods of Central Islip, Long Island in February 2010 under the ruse of taking her to to dinner, Venizelos said.
Most wanted: Juan Elias Garcia, an alleged member of the MS-13 gang, is seen in an undated picture released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on March 26, 2014. Garcia, 21, has been added to the FBI’s list of ‘Ten Most Wanted Fugitives’ for his role in the 2010 killing of his girlfriend Vanessa Argueta and little Diego Torres (right)
Argueta was accompanied by two other reputed MS-13 members who had received permission from the gang’s leader to carry out the killing, Venizelos said.
One of them shot her in the chest and head because of alleged threats made toward Garcia by rival gang members to whom she had ties, according to Venizelos.
Her son who witnessed his mother’s death began crying the thugs shot him in the head — but the wound proved not fatal and the terrified boy grabbed Garcia’s leg.
Then another gang member, Adalberto Ariel Guzman, shot him in the head a second time, killing the boy.
‘Once on his feet, Diego saw Garcia, a familiar face in the crowd, and clutched onto his leg. However, the violence did not stop. Guzman fired the second shot that struck Diego in the head and killed him,’ Venizelos said.
‘Garcia decided that penalty for disrespecting the gang was death,’ Venizelos said. ‘While crime and gang-related activity often goes hand in hand, the execution-style murders of Vanessa and her 2-year-old son is a new low even for MS-13.’
Announcement: US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch (2nd L, at podium) and FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos (3rd L) announce that Juan Elias Garcia (R, in poster), also known as ‘Cruzito’, from El Salvador, has been added to FBIs Ten Most Wanted list
Heinous crime: US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch (L) and FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos (R) announce that Juan Elias Garcia has been added to FBIs Most Wanted
Garcia, who was only 17 when the crime took place, is alleged to be a member of the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang, known as MS-13, and is believed to be hiding in El Salvador, authorities said Wednesday.
‘MS-13 is the most violent gang here of any of the street gangs,’ said Special Agent Reynaldo Tariche, who investigated the case with other members of the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force.
Authorities say Garcia had a romantic relationship with Argueta, but she had ties to rival gangs.
Last October, the Treasury Department designated MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, as an international criminal organization.
The two men conservative Republicans love to hate will meet up on Thursday to discuss what they’ve been working on since taking office – wealth inequality and poverty.
It is also expected that President Obama will formally invite The Pope to visit the U.S. next year.
So far, the political discussion revolving around Chris Christie’s diminishing prospects for 2016 have centered on the George Washington Bridge scandal, (and the laughable investigation by his own attorney), and the not-yet-vetted story about Sandy aid being withheld from less-than-enthusiastic supporters of the governor. These are certainly key issues that tell us a great deal about Christie’s style and demeanor, but even without them, he simply doesn’t have a record that would support a national run.
There’s no New Jersey Miracle, no New Jersey Rebound, and no New Jersey Bounce (OK, there’s one of those, but it’s unrelated to economics and politics). The governor hasn’t led New Jersey into a new ideological paradigm, nor has he provided a new framework by which the state operates. Democrats still outnumber Republicans. His 2013 coattails were, shall we say, a bit short when it came to counting legislative seats. His Supreme Court nominees have been rebuffed.
And this guy wants to be president?
About all he can run on is a state worker’s pension and benefits bill that is providing little relief to anyone. Middle class public workers are being whacked because more money is coming out of their checks for pensions and health insurance (which should have been negotiated, not imposed), and property taxes remain stubbornly high (remember that these taxes were supposed to go down as a result of the pensions bill). The result is that the governor took spendable money out of the economy at a time when he should have been putting more money into the economy to create jobs. What we have in New Jersey now is slow growth, a deteriorating middle class and a governor who wants to have public workers pay even more into their pensions. What about millionaires, you ask? He won’t touch their taxes.
Funny side note: Christie is seen as a moderate Republican. You can stop laughing now.
Christie’s latest economic gambit is to renege on his mandated duty to make full payments to the public worker pension system. That would put it in serious jeopardy and would negate a promise that the courts have ruled to be essentially non-negotiable. He’ll lose this argument and more credibility because the Democrats in the legislature will not cave in to him as they did in 2011 and the crossover vote that earned him his victory in November is abandoning him. Conservative Republicans in NJ still back him, but that’s not nearly a majority of the voters.
My sense is that the governor will survive the scandals. The larger question is whether New Jersey can survive him.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that its work to comply with the six congressional investigations into the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, has cost the military millions of dollars and thousands of man hours.
The Pentagon said in a letter to Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed services Committee, that Defense Department officials have participated in 50 congressional hearings, briefings and interviews about the attack.
“We continue to work fervently to address outstanding items which include a document request from the chairman of the Armed Services Committee (HASC) and six additional interviews of military personnel by HASC and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee staff,” wrote Elizabeth King, assistant secretary for legislative affairs.
Smith requested the estimate from the Pentagon in December. In response, he blasted the Armed Services Committee for continuing to investigate the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Smith wrote to House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), calling on him to drop the committee’s investigation.
“We must stop wasting this committee’s and our military’s scarce resources chasing a scandal that does not exist,” Smith wrote in a letter obtained by The Hill.
“More than any other committee in Congress, this committee should understand the financial strain on the Department of Defense, which is being made worse by these ongoing and ridiculous investigations,” Smith said.
It does not appear that McKeon intends to abandon the investigation, however.
My name is Ezra Grant and I like Candy Crush. But apparently I’m not the only addict in this candy store.
Candy Crush went on the stock market today as a publicly traded company with shares valued at $22.50 a share, making the candy game a $7.1 billion company.
The public offering of King marks the largest of its kind for the mobile gaming industry, beating out Zynga, which was valued at $7 billion, but lost half of its value after its 2011 IPO.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By agreeing to this, we can analyze browsing behavior and unique IDs on this site. Declining or revoking consent may affect certain features.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
