Guns Save Lives Link to Guns Save Lives Law Professor Calls for Repeal of the Second Amendment at Symposium on Constitutional Law Jesse James’ Colt .45 Expected to Fetch $1.6 Million at Auction [Video] 75 Year Old Cancer Patient Shoots and Kills 1 of 4 Home Invaders, Other 3 Captured

Law Professor Calls for Repeal of the Second Amendment at Symposium on Constitutional Law Posted: 15 Nov 2013 05:52 PM PST Texas A&M University Law Professor Mary Margaret Penrose is causing quite the controversy over comments she made at a symposium on the constitutional right to bear arms. Penrose told a room full of lawyers and law students that she supports completely repealing and rewriting the Second Amendment as well as redrafting the entire Constitution. According […] Jesse James’ Colt .45 Expected to Fetch $1.6 Million at Auction Posted: 15 Nov 2013 10:18 AM PST One of the most well documented guns to be tied to the notorious outlaw, Jesse James, is going to be auctioned off with a starting price of $400,000. Experts are pegging the gun’s final sale value near $1.6 million, or more. The gun has an excellent provenance that accounts for ownership of the gun all […] [Video] 75 Year Old Cancer Patient Shoots and Kills 1 of 4 Home Invaders, Other 3 Captured Posted: 15 Nov 2013 07:59 AM PST Charles Carlson, a 75 year old cancer patient, lives along in his rural home about 90 miles north Minneapolis. His nearest neighbors are some distance away. Those facts make what happened early yesterday morning even more terrifying. Four suspects broke into Carlson’s home with the intent to steal the painkillers that he takes to deal […]

China: The Next Phase of Reform

China: The Next Phase of Reform

Krauthammer: Obamacare woes could mean ‘the collapse of American liberalism’ ... I can only hope ... The communist failed, the national socialists failed, and now perhaps the democrat socialists may fail! GOD IS GOOD!

Krauthammer: Obamacare woes could mean ‘the collapse of American liberalism’

Former Secret Service agent blasts ‘toxic’ administration ....

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East African Infrastructure Development, Part I: The Central Corridor...

East African Infrastructure Development, Part I: The Central Corridor Summary Editor's Note: This is a four-part series on the development of transport infrastructure in East Africa. The region is looking to expand its economy and increase international trade as it becomes a seemingly attractive destination for low-end manufacturing. Part 1 examines the factors behind the drive to improve and expand the region's transport infrastructure and the possibilities and limitations in the Central Corridor.  East Africa's existing transport infrastructure is limited in its capacity and efficiency. If the countries in East Africa are to expand their commercial operations and attract new activity, particularly manufacturing, more reliable transportation networks will be needed.  The Central Corridor transport route is crucial to the movement of exports (especially mining exports) from inland areas to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. However, the railroads in the Central Corridor need to be upgraded, if not replaced outright. Countries with interests in the region, including China and Japan, have offered to invest in development projects, and Tanzania is planning several railway expansions. But other constraints, including a lack of capacity at Dar es Salaam, will remain.  Analysis Most of East Africa's infrastructure development focuses on the region surrounding Lake Victoria and extends into the Great Lakes region. Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are all located in the fertile and mineral-rich area that wraps around the lakes. The main purpose for establishing reliable transport infrastructure in the region is to strengthen the connection between the inland states, located west of Lake Victoria, to the ports on the East African coast. Two routes have emerged to achieve this goal: the Central Corridor, which runs south of the lake through Tanzania, and the Northern Corridor, which runs north of the lake through Kenya. While these routes do not necessarily compete for internal traffic, they do compete for external investment. There is also a Southern Corridor that runs south from Tanzania, but this corridor caters more to what comes in and out of Central Africa's mining regions.  Existing and Proposed Transport Arteries of East Africa These arteries of surface transport, which connect to smaller, local nodes, are essential to the development of the regional economy and are driven by national interests. The region's economic activity, and the population supporting it, is concentrated along Lake Victoria and farther inland in the Great Lakes basin. These local economies are driven mostly by primary industries -- the extraction and production of raw materials, agriculture, mining and potentially oil and natural gas. However, the East African region, particularly Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, shows potential for developing a low-end manufacturing base. Initial investments across several sectors, such as textile manufacturing, have already been noted in these countries.  The transport routes are focused mostly on regional trade and international exports. These exports mostly consist of coffee, tea and mining products. The corridors are not just essential for moving these goods into international markets; they are also critical for the provisioning of agricultural and mining projects and emerging sectors. However, the existing surface transport network -- consisting of roads and railways -- faces constraints in capacity and efficiency that limit the region's ability to attract investment in complementary industrial and utility sectors. The existing network is also insufficient to scale up mining activity (although increased mining activity, especially in the adjoining eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, would also require more political and security stability).  Central Corridor: Constraints and Development The Central Corridor connects the port of Dar es Salaam to the inland regions of Tanzania and to Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Kivu provinces. This corridor comprises a network of roads and railways passing Lake Victoria to the south. Along this route, it also taps into East Africa's most established mining region: the greenstone belts of Tanzania. Its farthest extension into the Democratic Republic of the Congo also taps into the limited mining activity in the Great Lakes region. The minerals extracted here are exported through Africa's eastern ports because geographic constraints and a lack of infrastructure make transport westward through the Democratic Republic of the Congo impossible. The main focus of the Central Corridor, however, continues to be Tanzania's economy due to the limited amount of goods going in and out of Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Surface Transport Infrastructure in the Central Corridor Along the Central Corridor, roads still carry the bulk of traded goods; railways transport only about 10 percent of total goods, mainly because Tanzania's railroads need to be upgraded. The backbone of the Central Corridor is the Central Rail Line that runs between Dar es Salaam and Kigoma in western Tanzania. While this railway was designed to handle 5 million metric tons of cargo per year, it currently only carries less than 10 percent of its capacity.  Projects are underway to overhaul this railroad. Countries such as China and Japan have offered support and funding to refurbish the railroads and purchase new locomotives and carriages, although much of the money required to completely renovate the existing railway network -- an estimated $1 billion -- has not been secured yet.  In the short term, transport along the Central Corridor could benefit from upgrades to the railroad, while in the medium term it could benefit most from the use of more trains. In the long term, however, Tanzania may be required to convert its current meter gauge (1,000 millimeters) railways to the standard gauge (1,435 millimeters), which could handle a larger capacity. Such a conversion, which would require the construction of a completely new railroad, cannot be completed in the short term because Tanzania cannot suspend railway operations and because the country's existing railroad bridges cannot accommodate the wider gauge.  Although Tanzania's railroads currently operate well below their potential capacity, transport along this route could quickly increase if refurbishment makes it a more efficient and reliable mode of transportation. While roads currently carry the bulk of goods along the Central Corridor, it can take trucks four days to travel down the Central Corridor while it takes a train only two. Moreover, by shifting heavy transport from the roads onto the railway, Tanzania can lessen the deterioration of its roads.  Besides a shift in transport from roads to rails, emerging industries and prospective mining projects could also increase the volume of goods transported by rail, requiring a higher-capacity railway network. These mining projects include gold, nickel, copper and uranium projects in Tanzania, as well as other projects farther inland in Burundi, Rwanda or possibly Uganda. Just one of these projects, the Mkuju River project, would raise Tanzania's need for a reliable transport corridor -- it is expected to make Tanzania the world's second-largest producer of uranium. Mantra Resources is expecting to mine 140,000 tons of uranium per year at the site. This is a classic case of a foreign mining operator needing a reliable rail line to export its commodity, and disruptions to these export plans could occur because the local government's capacity to engineer or otherwise complete the rail requirements is lacking.  Apart from improving existing railroads, Tanzania also plans several notable expansions of its railroad network that will either extend into new areas or relieve pressure on the Central Railway Line. One of these projects would extend the Central Corridor's railways into Musongati, Burundi, which would also create a better connection with the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Kivu provinces. Another section of railroad is planned to facilitate transport between Tanga, Arusha and Musoma in Tanzania, along a line running parallel to the border with Kenya. From Musoma on the banks of Lake Victoria, existing ferry connections would offer a direct link with Kampala in Uganda. This latter line would exist separately from the Central Corridor, but its existence would be able to lighten the load on some parts of the Central Corridor infrastructure.  Shortcomings at Dar es Salaam One of the Central Corridor's main constraints regarding capacity is the port of Dar es Salaam. Delays at the port, which is operating near its capacity, can last an average of three or four days. Other constraints along the corridor, such as customs checks at border posts, can easily delay travel times by three quarters of an hour -- or in some places, such as Kabanga along the Tanzanian-Burundian border, by an entire day -- but these are still well below the average delays noted in Dar es Salaam.  Lags in development and in construction of new facilities limit the port's ability to keep up with traffic. The lack of deep-water berths is one of the results of this underdevelopment. Another berth is being constructed at the port, but the area around it is very congested because it is located near the central business district. The unavailability of land behind the berths severely limits the port's future expansion. Other plans have been proposed, such as the development of the port of Maruhubi on the island of Zanzibar as a dedicated container terminal, which would relieve a considerable amount of pressure currently on Dar es Salaam. The Chinese are also breaking ground on the Bagamoyo port project located north of Dar es Salaam that could become a world-class port facility and involve road and rail connections to the Central Corridor.  While most of the Central Corridor operates well below its intended capacity, extensive refurbishing projects are needed to improve performance. Increasing the capacity of the port of Dar es Salaam -- the main bottleneck in the Central Corridor infrastructure -- will also be necessary. Several solutions to these challenges are available, but funding is often difficult to secure and this casts doubt on the feasibility of these projects. However, growing economic activity, both in the primary sectors and in low-end manufacturing in different countries around Lake Victoria, could make these projects along the Central Corridor more important.  Subscribe to read the entire series plus much more! Access thousands of in-depth reports on the most significant geopolitical events – complete analyses, forecasts and hundreds of videos, graphs and charts. Subscribe today for a 1-year subscription for just $129 (reg. price $349), plus get a complimentary copy of Oxford's Essential World Atlas.  *This offer is only valid for new Stratfor subscribers. These prices cannot be applied to the extension or renewal of Stratfor accounts. Memberships cannot be purchased to replace other higher priced memberships. Other exclusions or limitations may apply. Questions? Contact feedback@stratfor.com or (512) 744-4300 ext 2

Our Perpetually-Blindsided President... i.e. "dumb & dumber in-chief!"

Today on NRO CHARLES C. W. COOKE: Could Obamacare end up as America's worst domestic-policy disaster ever? Failure of Failures. HEATHER R. HIGGINS: Rollback and repeal are possible, but Republicans need a realistic plan.Obamacare Triage: With Strategy This Time. JONAH GOLDBERG: Social media is acting as the new permanent record.Watch Out, Your Character Is Showing. THE EDITORS: Ethanol subsidies are bad environmentalism.Demon Alcohol. BETSY WOODRUFF: The U.N. treaty on the disabled faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. Second Time Around.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

November 13, 2013

Our Perpetually-Blindsided President

If you loaded up President Obama with truth serum right now, he would probably tell you he's confident that the website will be fixed by the end of the month and everything will work out fine. When the president discusses the implementation of Obamacare, he refers only to problems with the website. On Friday, he said, "I know health care is controversial, so there's only going to be so much support we get on that on a bipartisan basis -- until it's working really well, and then they're going to stop calling it Obamacare." He is still convinced this is all going to turn out okay.

You and I know that even if the website suddenly stopped crashing tomorrow, there are at least six big hurdles remaining: overcoming apathy and disinterest, overcoming sticker shock, calculating and delivering the right subsidies, having the correct data sent to insurance companies, getting enough young and healthy people, and having no security breaches.

You and I know the scale and depth of this mess because we've been listening to Avik Roy, Bruce Webster, Bob Laszewski, Megan McCardle and a bunch of other smart folks. It's entirely possible you and I have a better sense of how the Obamacare repair work is going than the president does. Laszewski wrote this weekend, "They are now in the midst of that many months long testing and fixing period. It is clear they don't have a few weeks of work left; they have months of work left." Has anyone said that to President Obama yet? Or do they plan on telling him sometime after Thanksgiving?

Unless Henry Chao, HealthCare.gov's chief project manager at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is lying, he's been kept in the dark about massive problems with the website's security. And if he doesn't know, then no one above him knows. That "thermocline of truth" is still pretty low within the administration.

It is increasingly clear Obama has no idea how the project is actually progressing; he's walking around in his own mobile bubble of happy talk. And this explains a lot about Obama's presidency.

There's an oft-quoted line from Seinfeld, "It's not a lie if you believe it."

With millions of Americans losing their health insurance plans (contradicting President Obama's loud, public, clear, explicit, and frequent promise) and exacerbating the precise problem Obamacare was meant to solve -- Americans without health insurance! -- the "we didn't know we were lying" excuse is now theofficial justification from some of Obama's closest allies. Senator Dick Durbin said, "I said it because I believed it. Now I know that I should have added that for 98 percent of American people, that is exactly true. For the other two percent who are in the individual market, there are frequent changes in policies." (Some estimates put it closer to 9 percent, and we're talking about 11 million to 52 million people facing cancellation or forced changes to their plans.)

This is in fact the spin from the president himself, as described by Chuck Todd after a one-on-one interview:

You know, he does not believe he lied on this, and that's the sense I get. I mean, I think that that's, he's taken issue with that before with folks off the record, and I got it's a sensitive issue, felt like he did not sit there and say he intentionally lied. He said that he wanted to, he thought he was going to be able to keep this promise. I thought what was revealing in that answer, when I asked him that direct question about this, was this a political lie that you started to believe it, was he talked about well, you know, it turns out we had trouble in crafting the law.

John Nolte:

If Obama has convinced himself he didn't lie, that borders on pathological. We now know that as far back as 2010 the president knew eight to nine million people would lose their health insurance. We have him on video admitting to that:

The 8 to 9 million people you refer to that might have to change their coverage -- keep in mind out of the 300 million Americans that we are talking about -- would be folks who the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, estimates would find the deal in the exchange better. Would be a better deal. So, yes, they would change coverage because they got more choice and competition.

"Pathological"? Well, let's face it: You don't run for president after being senator for two years, taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, unless you have a self-confidence that many others would find insane. Yes, to succeed in this world, you must first believe that you can achieve your goals. But you also need to realistically assess your circumstances and the right methods to achieve your goals.

Obama's lies to the public are an enormous problem, but his lies to himself may be more dangerous.

Gene Healy points out that we're getting another wave of "Obama's problem is that he's an introvert and not a good schmoozer" columns and essays, and concludes, "Introverts -- present company excepted -- can make good presidents. Obama's current predicament stems in large part from his flexible relationship with the truth -- a personality flaw that has nothing to do with his sometimes solitary nature."

Actually, Obama's serial dishonesty is at least assisted by the fact that he doesn't often encounter people who disagree with him, and doesn't appear to have much patience or interest in having his ideas challenged.

Dana Milbank noticed this after his disastrous first debate performance:

In the hours after the Republican challenger Mitt Romney embarrassed the incumbent in their first meeting, Obama loyalists expressed puzzlement that the incumbent had done badly. But Obama has only himself to blame, because he set himself up for Wednesday's emperor-has-no-clothes moment. For the past four years, he has worked assiduously to avoid being questioned, maintaining a regal detachment from the media and other sources of dissent and skeptical inquiry.

… In lieu of taking hard questions, Obama has opted for gauzy, soft-focus interviews with the likes of "Entertainment Tonight," gentle appearances on late-night comedy shows, kid-glove satellite hits with regional TV stations, and joint appearances with the first lady where questions are certain to be gentle. Tough questions are rare in one-on-one interviews, because Obama has more control over the topic — and the interviewer wants to be invited back.

And again on Syria:

As Obama staffed the White House for his second term, there was criticism that he was isolating himself by promoting loyal aides who lacked the independent standing to tell him when he was making a mistake. Now, regarding Syria, we see the consequences.

As a result of that, Obama gets blindsided on a regular basis. George Will summarized the highest-profile examples…

"He seems to think that his job as chief executive is not to be the executive but to be angry at his own administration when it doesn't perform well," said the syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor. "Fast and Furious, the IRS, Benghazi, NSA, investigation of our Mr. Rosen, there's just a list of things that surprise him."

But there are plenty of other times Obama's been surprised by the result of his own policies. He seemed to think that reaching out to the Iranians would lead to a change in the regime's behavior and attitudes. Then he thought they would appreciate him not calling them out on their atrocities; he later regretted his "muted" stance during the regime's bloody crackdown in 2009.

He was surprised to learn that shovel-ready projects were not, in fact, shovel-ready.

He was surprised to learn that large-scale investment in infrastructure and clean-energy projects wouldn't create enormous numbers of new jobs.

He was surprised that his past housing policies hadn't helped struggling homeowners as he had promised.

The "recession turned out to be a lot deeper than any of us realized."

When a woman says her semiconductor-engineer husband can't find a job, Obamasaid he was surprised to hear it, because "he often hears business leaders in that field talk of a scarcity of skilled workers."

As I wrote in a previous Jolt, some cynics might look at this pattern and conclude that Obama isn't as smart as he thinks he is -- or as his fans think he is. But it's probably more accurate to offer some variation of the Reagan line, that the problem with Obama isn't that he's ignorant; it's just that he knows so much that isn't so.

The Democrats' Unity on Obamacare Is Splintering Before Our Eyes

Of course, while President Obama walks around in a bubble of happy talk, not every member of his party does. For those who aren't in safe districts, the murmur is on the verge of becoming a cry: "Abandon ship!"

CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash told her network's anchors on Tuesday that the end of the week is the "de facto deadline" at which point the White House needs to have settled on a series of fixes to address the crisis of Americans losing their health coverage. After Friday, Bash reported, House Democrats are going to be backing GOP proposed fixes to the Affordable Care Act against the wishes of President Barack Obama's administration.

"What is clear is that the political pressure and the political desire from Democrats to at least do something is growing by the minute," Bash reported. "What is going to happen in – this week – on Friday is House Republicans are going to put a piece of legislation on the House floor for a vote that will at least, in some way, shape, or form, suggest that people can keep their health care."

Here's the pushback that Pelosi and company will offer: "House Democratic leaders are privately warning rank and file Dems that a vote for this bill -- and other anti-Obamacare legislation -- could alienate leading Democratic donors heading into 2014, a source familiar with internal discussions tells me. 'Votes against the Affordable Care Act are going to turn off a lot of these top national progressive donors,' the source said in characterizing the arguments."

Just wait until Steny Hoyer starts twisting arms on this! Go get 'em, Steny!

Steny!

Steny?

The second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives said on Tuesday that Americans receiving health insurance cancellation notices because of Obamacare should be able to keep their plans, if the plans were created before the law was enacted in 2010.

Speaking at his weekly news conference, Representative Steny Hoyer said Americans should be allowed to keep their insurance plans if they like them, just like President Barack Obama had promised they could do when he began rolling out his healthcare program.

Greg Sargent boasts the Upton bill will never make it out of Harry Reid's Senate. To which I say . . . awesome. Let every American know that Senate Democrats blocked a bipartisan bill to help Americans who suddenly found their health-insurance plans canceled.

Washington's Exchange: Oh, Hey, Never Mind about That Tax Credit

Even when you think you know your deal under the state exchanges . . . you don't actually know.

About 8,000 Washington residents will soon receive letters informing them that the price they are expecting to pay for health insurance purchased on the new online exchange marketplace is incorrect.

The letters are part of an effort by the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, which operates the exchange, to correct a major error that resulted in the miscalculation of tax credits that help qualified enrollees pay for insurance premiums.

ADDENDUM: From the parody account, HealthCareDotGov: "Jeez Looeez, people. Millions of anxious women are delaying their prostate surgery, and all you can think of is 'data security' & 'privacy.'"

POLITICO Breaking News: Obamacare enrollment numbers...

Only 106,185 people have signed up for health insurance plans through the Obamacare exchanges across the country as of Nov. 2, administration officials said in the first official update of enrollment since the law's troubled Oct. 1 launch. One quarter of those people came in through the flawed HealthCare.gov site, which is operating in 36 states. The rest came through the state-run exchanges, most of which are generally operating much more efficiently than the federal site.

The figures, which fall well short of the administration's early goals, include people who have selected a health plan, whether or not they have actually paid for it. The White House has been tamping down expectations for weeks, warning that they have always expected the first month of enrollment to be low, even before the problems with the website became clear.

An additional 392,261 people were deemed eligible for coverage under Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program under the law. The Medicaid interest far outweighs interest in the private insurance plans so far. 

For more information... http://www.politico.com 

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