White House names former Microsoft exec to run Healthcare.gov

The White House is rebooting HealthCare.gov's repairman.

Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene will take over the volunteer job of overseeing ongoing fixes to the federal Obamacare marketplace HealthCare.gov starting Wednesday, officials said.

DelBene is replacing management guru Jeffrey Zients, who was tapped by President Obama in October to manage the emergency repair job on that then-badly crippled website.

The switch comes at a critical time for HealthCare.gov, which has seen dramatic performance improvements under Zients. The site, which had very low enrollment levels in the first two months of operation because its tech troubles, now is engaged in a furious effort to sign up as many people as possible in new Affordable Care Act insurance by the New Year

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Kurt DelBene

DelBene, who retired last summer as president of the Microsoft Office division after two decades at the software behemoth, is the husband of US Rep. Suzan DelBene, (D-Wash), a fellow ex-Microsoft executive who was elected to Congress in 2012. Before Microsoft, DelBene was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, and a software developer and systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Officials said DelBene has agreed to stay on the job of managing HealthCare.gov for at least the first half of 2014, which would include the March 31 deadline for open enrollment on that and other Obamacare exchanges.

Although he will be paid for his work, DelBene plans on returning all of that money to the US Treasury, the White House said.

Zients was originally scheduled to start his new job as director for the National Economic Council at the beginning of 2014. But on Tuesday it was disclosed that Zients will take that job after the State of the Union address on Jan. 28. In the meantime, Gene Sperling will stay on as council director until Zients takes over.

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Discussing security threats at Healthcare.gov, with Carrie Wofford, Democratic Strategist; Kurt Bardella, former House Oversight Senior Advisor; and Avik Roy, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow.

"I am pleased to announce Kurt Del Bene as my Senior Advisor and successor to Jeff Zients," said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary for Health and Human Servicesin a blog post on HHS's site on Tuesday.

Sebelius said, "The President and I believe strongly in having one person, with strong experience and expertise in management and execution, who is thinking 24/7 about HealthCare.gov. "

She lauded Zients for doing "an outstanding job working with our team to provide management advice and counsel on the HealthCare.gov project," saying the site now "is night and day from what it was when it launched on October 1."

"I am very grateful for his service and leadership."

Sebelius said DelBene "will be a tremendous asset in our work" because of his "proven expertise in heading large, complex technology teams and in product development."

She also said his responsibilities, while similar to those of Zients, will reflect the fact that the site has improved in recent months.

DelBene will "provide management expertise, operations oversight, and critical advice on additional enrollment channels, field operations, marketing and communication." He also "will execute the plan in place, so that we can ensure the site's performance is strong through the close of open enrollment on March 31,2014," Sebelius said.

"This will include a focus on increasing system stability, redundancy and capacity, and building on improvements to the user interface, while continuing to prioritize security and privacy issues in line with industry best practices."

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Jeffrey Zients

DelBene's wife, Rep. DelBene, in a statement said, "I'm pleased that the President has appointed Kurt to help oversee the continued improvement and implementation of the federal HealthCare.gov website website.

"The fact remains that there are millions of Americans who do not have access to affordable, quality healthcare today. To change that, it's critically important that HealthCare.gov works as it was supposed to."

"With his long career in the private sector, Kurt has the unique combination of skills and experience as an executive in the technology industry to manage a project the size and scope of HealthCare.gov," Rep. DelBene said. "I've long said that we need more people to enter public service who are focused on delivering results. Kurt has demonstrated throughout his career that he is about results, and his decision to join the Administration will be extremely valuable to their efforts to improve the website."

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Healthcare.gov

Kurt DelBene also won praise from his former bosses at Microsoft, including company founder Bill Gates.

"Kurt is a talented and capable executive, with a track record of successfully managing complex large-scale technology projects," Gates said. "Working with Kurt over many years, I know him to be a passionate advocate for using technology to solve difficult problems at scale. He brings deep expertise as a manager and engineer to his new responsibilities. I'm certain he'll make an important positive contribution in his new role with HHS."

(Read more: More Obamacare extensions)

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said "Kurt's a phenomenal leader who established Microsoft Office as a world-class service for billions of people. Clearly, Kurt's technical and business skills will be invaluable in his new endeavor."

When DelBene takes over on Wednesday, he will be facing a less dire situation than the one Zients had to deal with after his appointment in late October.

Nearly two months of widespread software and hardware fixes made by government workers and private contractors during Zients' tenure at HealthCare.gov have left the site functioning much better than it had been after its botched Oct. 1 launch, with quicker load times and a sharply reduced error rate.

But it still needs to process what officials predict will be several millions enrollments in coming months. And the construction of a back-end system that handles critical financial transactions for insurers who sell plans on the site has been repeatedly postponed because of the frantic rush to fix the consumer interface.

Although enrollment on HealthCare.gov has greatly increased after the site was essentially relaunched at the beginning of December a slew of upgrades the pace of sign-ups is believed to still be well below the rate needed to hit 7 million enrollees nationwide by the close of enrollment in March, the target set by Obama officials.

For coverage that would begin Jan. 1, consumers have until next Monday to enroll in insurance bought through either the federal or state-run Obamacare exchanges.

Boston Bomber Believed He Was a Victim of Mind Control

Suspected Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev believed that he was a victim of mind control, according to the results of a five month investigation published yesterday by the Boston Globe.

Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police four days after allegedly carrying out the bombings with his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was thought to have “some form of schizophrenia,” according to family friends, while his mother said Tsarnaev “felt like there were two people living inside of him.”

“He believed in majestic mind control, which is a way of breaking down a person and creating an alternative personality with which they must coexist,” Donald Larking, a 67-year-old who attended a Boston mosque with Tamerlan, told the Globe. “You can give a signal, a phrase or a gesture, and bring out the alternate personality and make them do things. Tamerlan thought someone might have done that to him.”

The link between allegations of mind control and violent acts such as political assassinations or terror attacks has been a running theme in numerous different high profile cases.

Aurora theater gunman James Holmes said he was “programmed” to carry out the massacre by an “evil” therapist, according to an alleged inmate of the ‘Batman’ shooter. Steven Unruh claims that Holmes told him he “felt like he was in a video game” during the shooting and that he had been brainwashed with the aid of neuro-linguistic programming.

The parallels between James Holmes and another alleged victim of mind control – RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan - are astounding.

As the London Independent reported in 2005, evidence strongly indicates that Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate, a victim of mind control who was set up to be the fall guy for the murder. Sirhan was described by eyewitnesses as being in a trance-like state as he pulled the trigger.

“There was no way Sirhan Sirhan killed Kennedy,” said (Sirhan’s lawyer Larry) Teeter….He was the fall guy. His job was to get busted while the trigger man walked out. He wasn’t consciously involved in any plot. He was a patsy. He was unconscious and unaware of what was happening – he was the true Manchurian Candidate.”

The CIA’s use of mind control to create killers is a matter of historical record. MK-ULTRA was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence that came to light in 1975 through investigations by the Church Committee, and the Rockefeller Commission. 14-year CIA veteran Victor Marchetti insists that the program is ongoing and has not been abandoned.

According to his lawyers, Sirhan Sirhan “was an involuntary participant in the crimes being committed because he was subjected to sophisticated hypno programming and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed,” and served only as a diversion for the real assassin.

Jared Lee Loughner, the gunman who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six other people, was also obsessed with mind control.

Were the Tsarnaev brothers set up or brainwashed into carrying out the Boston marathon bombing? It’s a claim that would be virtually impossible to prove, but it would explain a number of extraordinary contradictions pertaining to the case, including why the brothers apparently shouted “we didn’t do it” during their shootout with police.

The aunt of Tamerlan Tsarnaev claims that the footage which emerged of police arresting a naked uninjured man was her nephew, contradicting the official narrative that Tsarnaev was critically injured in a shootout and suggesting he may have been killed while in custody.

TERROR SCARE AT HARVARD DURING FINALS

A police officer secures an area at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Monday. Associated Press

BOSTON—Harvard University students were allowed to return to two buildings Monday afternoon after an earlier report of bombs on campus forced the evacuation of four buildings, the school said.

Students were allowed back into Thayer Hall, a dorm, and classrooms in Emerson Hall. The other two buildings, the Science Center and Sever Hall, were still being checked, officials said.

After receiving the bomb report in the morning, the Harvard University Police Department ordered students and others to evacuate. Access to Harvard Yard was restricted.

"Harvard's focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff," the university, based in Cambridge, Mass., said.

Harvard requested that the Massachusetts State Police send its bomb squad and bomb dogs, said Trooper Dustin Fitch. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was also responding to the incident, officials said.

The Harvard Crimson, a campus newspaper, reported that a dean told students there that exams were canceled for the morning, according to the paper's Twitter feed.

There were briefly worries Monday about yet another campus threat in the area, after the University of Massachusetts Boston tweeted that there was a "possible person with a firearm" and evacuated a building. But the state police quickly said the report was false and the scene was clear.

Confidential Obamacare Navigator training manual uploaded online

“INFORMATION NOT RELEASABLE TO THE PUBLIC UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY LAW: This information has not been publicly disclosed and may be privileged and confidential. It is for internal government use only and must not be disseminated, distributed, or copied to persons not authorized to receive the information. Unauthorized disclosure may result in prosecution to the full extent of the law.” That is the warning at the bottom of every page of the 217-page confidential Obamacare Navigator training manual sitting online for anyone to come across –and as Watchdog.org reports, that’s exactly what someone did. Tammy Duffy, a radiation health physicist from New Jersey, was talking with Obamacare Navigators one day and asked a question regarding people who are self-employed, in which they could not provide an answer. She then asked for a copy of the manual, which they would not give her since it’s not meant to be available to the public. “I asked the nice ladies for a copy and they said I could not have it because it was a government document not for the public. So I thought maybe there is an outline or shorter version that is for the public. I went to Google and typed in ‘healthcare insurance marketplace Navigator SOP,” Duffy said. Sure enough, a Google search of “Healthcare insurance marketplace Navigator SOP” yields a link back to the “Health Insurance Marketplace Navigator Standard Operating Procedures Manual.” The manual is labeled as “restricted distribution” by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and threatens prosecution to anyone authorized to view it who ultimately disseminates it to unauthorized people — and it’s online for everyone to see. navigators Duffy knew she came across something that should not be online and tried reaching out to the federal government informing them of this. Nothing happened. “I immediately sent an email through the White House web site that these documents are on the web for all to see. I got no response. I also called the White House yesterday and spoke to a volunteer (and said) these restricted documents are on web. I have heard from no one. I also sent it to a friend who works at the Department of Defense and said, ‘Get this taken down.’ It’s still up there.” The document itself does not seem to contain sensitive information or secrets even though it is labeled confidential. While nothing within the manual seems to be out of the ordinary or raise eyebrows, it contains parts instructing Navigators how to interact with people they speak with. It also includes sections on “Identifying Personally Identifiable Information,” “IRS Data Safeguards” and “Preventing Fraud.” However, despite sections on preventing fraud and protecting people’s personal information, Breitbart News obtained an early copy of a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report on Obamacare Navigators that documents Navigators encouraging fraud. The report titled, Risks of Fraud and Misinformation with ObamaCare Outreach Campaign: How Navigator and Assister Program Mismanagement Endangers Consumers, details how ill-trained the people in charge of signing Americans up for Obamacare actually are. It notes that ”documents call into question the effectiveness of the Navigator program and the Obama administration’s ability to safeguard consumer information” and that “poorly-trained Navigators gave consumers incorrect information about the health care exchanges, violated HHS rules and procedures, and even encouraged applicants to commit tax fraud in some instances.” The Oversight committee found: *Navigators from the Urban League of Dallas were captured on video encouraging applicants to lie on their health insurance application so the applicants could qualify for tax subsidies. Navigators were also recorded advising an applicant to lie about her smoking habits to obtain a lower monthly premium. It was later discovered that two of the so-called Navigators involved in the incident were assisting consumers with their applications even though they had not completed their training and certification requirements. *One self-identified Navigator gave a television interview in which she told viewers blatantly incorrect information—that applicants’ credit scores could impact their eligibility for certain plans. It later came to light that the woman was not a certified Navigator but rather a volunteer with a Navigator organization. *Mountain Project, Inc., a Navigator organization in North Carolina, has been collecting and mailing paper applications on behalf of applicants, in violation of Navigator rules and procedures. Even more worrisome is that Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, previously stated during a hearing that it’s possible felons could be hired into the Navigator role since it lacks background checks. “Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background check,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Sebelius during the hearing on November 6, 2013. “That is true,” Sebelius answered. “States could add in additional background checks and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement.” Cornyn then asked, “So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual unbeknownst to them?” Sebelius responded, “This is possible.” To see the full 217-page Obamacare training manual, click here.

You can take our word for it. Americans don't trust each other

WASHINGTON (AP) - You can take our word for it. Americans don't trust each other anymore.
We're not talking about the loss of faith in big institutions such as the government, the church or Wall Street, which fluctuates with events. For four decades, a gut-level ingredient of democracy - trust in the other fellow - has been quietly draining away.
These days, only one-third of Americans say most people can be trusted. Half felt that way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.
Forty years later, a record high of nearly two-thirds say "you can't be too careful" in dealing with people.

(AP) Bart Murawski, 27 poses at a coffee shop Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013, in Troy, N.Y. You can take our... Full Image

An AP-GfK poll conducted last month found that Americans are suspicious of each other in everyday encounters. Less than one-third expressed a lot of trust in clerks who swipe their credit cards, drivers on the road, or people they meet when traveling. "I'm leery of everybody," said Bart Murawski, 27, of Albany, N.Y. "Caution is always a factor."
Does it matter that Americans are suspicious of one another? Yes, say worried political and social scientists.
What's known as "social trust" brings good things.
A society where it's easier to compromise or make a deal. Where people are willing to work with those who are different from them for the common good. Where trust appears to promote economic growth.

(AP) Dennis Hess poses for a photograph at his farm Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, in Litiz, Pa. You can take... Full Image

Distrust, on the other hand, seems to encourage corruption. At the least, it diverts energy to counting change, drawing up 100-page legal contracts and building gated communities. Even the rancor and gridlock in politics might stem from the effects of an increasingly distrustful citizenry, said April K. Clark, a Purdue University political scientist and public opinion researcher.
"It's like the rules of the game," Clark said. "When trust is low, the way we react and behave with each other becomes less civil."
There's no easy fix.
In fact, some studies suggest it's too late for most Americans alive today to become more trusting. That research says the basis for a person's lifetime trust levels is set by his or her mid-twenties and unlikely to change, other than in some unifying crucible such as a world war.

(AP) Shown is the is a sign posted at Dennis and Darlene Hess's farm stand Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, in... Full Image

People do get a little more trusting as they age. But beginning with the baby boomers, each generation has started off adulthood less trusting than those who came before them. The best hope for creating a more trusting nation may be figuring out how to inspire today's youth, perhaps united by their high-tech gadgets, to trust the way previous generations did in simpler times.
There are still trusters around to set an example.
Pennsylvania farmer Dennis Hess is one. He runs an unattended farm stand on the honor system.
Customers pick out their produce, tally their bills and drop the money into a slot, making change from an unlocked cashbox. Both regulars and tourists en route to nearby Lititz, Pa., stop for asparagus in spring, corn in summer and, as the weather turns cold, long-neck pumpkins for Thanksgiving pies.

(AP) Dennis Hess displays a radish at his farm Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, in Litiz, Pa. You can take our... Full Image

"When people from New York or New Jersey come up," said Hess, 60, "they are amazed that this kind of thing is done anymore." Hess has updated the old ways with technology. He added a video camera a few years back, to help catch people who drive off without paying or raid the cashbox. But he says there isn't enough theft to undermine his trust in human nature.
"I'll say 99 and a half percent of the people are honest," said Hess, who's operated the produce stand for two decades.
There's no single explanation for Americans' loss of trust.
The best-known analysis comes from "Bowling Alone" author Robert Putnam's nearly two decades of studying the United States' declining "social capital," including trust.

(AP) Dennis Hess shows a video recording of a person he believes stole from his farm stand, Monday, Nov.... Full Image

Putnam says Americans have abandoned their bowling leagues and Elks lodges to stay home and watch TV. Less socializing and fewer community meetings make people less trustful than the "long civic generation" that came of age during the Depression and World War II. University of Maryland Professor Eric Uslaner, who studies politics and trust, puts the blame elsewhere: economic inequality.
Trust has declined as the gap between the nation's rich and poor gapes ever wider, Uslaner says, and more and more Americans feel shut out. They've lost their sense of a shared fate. Tellingly, trust rises with wealth.
"People who believe the world is a good place and it's going to get better and you can help make it better, they will be trusting," Uslaner said. "If you believe it's dark and driven by outside forces you can't control, you will be a mistruster."
African-Americans consistently have expressed far less faith in "most people" than the white majority does. Racism, discrimination and a high rate of poverty destroy trust.

(AP) Bart Murawski, 27 poses at a coffee shop Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013, in Troy, N.Y. You can take our... Full Image

Nearly 8 in 10 African-Americans, in the 2012 survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago with principal funding from the National Science Foundation, felt that "you can't be too careful." That figure has held remarkably steady across the 25 GSS surveys since 1972. The decline in the nation's overall trust quotient was driven by changing attitudes among whites.
It's possible that people today are indeed less deserving of trust than Americans in the past, perhaps because of a decline in moral values.
"I think people are acting more on their greed," said Murawski, a computer specialist who says he has witnessed scams and rip-offs. "Everybody wants a comfortable lifestyle, but what are you going to do for it? Where do you draw the line?"

millions dead black friday scare lol

News • News • ISSUE 48•48 • Nov 26, 2012

According to emergency personnel, early estimates indicate that more than 42 million Americans were killed this past weekend in what is now believed to be the bloodiest Black Friday shopping event in history.
First responders reporting from retail stores all across the nation said the record-breaking post-Thanksgiving shopping spree carnage began as early as midnight on Friday, when 13 million shoppers were reportedly trampled, pummeled, burned, stabbed, shot, lanced, and brutally beaten to death while attempting to participate in early holiday sales events.
Law enforcement officials said the bloodbath only escalated throughout the weekend as hordes of savage holiday shoppers began murdering customers at Wal-Mart, Sears, and JCPenney locations nationwide, leaving piles of dismembered and mutilated corpses in their wake.
“The level of bloodshed this year was almost beyond imagination—no prior Black Friday could have prepared us for this,” said National Guard commander Frank Grass, talking to reporters in front of the still-smoldering remains of a local Best Buy that was burned to the ground Saturday. “We had fire trucks, police cruisers, and guardsmen stationed at multiple locations, but it was useless. At the moment, hundreds of thousands of American shoppers are still unaccounted for, and we expect $2 billion in damage has been wrought upon our cities. ”
“The stench of death is unbearable,” a tearful Grass added. “Simply unbearable.”
As the weekend of sales drew to a close, ambulances could be seen circling the now empty and completely ravaged shopping complexes as they searched for signs of life, while clean-up crews worked to clear the rubble, overturned cars, and large pools of blood from local Kohl’s and Macy’s parking lots.
The White House issued an official response, stating, “We mourn the deaths of those 42 million American shoppers who tragically lost their lives this Black Friday.”
Survivors of the deadly holiday sales event said that while the weekend began as a chance to “get in on some unbeatable post-Thanksgiving deals,” it quickly escalated into a merciless, no-hold-barred fight to the death.
“At some point in time we all stopped caring about the deals and the holiday shopping and were pretty much just out for blood,” said Dana Marshall, 37, a Target shopper who suffered seven broken ribs and a cracked sternum while fighting two other customers for a discounted Nikon digital camera. “I remember just sitting on top of a woman and smacking her head with a DVD player until her face was completely unrecognizable. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Man on fire enters Ocean City church sparking blaze that killed rector

A man on fire entered the offices of an Ocean City church Tuesday morning, sparking a blaze that killed him and the rector of St. Paul’s by-the-Sea, and critically injured a third person, a preliminary investigation has found.
Fire officials said they are still trying to determine how John Raymond Sterner, 56, of Ocean City, came to be on fire, and whether he was intentionally trying to set a blaze in the rectory building or if it was just an accident.

A fire breaks out in Ocean City next to a church. (Youtube/wbalam)

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“It’s quite a unique incident,” said Jessica Waters, an Ocean City spokeswoman. “There are still pieces we don’t know.”
The chain of events began around 9:25 a.m. when Sterner entered the three-story building with a “significant amount” of flames on him, officials said. Waters said Sterner was a patron of Shepherd’s Crook, a food pantry and clothing store for the poor and homeless, that is run out of the building.
The fire quickly spread, possibly with the help of an accelerant, officials said. Firefighters arrived to find the structure, which is adjacent to the church’s sanctuary, fully engulfed in flames.
Crews quickly knocked down the blaze, but not before it claimed Sterner’s life and that of the Rev. David Dingwall, who had been St. Paul’s rector since 2005. Dingwall was found unconscious on the second floor of the building and rushed to the hospital, along with a church volunteer, who was injured while exiting the building, officials said.
Dingwall died Tuesday night, and the female volunteer remains in critical condition, Waters said.
Canon Heather Cook, an official with the Episcopal Diocese of Easton, said witnesses told diocese officials that Sterner was screaming for help when he entered the building and embraced the volunteer who was injured. Cook said the woman’s clothes caught on fire and the flames spread to the rectory building, which is old and largely made of wood. Cook said Dingwall might have made it out of the building, but he returned for a computer.
Fire officials could not confirm her account of events.
Cook said Dingwall would be greatly missed.
“I will remember [Rev. Dingwall] as a bright fellow with a charming sense of humor,” Cook said. “He had a great heart for the community.”
Cook said Dingwall had a distinctive look — a pierced ear and signature Crocs shoes that he would wear during services. Cook said he was instrumental in creating a community ministry with a $1 million donation left by a benefactor.
Waters said there was only minor damage to the sanctuary area of the church, which has 240 parishioners and was founded in 1878.
The remains of Dingwall and Sterner have been taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland in Baltimore for autopsies that will determine the manner and cause of their deaths.