Another Failure For Fascism

Every now and then one is assured that yes, there is a God, and yes, she distributes Justice. 
One such moment occurred yesterday at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius showed up with about 20 government techno-munchkins to give a seminar on the total freakin' awesomeness of ObamaCare and its website. 

Sebelius and Steelers (Pittsburgh's pro football team) Chairman Dan Rooney were at an enrollment and education event on Thursday at Heinz Field to promote Healthcare.gov, but people who showed up encountered problems in signing up for coverage on the website.

Unable to handle heavy online traffic and riddled with technical glitches, the website has been a source of criticism of the Obama administration and the new Affordable Care Act since its start on Oct. 1.

Sebelius, who is making similar trips to cities across the country to spread the word about the website, told the audience of about 100 people that Healthcare.gov was “open for business.”

“Believe me, we had some early glitches,” said Sebelius, who was introduced by Rooney, a backer of the law. “But it's getting better every day.”

At the back of the room, it was a different story. About 20 people armed with laptops and certified by the government to sign up people for coverage were meeting with uninsured people, answering questions and fruitlessly trying to access the website.

LaKesha Lowry, 41, came to the event to find out about her health insurance options. But the North Side resident said she was not able to access the site, even with the help of a certified application counselor.

“It said, ‘Try again later,' ” Lowry said.

I'm sure there are folks who don't understand why Libertarians rejoice at the total miserable failure of ObamaCare. 
Let me put it this way.  We rejoiced when the Berlin Wall fell.  Many of us were downright giddy when Pol Pot was arrested.  I intend to host a Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup/Party on the night of Fidel Castro's funeral. 
People who forcibly intervene in the lives and choices of adults do more harm than good.  When they fail, society benefits.  It really is that simple. 

I was hoping I could post Sibelius's travel and seminar schedule here, but can't find it online due to the government shutdown.  (Which brings up the following question:  Why is this twit still flying around the countryside promoting failed websites if the government is supposed to be shut down?) 

And I was hoping to find a funny photoshop of Sibelius to close this post.  I failed.  I did find these incredible ObamaCare postage stamps from the staff and readers of The People's Cube. 

  Isn't it strange how they've removed the countdown widget from the website error message? 

We're in the best of hands. 

A hypothetical question about "The Open Sewer Of Misinformation"

I try to Tivo most of the Sunday a.m. political talk shows.
This doesn't help my blood pressure.
One particular exchange, supposedly about throwing Greenery Czar Van Jones overboard, had me throwing stuff at the TV with more force than usual. I was almost relieved when I discovered that most of the Blogosphere was already posting about it.
I LOVE me some YouTube....



Tom Brokaw and Thomas (No More Huge Houses - Except Mine) Friedman are shown here lamenting that the internet is an open sewer of misinformation. They mourn because nothing is vetted any more. They tear their garments and smear black ashes on their foreheads because no one can reign in the internet.
They did just about everything but discuss why the MSM ignored the unfolding Van Jones debacle until the White House told Jones to volunteer to depart.
Have they ever, ever, ever considered that the Mainstream Media might owe some of its decline to the perception that they are in the tank for Big Gubmint?

Here are some other links on this sad decline, courtesy of Gateway Pundit:

Now, that (the video) is good comedy!
What makes it even more hysterical is that they all take themselves so seriously.
Too much.

The New York Times will publish their first print report on the Van Jones scandal tomorrow morning... more than 36 hours after (Jones) left the White House.
They refused to report on the story until the Mumia Abu Jamal-supporting Truther was long, long gone.
Good work, guys.

Related... Mark Hemingway has more thoughts at The Corner:

While Glenn Beck and others in the conservative commentariat had been shining a light on Jones' radical past for a while, the revelations that finally sunk Jones were broken by Gateway Pundit and other bloggers. Not that long ago, the idea that a guy Googling in the basement would be capable of bringing down a White House staffer would have been a story in and of itself. I suppose some might think this sort of thing is old hat five years after Rathergate, but I also suspect that this aspect of the story will be largely ignored because it makes the MSM look very, very bad.

Actually, I was Googling upstairs at the time.

More... Jonah Goldberg added this on today's "Meet the Press" discussion, via HotAir:

One of Friedman's key take-aways from this whole affair is that too many people will self-censor themselves so they can get government jobs. What a tragedy that fewer people will support cop-killers and anti-American conspiracy groups because of poor Van Jones chilling effect on the culture.

Still More... Kausfiles points to this from Noah Silverman:

Readers of the print edition of The New York Times will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?

Some of you are reading this, and asking yourselves "Who is Van Jones, and why does he matter?"
Well, ask yourself another question. Are you going to find out by going to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, or The New York Times?
Or are you going to dive into the "open sewer of misinformation" and do a Google search?

A note to the new Pay Czar

From Michelle Malkin, on the compensation level of Obama's "Pay Czar", the individual tasked with determining how much money someone can earn:

Kenneth Feinberg made $5.76 million last year as a partner in his Washington law firm, Feinberg Rozen LLP, according to a government ethics filing obtained by Reuters.
And his assets, which include a stake in his law firm, two homes and dozens of investments, are worth anywhere from $11 million to $37 million, according to the filing, which places assets in broad value categories.
His homes are a $1.66 million house in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, and a $1.96 million vacation home in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard.

Please allow me a brief digression about Martha's Vineyard....Who was Martha? Why is her Vineyard so popular with those of a certain political persuasion? Did Martha begin with a small summer camp for pious hypocrites, and it grew from there? Just wondering.

As long as I can remember, groups of Lefties have advocated topping organizational salaries at a multiple of someone else's earnings. I can remember people admiring the restraint of Ben & Jerry's founders (Ben & Jerry), who refused to take home more than, say, 10 times the salary of their lowest paid employee. I don't remember the exact number. This exercise in posturing didn't extend to Ben & Jerry's stock options, though, and after cloaking themselves with righteousness for a decade, they walked away with a lots more than 10 times the salary of the lowest 8 percent of the least compensated quartile of the blah blah blah blah blah. The whole thing makes me ill.

Anyway, the salary czar seems fixated on evil CEO's, Wall Street villains, people who burn orphanages, and the like. I think he should roll out something like this:

No lawyer can earn more than 12 times the amount earned by the paralegal who prosecuted Ted Kennedy's manslaughter case.

No actor, regardless of his political activism, can earn more than 17 times the director's salary of the Merigold Mississippi Community Theatre.

Take the cost of shipping one truckload of freight from Fort Worth, TX to a convention center in Chicago. Include Fuel, driver, use of tractor, use of trailer, road use taxes, and wear and tear on the vehicle for the 800 mile trip. From this number, subtract the cost of two union guys spending 20 minutes on forklifts unloading this freight at a Chicago convention center. Assume that this cost is lower than the freight cost. Sometimes it isn't. The leftover amount is the maximum monthly pay for any union leader.

No athlete can earn more than 7 times the annual salary of that guy from your high school who was a bust in the NFL draft, but who never learned how to do anything in school, and now spends his weekends watching his high school and college glory days on old videos.

No government official who leaves "Public Service" (ahem) to become a lobbyist can earn one cent more than the earnings of one of Fort Worth's Rosedale/Lancaster street whores. Equal work, equal pay.