The Obamacare failure: 10 million buy plans on exchanges, 9 million buy off-exchange

Sally Pipes, here:

These off-exchange plans were never expected to be popular, especially compared to the government's marketplaces. As recently as 2013, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting that 24 million Americans would buy insurance through ObamaCare's exchanges by 2016. The CBO didn't even bother to predict enrollment figures for off-exchange plans.

Those projections missed the mark. Last year, off-exchange enrollment — 9 million — was within 1 million of that inside the exchanges. Some 2.5 million people have purchased off-exchange coverage even though they would've qualified for income-based subsidies through the exchanges. Almost half this group may also be eligible for additional federal subsidies aimed at reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income individuals.

Congress has abdicated its spending oversight responsibilities for 20 years, and just did so again

From the story here:

Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) have repeatedly promised a return to regular order instead of relying on take-it-or-leave-it omnibus bills and short-term CRs to fund the federal government. However, they have not kept that promise. On Thursday, the House passed a $1.1 trillion short-term CR (HR 2028) to keep the federal government operating until April 28, 2017. Lankford said Thursday that he will vote against the CR when it gets to the Senate on Friday. Despite some gains made since 2014, when Republicans took over control of the Senate, Lankford pointed out that Congress has been “missing out on real oversight” by passing supposedly temporary CRs for the past 20 years.

In the two weeks between Trump's appointments of common core DeVos and open-borders Puzder, Jeb Bush figured it was prudent not to lay it on too thick

As Ann Coulter has pointed out, the only difference between a Trump cabinet and a Jeb Bush cabinet is a Jeff Sessions.

December 8th

November 23rd

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Trump's pick for Interior Secretary, is another immigration squish

At some point someone's going to notice that Donald Trump isn't serious about stopping illegal immigration.

Here:

But, the Washington congresswoman said, she won’t rule out a pathway to citizenship, and also stated that she was open to granting a special schedule to the children of immigrants who came to the country illegally.

Rush Limbaugh is ecstatic today about Trump's cabinet picks

The guy never was on our side on illegal immigration, the income tax, Elton John, etc.

The leader of the conservative liberals, as someone once said. 

Hillary knows an awful lot about the epidemic of fake news because she started it . . .

. . . when she blamed a Muhammad video for a supposedly spontaneous attack on Benghazi at the same time Obama was trying to win reelection on "Osama is dead and GM is alive".

Trump betrays his base, picks Andrew Puzder for Labor Secretary, another amnesty advocate

Trump must think we're stupid. You know, just like the defeated elites now packing up and leaving DC.

Puzder had a long op-ed in Politico here three years ago outlining his Marco Rubio Gang of Eight immigration ideas, including 

"a pathway to adjusted status for those here illegally now; and special relief for the children of undocumented immigrants." 

Real news alert: Hillary speaks up for "true" propaganda

There's an epidemic of false propaganda. Bring back the true kind!

Here:

“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said during a speech on Capitol Hill.

Jennifer Palmieri should think about the over 5 million former Obama voters who rejected Hillary, not about who rejected Trump

Jennifer Palmieri still can't face what lead to the Hillary loss: A Democrat candidate more repugnant to Democrat voters than the Republican candidate was to Republican voters. Hillary was a magnet for words with a negative connotation while Trump was not at all. She was a horrible candidate. End of story. 

Here:

But it’s also important for the winners of this campaign to think long and hard about the voters who rejected them. I haven’t seen much evidence of such introspection from the Trump side. That’s concerning.

That's right, Mickey: Amnesty for dreamers will just produce more dreamers

Salena Zito nails it: Hillary's loss was never about Trump but about Democrats losing touch with their voters

Here:

What Democrats, academics and pundits keep refusing to see is that the loss was never about Trump’s candidacy; it was all about how Democrats have increasingly lost touch with their voters outside of coastal America — until those voters finally hit their breaking point.

When Trump assures the New York Times it will be happy about what he does with the dreamers . . .

. . . rest assured we won't be.

Over 2,000 Americans died horribly in a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago

Our public institutions remember this infamous date faithfully by flying the flag at half staff. My son's high school had the Stars and Stripes just so at oh dark thirty this morning. Good job.

So did the firehouse we passed on the way to the piano lesson this afternoon. You can always count on the fire department.

But the rest of Michigan which I saw today had their flags flying as usual at full staff, and not illuminated at night. Just another patriotic day.

So it goes.

Suddenly the commie Fredrik deBoer is fresh out of ideas

Gee, just a little while ago Fredrik deBoer was certain that all of us white guys were buying guns to off ourselves, which meant there were going to be fewer of us to stand in his way.

Instead we voted for Donald Trump . . . and now the country's a damned armed camp on top of it.

Here's an idea for deBoer, since he asked: Get out now before the border closes and the price of the drugs skyrockets.

Here. 

One month since Election 2016: Trump edges up 0.2 million votes in the last week, Hillary 0.3 million

Trump remains the king of the Republican hill in the popular vote:

Trump 2016: goes from 62.6 million a week ago to 62.8 million now

Romney '12: 60.9 million

McCain '08: 60.0 million

Bush '04: 62.0 million

Bush '00: 50.5 million

Obama remains the king of the Democrat hill in the popular vote, and also the absolute king in the popular vote with no one scoring higher:

Hillary 2016: goes from 65.1 million a week ago to 65.4 million now

Obama '12: 65.9 million

Obama '08: 69.5 million

Kerry '04: 59.0 million

Gore '00: 51.0 million

Peter Wallison points out jettisoning the Electoral College would mean electing presidents without majorities and thus without mandates

Here.

Michael Savage gets Trump's Taiwan overture totally wrong, Marc Thiessen gets it right

Savage calls it a blunder, in keeping with his generally negative assessments about Trump's post-election behavior.

Thiessen calls it deliberate, and brilliant, here, which is what it is.

What a hypocritical gasbag Rush Limbaugh is about Trump's spending plans

Why, Donald Trump could be another FDR!, he says today. He could consolidate Republican rule for decades if he spends the money correctly!

Rush doesn't have a clue about the Obama stimulus, let alone have any principles. He thinks the stimulus was $1 trillion or so, when it was actually nearly $5 trillion, so far. I say so far because the damn thing was built into the outlay train. And look what we've gotten for it. A big fat nothing-burger. Crummier economic growth than under Bush, full-time jobs over 6 million behind trend, and a big fat national debt of nearly $20 trillion.

But Trump's version is going to be successful! Sure it is. $1 trillion or $5 trillion or $10 trillion under Trump isn't going to do anything it couldn't do under Obama.

The February 2009 Obama stimulus got added to Bush's 2009 fiscal year spending, and to every frickin' year thereafter. The fiscal 2008 baseline outlays were $2.9825 trillion.

And here are the annual outlays thereafter in excess of that baseline:

2009: $535.2 billion

2010: $474.6 billion

2011: $620.6 billion

2012: $554.5 billion

2013: $472.1 billion

2014: $523.6 billion

2015: $776.1 billion

2016: $1.017 trillion.

The giant joke on the American people here is that Republicans went right along with this charade the whole time Obama was president.

And now that Trump is running the show, an even bigger joke is about to be played on the American people.

Fake news alert: Time Magazine calls CNN's Ana Navarro "a breakout star of the election"

Here:

"I don’t know how people can possibly survive this election without . . . a good liquor store.”

Democrats are still light years away from recognizing Hillary lost because no one wanted to vote for a lying crook

Democrats here blame a litany of things . . .

• Bernie's challenge
• Comey's investigation
• The Russkies
• Clinton's centrism
• Clinton's campaign
• Clinton's failure to defend herself
• Clinton's messaging
• Democrats' inability to connect with the millions they failed

. . . but never the freight train of sooty baggage which defined Hillary Clinton.