Underground Stories 103113

Israeli attack destroys Russian missiles headed from Syria to Hezbollah, US officials say

Israeli military forces destroyed a cache of Russian missiles that the Syrian government was reportedly prepared to deliver to the militant group Hezbollah, U.S. officials confirmed Thursday.
The officials stressed that the surface-to-surface Russian-made missiles were under Syrian military control in a stockpile at a port near the Russian naval base at Latakia.
The officials said this attack is expected to follow the usual pattern of several other Israeli strikes against Syrian missiles that were apparently on their way to Hezbollah – neither the Israelis, Syrians nor Hezbollah are likely to acknowledge the missiles ever existed or the strike ever occurred.
Hezbollah is believed to have an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and missiles in Lebanon, much of the weapons coming through Syria. Hezbollah has controlled the Lebanese government for years and this spring joined the effort to defeat rebels trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Hezbollah's presence in Syria is said to have been a key to turning back rebel advances in a two-year war that has left more than 100,000 people dead.
The Israeli Defense Ministry refused comment on the reports of the new attack, Reuters said, but Lebanon’s military reported that six Israeli jets flew over Lebanese territory on Wednesday.
Israel has repeatedly struck at targets in Syria this year, including strikes in January, May and July believed to be aimed at missile stockpiles or shipments destined for Hezbollah. It has been unclear what kinds of missiles have been targeted in those attacks.

Two U.S. commandos fought in Benghazi rescue, privately honored for valor

Masked from public view, two of the U.S. military’s elite special operations commandos have been awarded medals for bravery for a mission that further undercuts the Obama administration’s original story about the Benghazi tragedy.

For months, administration officials have claimed no special operations forces were dispatched from outside Libya to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012, al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex because none was within range.
The Pentagon, under intense public criticism for not coming to the aid of besieged Americans, published an official timeline in November that carefully danced around the issue.
It said time and distance prevented any commandos outside Libya from reaching a CIA compound under attack. The timeline disclosed that a reinforcement flight 400 miles away in Tripoli contained two “DoD personnel” but did not describe who they were. Later, the official State Department report on Benghazi said they were “two U.S. military personnel” — but provided no other details. It made no mention of special operations forces.
But sources directly familiar with the attack tell The Washington Times that a unit of eight special operators — mostly Delta Force and Green Beret members — were in Tripoli the night of the attack, on a counterterrorism mission that involved capturing weapons and wanted terrorists from the streets and helping train Libyan forces.

Losing your health plan was baked into Obamacare regs

The repeated promises that you could keep your doctor and health plan never had a basis.
These were false promises of historic magnitude, and the ramifications are that the ”Dem Party is F****d” and Democrats ”will own this problem forever.”
One of the benefits of Ted Cruz’s defund effort is that most Republicans can say we tried our best, but the Democrats and the Democrats alone are the reason your life has been messed up. Our hands are clean.
The loss of health plans was not just a coincidence, however, or a mere byproduct of health plan mandates requiring people to buy coverage they don’t want or need (although that was a root cause).
Rather the Obama administration passed regulations that guaranteed people would lose their health plans.  As I’ve always said, watch the regs.
The mechanism was to eviscerate so-called grandfathering of older plans.
If there was even the slightest change in the plan, even an change in a co-pay, the grandfathering was lost under the regulations. Since details of plans change all the time, and people buy new plans, the regulations guaranteed that millions, and likely tens of millions, of people would not be able to keep their plans, and as a result in many cases, lose their doctors from networks.
NBC reports, Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance [original link dead, new url here, see Update No. 2]

Trainwreck: Kathleen Sebelius' Top Ten Testimony Fails

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "totally blew it," during today's testimony, in Buzzfeed's estimation. We agree. Here are ten reasons why: (1) Despite calling Obamacare's roll-out a "debacle" (over which she's presided), Sebelius still attempted happy talk: 

(2) She actually said Obamacare's disastrous website "has never crashed," (!) adding that it is "functional." That claim requires some hardcore parsing to even remotely justify, and regardless, it's insanely terrible messaging. As if on cue, Healthcare.gov...crashed this morning and remained down throughout her testimony. This dichotomy produced several awkward (and priceless) visuals:

Mitt Romney's Facebook Post is Something Barack Obama Needs to Read 

In the years since the Massachusetts health care law went into effect nothing has changed my view that a plan crafted to fit the unique circumstances of a single state should not be grafted onto the entire country. Beyond that, had President Obama actually learned the lessons of Massachusetts health care, millions of Americans would not lose the insurance they were promised they could keep, millions more would not see their premiums skyrocket, and the installation of the program would not have been a frustrating embarrassment. Health reform is best crafted by states with bipartisan support and input from its employers, as we did, without raising taxes, and by carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Obama Administration Says Treaties Trump the US Constitution

The Obama administration is arguing before federal court that TREATIES should trump the CONSTITUTION… please SHARE this.
His goal is total power. He wants to be able to bypass the constitution to regulate guns, the Internet, and who knows what else. This is tyranny. Barack Obama must be removed from office… IMPEACH and CONVICT.
The Constitution is the standard we should evaluate treaties — and not the other way around. If a treaty violates the constitution, then the treaty was never signed in a legal manner in the first place. 

CNN: Administration Pressuring Insurance Companies To Keep Quiet About ObamaCare Problems

CNN reported Tuesday night that the Obama administration is pressuring insurance companies to keep the lid on problems they encounter with the rollout of ObamaCare, including the cancellation of policies.
Anderson Cooper spoke with Drew Griffin, who did the reporting on the breaking story:

“Anderson, what’s going on is a behind-the-scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening under this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out; if you are quoted, you’re gonna get a call from the White House – pressure to be quiet. Several sources tell me … that insurance executives are being told to keep quiet.”