Slashdot Mirror

Really? You haven't been paying much attention...

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) after the San Bernadino shootings -- "Sensible gun laws work! We've proven it in California." link She is apparently unaware of what state San Bernadino is in.

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with the debt spiraling upwards at close to $1.25T per year and insurance premiums are jumping as much as 50% per year - "ObamaCare is lowering costs and the deficit." link

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) -- “Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs.” – in a nation with 307 million people.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) -- “We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds, and yet it’s legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.". Apparently, she doesn't know that it's illegal to hunt humans with any number of rounds.

She (Feinstein) also believes that allowing people to make calls from an airplane will result in uncontrollable brawling amongst the passengers. link

Or, her (Feinstein's) fine opinion of our Veterans: "All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms." link

Not to mention Feinstein's flip-flopping on this very issue [encryption]. In October, she said, "Millions of personal records and hundreds of billions of dollars fall victim to cyber-attacks every year, and we’ve done little to stem the tide." In other words, calling for enhanced cyber-security, yet only a month ago, "I can say this. [FBI] Director [James Comey] and, I think John Brennan, would agree, that the Achilles Heel in the internet is encryption. Because there are now... it's a black web! And there's no way of piercing it. And this is even in commercial products!"link

“Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, ‘Thank God, I’m still alive.’ But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again.” – Sen. Barbara Boxer

“It [marijuana] will still be legal under federal law.” Senator Dianne Feinstein claiming that marijuana is legal

And. of course, the all-time grandaddy of a Nancy Pelosi quote, "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."

That was from less than 2 minutes of searching. You should really pay more attention.

The merchant can initiate the fraud complaint. The site clearly says help defeat $name and candidates like her/him right before entering the dollar amount. So the only way to make a charge back would be to claim your card use was not authorized by you.

https://www.nrcc.org/alex-sink...

What I think is interesting is that this is yet another Florida voter who doesn't pay attention to what he is doing and decided he did it wrongly after the fact.

  The site clearly says "Make a Contribution Today to Help Defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her" in large print right above the denomination amounts and claims "Contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes." as well as "Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. www.nrcc.org" at the bottom of the page. Although the paid for and non deductability clauses do somewhat blend into the background picture but it is obvious something is written there and if I was going to give CC information, I would see what it says before entering anything in. I would hope anyone else would do the same.

https://www.nrcc.org/alex-sink...

It should also be noted that the standard donate template seems to be the one used for the NRCC site. The only difference is it says help defeat a candidate and has their name and picture present.

https://www.nrcc.org/contribut...

And to make things worse, the democrat in question doesn't even collect the contributions herself, she has them funneled into a PAC called ActBlue.

http://www.alexforcongress.com...

I don't see this as anything nefarious but rather failing to read the details of what you are doing. Perhaps we should institute a requirement that all campaign websites use AOL so users won't get confused over the details staring them in the face when they try to throw money at someone?

What I think is interesting is that this is yet another Florida voter who doesn't pay attention to what he is doing and decided he did it wrongly after the fact.

  The site clearly says "Make a Contribution Today to Help Defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her" in large print right above the denomination amounts and claims "Contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee are not deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes." as well as "Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. www.nrcc.org" at the bottom of the page. Although the paid for and non deductability clauses do somewhat blend into the background picture but it is obvious something is written there and if I was going to give CC information, I would see what it says before entering anything in. I would hope anyone else would do the same.

https://www.nrcc.org/alex-sink...

It should also be noted that the standard donate template seems to be the one used for the NRCC site. The only difference is it says help defeat a candidate and has their name and picture present.

https://www.nrcc.org/contribut...

And to make things worse, the democrat in question doesn't even collect the contributions herself, she has them funneled into a PAC called ActBlue.

http://www.alexforcongress.com...

I don't see this as anything nefarious but rather failing to read the details of what you are doing. Perhaps we should institute a requirement that all campaign websites use AOL so users won't get confused over the details staring them in the face when they try to throw money at someone?

What the ever loving fuck does someone saying there will be doctor shortages, or a 2% tax, have to do with the website sucking? Nothing.

No, it's all connected. The entire "health care reform" project was a top-down, centrally-planned attempt to remake a huge portion of the economy. It was assembled into a massive bill that no one read, and forced through Congress on partisan lines. The website had to manifest this confused, partisan mess of idealistic hopes, economic fallacies, and outright lies, and it couldn't. It still can't. As originally conceived, it had to query existing databases at the IRS, HHS, Homeland Security, and Treasury. It had to check 50 state Medicaid systems. It had to communicate with all the insurers. But they haven't been able to make it work. When you hear about the "back-end" not being done, that's what they mean. Applicants are on the honor system, because the planned automated verification checks aren't working yet. And all of that verification is needed because of the political requirements for subsidies.

On top of that, there were delays in giving website requirements to the contractors because the administration wanted to hide things before the 2012 elections, for fear of giving ammunition to Republicans.

The politics of the whole thing is central to the failure of the website.

This isn't rocket science. Grab example schema from a private insurance firm, adapt them to this task, and go from there.

But look at this diagram. Healthcare.gov was supposed to exchange data with the IRS, Social Security, Homeland Security, the Treasury, and HHS. Plus all the carriers. Plus 50 state Medicaid systems. In realtime. Securely. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that hooking up pre-existing databases in this way is very, very hard. When we are told that 30-40% of the backend of Healthcare.gov is not yet built, I think this is what they are referring to.

(And yes, I know this diagram is hosted on a Republican website, but it seems to be a pretty straightforward depiction of the structure. I don't see any evidence that the graphic artist was trying to make it look more complex than it really is.)

It definitely explains the problems they've been having.

But this is only part of it. Check out this diagram. I'm no expert, but look at all the government systems in the upper left that Healthcare.gov is supposed to communicate with, in real time. And on the right, 50 state Medicaid systems. And at the bottom, all the insurance companies. Far, far simpler IT projects have failed. This site will not be ready by the end of the month as promised, and there is a good chance that it will never work as planned.