Photo, above: The executive director of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein, at a meeting in Washington. See:  Hour Three, Block D. 

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 1, Block A:  Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, in re: Health Care Sign-Ups: This Is What Transparency Looks Like

Since the federal health insurance exchange launched Oct. 1, top federal officials have proudly proclaimed the number of visitors to the healthcare.gov site, but they have not provided enrollment figures.

ProPublica's Charles Ornstein reports that amid the talk of trouble with the federal site, state-run exchanges are releasing their data, however. Screenshots from Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland and Washington show transparency at work, in stark contrast with the official federal response: Asked about the number of enrollees on the Daily Show last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said, "I can't tell you because I don't know."

 full story

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 1, Block B: Dennis de Jong, Bloomberg, in re: The hidden billionaire.  Supreme Owner Made a Billionaire Feeding U.S. War Machine – Dubai-based Supreme Group BV delivers fuel and food -- 100,000 meals a day -- to troops stationed in some of the most inhospitable parts of the world, including Liberia, Mali and Sudan. The perilous business has made the company’s majority owner, Stephen Orenstein, a billionaire. 

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 1, Block C: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: What is religious atheism?  "Progressivism as Religion: Dworkin's Flawed Belief," RealClearPolitics, Oct. 6

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 1, Block D: Dennis Berman, WSJ, in re: What's Wrong with Twittter's IPO Offering?

Hour Two

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 2, Block A: Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy (Library of Naval Biography) by David C. Skaggs (1 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 2, Block B: Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy (Library of Naval Biography) by David C. Skaggs (2 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy (Library of Naval Biography) by David C. Skaggs (3 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Oliver Hazard Perry: Honor, Courage, and Patriotism in the Early U.S. Navy (Library of Naval Biography) by David C. Skaggs (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 3, Block A: Joshua Sharf, PJmedia, in re:   No Good Excuses Exist for the Failure of Obamacare’s Expensive Website "To turn the entire country into beta testers is extremely irresponsible."

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  Jeff Bliss, The Bliss Index, in re: Extreme backscratching in Washington as incompetent non-US firm hired in without competitive bidding completely messes up the ACA website.  CoveredCalifornia is a state site, built its own exchange; HealthCare.gov is not working: a sophisticated reporter tried to get on that site 59 time s with no success. 

Patricia Healey was the former chief financial officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is now a CGI executive consultant.  CGI Federal is a subsidiary of CGI Canada; was fired there for coming in late, overcharging, and not so doing the work correctly. Masthead is full of people from US  -  looks fishy.

Obamacare website firm's execs had White House access  Senior executives from CGI Federal -- the company that won the Obamacare website contract -- attended a number of invitation-only events and enjoyed high-level access to top Obama administration officials, according to White House visitors' logs.  CGI Federal is the U.S. subsidiary of CGI Group, the Canadian company based in Montreal that won the $93 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services in December 2011 to build Healthcare.gov, the main Obamacare web site.

Prior to the official award, senior CGI executives met with top White House officials and attended a number of invitation-only addresses by President Obama.  According to the logs, CGI Federal President Donna Ryan visited the White House six times prior to her company being selected to do the IT design work behind the high-profile website.  Two of the meetings attended by CGI executives were with Vivek Kundra, Obama's chief information officer. Kundra was a key figure in Obama administration information technology initiatives across the government. Ryan met Kundra on June 21, 2010, in the latter's Old Executive Office Building office, according to the White House visitor logs. In that meeting, Ryan was accompanied by . . .

Obamacare deductibles a dose of sticker shock  Insurance companies requiring higher out-of-pocket expenses to comply with new rules.  Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner, considers himself better informed than most when it comes to the inner workings of health insurance. But even he wasn't prepared for the pocketbook hit he'll face next year under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.  If the 33-year-old single father wants the same level of coverage next year as what he has now with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals, his monthly premium of $233 will more than double. If he wants to keep his monthly payments in check, the Carpentersville resident is looking at an annual deductible for himself and his 7-year-old daughter of $12,700, a more than threefold increase from $3,500 today.

In Bay Area: Imminent BART strike; and the busses, intended to be the backstop, are also shutting down.

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 3, Block C:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: On October 7 SpaceX successfully flew and landed Grasshopper on its highest flight yet, 2440 feet. [Video.
Read More]    The government shutdown has put flight-testing of Dream Chaser on hold.    It appears that the decision to do these flight tests at Dryden is the problem. As a NASA facility, it has been shut down. If the flight tests had instead been arranged at a private facility, Dream Chaser could still be flying.  The test pilots who've been flying SpaceShipTwo report on their work at a test pilot symposium.  Lots of interesting engineering details about the ship’s flight capabilities, including one near-disaster that was saved by SpaceShipTwo’s robust design. No details, however, on the state of the ship’s engine, or when further test flights at higher and higher altitudes will be attempted. "Unicorns will dance before Bezos makes it into space."-- Elon Musk

 

His Majesty King Mohamed IV of Morocco gave the Alawite wissam of top officer rank to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, July 2013.

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 3, Block D:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice-Chairman, Conference of Presidents, in re: just ended, a vast, gala banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Thirty ambassadors, the head of the Copts overseas, 1,200 people. "The Jews failed during shoah by not being unified"; Conference began with twelve groups, now has greatly expanded.  As all the grops sat down together, they realized that they had a great deal in common: what we want for our children and grandchildren.  Israeli ambassador: "Jews are very tough to lead – they complain about the 1/16th of a glass not filled."  Malcolm's grandchildren made a remarkable presentation.  Fouad Ajami.  Surprise speaker at the end of the dinner: Pres George W Bush – "came in from Dallas, the real promised land" – to say that there's no more important ally than Israel; and that Iran is not to be trusted.

Hour Four

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 4, Block A: JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke (1 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 4, Block B: JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke (2 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 4, Block C: JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke (3 of 4)

Tuesday  15 October  2013 / Hour 4, Block D: JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke (4 of 4)

..  ..  ..

Music

Hour 1:  Captain Philips.  Argo.  Brothers Grimm.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

Hour 2: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. 

Hour 3: The American President.   Hotel California.  StarTrek. Assassins' Creed.

Hour 4:  Thirteen Days.