Let me emphasize, this guy is a self-described supporter of the new law, who things the ACA is on the “right track:”

“There’s a great deal of uncertainty almost everywhere you look,” said Mark Moody, the president and chief executive officer of WEA Trust, which offers insurance to Wisconsin school districts, state health plan members, and local units of government.  “There will be horror stories, stories of so-called train wrecks,” Moody said at the panel discussion organized by Wisconsin Health News. “It will be a difficult process to get the exchanges started. … I think fundamentally the Affordable Care Act is on the right track but it’s going to be a long, slow process.”

To recap: The law’s principal co-author has labeled the roll-out of his handiwork a “huge train wreck” and has declined to seek re-election.  A top national administration of Obamacare says he’s just aiming to avoid a “third world experience” at this stage.  And now state-level healthcare officials who believe in the law are preemptively tossing around phrases like “horror stories.”  The long-anticipated Obamacare fiasco is already playing out across the country, fresh examples of which I outline in my latest Townhall piece.

We won’t have The Ed Morrissey Show today, because I’ll be guest hosting for Hugh Hewitt tonight from 6-9 pm ET!  The live video stream can be seen through the Hughniverse, the troll-free websurfing experience for Hugh Hewitt fans.  It’s got plenty of great and original content including terrific podcasts from Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson, Michael Patrick Tracy, and the Tribbles.

Tonight’s guests may include:

• Dr. Helen Smith, author of Men on Strike
• Jim Geraghty
• Andrew McCarthy

Duane and I will also talk about the Eddie & Duanie Cruise to Alaska next month — be sure to check out the details!

When Move America Forward asked me whether I’d like to lead a team in its annual Troopathon fundraiser to send care packages to our men and women on the front lines, I replied, “Of course! Someone has to come in last!”  I feel somewhat like the head coach for the Washington Generals — if he had to face off against three different squads of the Harlem Globetrotters.  These folks tend to kick my rear end in fundraising, just like our military kicks butt on the ground.

Still, it’s not the competition that matters (says every Washington Generals head coach), but getting as many care packages as possible to our men and women fighting for us.  Here are a few of the folks participating in this year’s effort:

Want to join my team? Head over to the Steamers site and sign up, embed the link or form into your blog, and let’s raise some cash! Anyone joining the Steamers will get linked in each update I post here in the Green Room. If you want to donate instead, well, I’m going to make that even easier:

“…he’s being audited by the IRS.” I only laugh to keep from weeping.

No, he wasn’t, as the New York Times eventually made clear. But the point of a political fundraiser is to tell the audience what it wants to hear in exchange for cash, so here’s Biden earning some money for Ed Markey in Boston last night:

“This man was elected president of the United States of America,” Biden said according to the pool report. “No, no, no. He was elected president of the United States of America. But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision in my view was made, he did the right thing for the nation.”

Biden, a potential 2016 candidate for president, praised Gore’s decision to accept the Supreme Court’s decision and walk away from the presidency…

“Al, you set an example for this country that is going to live as long as recorded history, about the man who won by a decision that I think constitutional scholars now and in the future will conclude was an ill fated decision,” Biden said. “The way you stepped up, it was amazing.”

They’re just not very clear on the concept, Steven Crowder writes in his latest column at Patriot Update. The kerfuffle over Erick Erickson’s comments on breadwinners and gender roles in households touched off another big round of accusations of being “judgmental,” to which Steven says … so what?

Recently, a friend of mine (Erick Erickson) had the nerve to insinuate that men and women were inherently different. He was met with accusations of “sexism” and “being judgmental.” Similarly, a couple of months ago, I wrote a column at FoxNews about how my wife and I made the choice to wait until marriage. Some people claimed that they felt “judged.” I’m okay with that.

The word “judgment” has been turned into a dirty word nowadays. Non-Christians have used it as a go-to attack in an attempt to paint believers as pompous jerks. Christians themselves are afraid of the word, and more importantly the act itself. While it’s true that we as people shouldn’t constantly be judging everybody, we absolutely should be judging every decision that we possibly can. As a matter of fact, most people already do.

You clicked on this column. You made a judgment call. What are you drinking at your desk right now? Coffee, tea, maybe water? That’s a judgment call. What kind of car did you drive into the office? A Government Motors rattle-box or maybe a tightly engineered Honda? Judgment call.

To have ever admitted to making a mistake, is to have made a very clear-cut and final judgment.

You jerk.

First things first. While I understand Erick’s point, I disagreed with him on what the data meant. I think the ideal situation for a family is to have one parent at home and have the other being the breadwinner — and the one with the most commercial potential should be the latter, if inclined to do so.  I’ve known couples where that’s been the wife, and the families thrive regardless.  The real issue in the increase of women as breadwinners to 40% of households is the increase in single-parent homes where women have no choice but to be the breadwinners.

I didn’t think Erick offered his position out of hostility toward women or some deeply ingrained chauvinism, because I know Erick and that’s not who he is.  Those who assumed that kind of hostility were themselves making judgments on Erick’s state of mind and soul; rather than just argue that he was wrong, they argued that he disliked strong, independent women without any evidence other than an arguably poor analysis.

And that, actually, is what that passage in Matthew 7:1 means.  We can certainly judge whether Erick’s analysis is right or wrong (or formulate opinions about it).  We can judge whether his conclusions match the data, and whether his policy recommendations are wise.  We can judge his actions, and in fact in many instances we must do this, but we should not presume to judge the status of his soul or his heart, for that is left to the Ultimate Judge.  Unfortunately, this is a distinction lost on all of us at times, and on some of us more regularly.

Steven offers up a great conclusion:

Now, as per usual, I’m pretty sure that there are many of you reading this and are furious with me.

To you I say, congratulations … you’ve just made a judgment.

Well, I laughed …

It is nearly impossible for any partisan to argue with the awesomeness of George H.W. Bush’s socks.

So, for the former president’s 89th birthday Wednesday, the George H.W.. Bush Presidential Library is running a socks-themed social media campaign.

Wear your socks, take a pic, tweet or Facebook, and some of them will be shared with the H-Dubs. I think I shall participate. I have a bison-festooned pair of socks I bought at Yellowstone National Park last week I think he’ll appreciate.

Post to the George Bush Facebook page: www.facebook.com/georgebush41
Tweet to the George Bush Foundation twitter account: twitter.com/GB41Foundation – Hash tag #41s89th
Email bushfoundation@georgebushfoundation.org

Bush tells his granddaughter on “Today, ” “I’m a sock man.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here’s a slideshow of some of 41′s favorite festive hosiery.

Happy Birthday, sir.

I have complete faith in our press corps not to be instantly brought to heel on Obama’s scandals by a guy who’s been charming the pants off of them for six years.

Reporters who attended Monday’s session with the president were loathe to discuss it with BuzzFeed, citing the White House’s stipulation that the meeting remain off the record. But the session came after the White House announced a “travel/photo lid” for the day — White House parlance for no more events, and the signal for the pool reporter to go home — and reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Time, McClatchy, Politico, Tribune, NPR, Bloomberg, USA Today, AFP, Yahoo and other outlets were milling around the briefing room waiting to be called in. In total, about two dozen reporters were included. (BuzzFeed was not invited to the meeting although a reporter, who did not know the president would be present, requested to be included.)

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker said reporters had not been told that Obama would be in the session, and that if he had known, he and his editors would have reconsidered whether to attend.

“If we had, I think we would have had a conversation here in our office first about whether to attend or not. We tend to evaluate these on a case-by-case basis,” Baker told BuzzFeed. “Our concern about off-the-record sessions with the president is that they not become substitutes for opportunities to ask questions and get answers on the record, which after all is our job.”

The headline is the good news.  Markey’s support has taken a hit among women and independents.  After all, it’s tough to be especially impressed with this man.  The bad news?  Gomez is still down by seven points:

Representative Edward J. Markey’s lead over Gabriel Gomez, a Republican businessman and former member of the Navy SEALs, in the special Senate election in Massachusetts has slipped by 10 percentage points since May, according to a new poll, which suggests that Mr. Markey has lost support among women and independents. The poll, by Suffolk University, shows Mr. Markey with 48 percent support and Mr. Gomez with 41 percent among likely voters – a difference within the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The same poll in May showed Mr. Markey ahead by 17 percentage points.

The best element of this poll from Team Gomez’s perspective is that Markey has dropped below the 50 percent mark.  The Republican’s campaign is playing up the fact that at his stage in 2010′s Brown/Coakley race, the upstart Republican trailed by nine points.  Another polling firm released a statewide survey over the weekend showing Gomez pulling into a dead heat with Markey.  Grains of salt: (1) The virtual tie comes from a GOP-aligned pollster, and (2) it’s still Massachusetts.

See, it’s funny because … it’s apparently totally possible, and Clapper lied about it in front of Congress, and now he’s going to play it off as a big joke.

You need to be able to laugh at yourself in life. Or at the fellow citizens you’re spying on. Either way.

Still unclear: whether he’s eligible for COBRA benefits.  Of course, he’d have to return to the US to use them, so … not a big deal either way. Here’s the statement from BAH which clarifies some things and raises other questions:

June 11, 2013

(Updated Information Underlined)
Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. Snowden, who had a salary at the rate of $122,000, was terminated June 10, 2013 for violations of the firm’s code of ethics and firm policy. News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm. We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.

Er, okay.  That seems like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, but thanks for closing the loop.  Contrary to some reports, Snowden wasn’t making $200,000 a year, but he also wasn’t around long enough even to get through a probationary period.  When exactly did he get his clearance to access programs like PRISM?

Via RCP. When you put it that way, maybe Obama should pardon him.

Fox News scored an exclusive video with Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, whose YouTube video initially got blamed for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, and who has been called a “political prisoner” ever since.  Nakoula rejects that appelation, and appears to bear the administration no ill will, but does have one goal in mind — to finish a film that Nakoula calls misunderstood:

The controversial filmmaker whose crude Internet trailer was wrongly blamed by the White House for sparking last year’s deadly Benghazi attack vowed to finish his movie, which he said is aimed at fighting terrorism, not denigrating Islam.

Breaking his silence from inside a facility under the authority of the federal Bureau of Prisons in southern California, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula told FoxNews.com in a series of phone interviews that his film “Innocence of Muslims” has been widely misunderstood, and not just in being singled out as causing the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.

“It is not [a] religion movie,” he said. “I have a lot of Muslim friends and not all the Muslims believe in the terrorism culture. Some of them believe in this culture. That’s why we need to fight [against] the culture, not the Muslims. My enemy is the terrorism culture; this is my enemy.

“I am the blood voice for everybody who gets killed, or hurt, in this culture,” he continued. “I dedicate my life to fight with this culture … I’m never afraid.”

Having seen the first fourteen minutes of his future feature length film, I’m pretty sure the world isn’t waiting with bated breath for its completion.  That doesn’t mean Nakoula should be in jail for the video (and Nakoula himself says he’s not in jail because of it), but, er … maybe he should think about going into another line of work.

“TBD”?

Really — how many Star Wars jokes can we get out of Peter “Chewbacca” Mayhew’s misadventures with TSA last weekend?

Transportation Security Administration agents in Denver briefly stopped “Star Wars” franchise actor Peter Mayhew recently as he was boarding a flight with a cane shaped like one of science-fiction’s most iconic weapons.

Airport officials say they wanted to inspect the huge walking stick before allowing Mayhew, who is more than 7 feet tall, on the plane.

Mayhew tweeted “Giant man need giant cane” from his verified Twitter account when the incident happened June 3. He also posted photos showing a TSA agent holding the replica laser sword, which comes up to his chest.

Mayhew’s Twitter users tried some Jedi mind tricks on TSA to get Mayhew past the security check point, but TSA insists that it did no good:

“Because of the unusual weight of the passenger’s cane, a security officer alerted a supervisor. Less than five minutes later the passenger and cane were cleared to travel. Social media played no role in the determination,” the TSA said in a brief statement released to The Associated Press on Saturday.

That’s what Clone Army troopers always say, though ….

Actually I’m afraid PRISM is a bit more like the One Ring. It would take a pair of hobbits to be able to destroy it as the allure of power appears to be too much for any one man…or party.

Ed has his usual thoughful analysis on the front page, but he invited me back to the Green Room to add my two cents’ worth. What caught my eye is the following paragraph:

The number of people not in the workforce dropped by 221,000 at the same time in the Household Data report. The number of those not in the workforce but who want a job rose, though, by almost 300,000 to roughly the same level as March; April’s sharp drop looks like a polling outlier. The workforce participation rates held steady or improved; employment-population ration remained at 58.6%, where it has been nearly all year, and the civilian labor force participation rate rose from its generation-low 63.3% of the previous two months to 63.4% in May.

Even though those numbers are seasonally-adjusted, there has historically been a May disconnect between the change in the number of people not in the workforce, as well as the portions who are “discouraged” and who are marginally-attached to the workforce, and the change in the portion of the non-workforce who want a job. That is because the discouraged/marginally-attached are those who not only want a job, but last searched for work between 5 and 52 weeks prior to the survey, while the larger number of those who want a job but are not part of the workforce are those who last searched at least 5 weeks prior, or even those who never searched before. There is a significant student population, both in high school and college, who fall into that category. (more…)

Cheap racial demagogue Chris Matthews, minutes ago:

“We don’t have any African Americans in the United States Senate, which I think is a disgrace,” Matthews said.

Fact check:

Matthews’ false statement was corrected by a producer and a guest.

Personally, I’d rather be hit by a drunk-driver than die of a heart attack on the bathroom floor of a British pub.

I mentioned that this might be coming in my Tuesday post on Illinois’ credit downgrade from Fitch, and voila:

Moody’s Investors Service on Thursday downgraded Illinois’ general obligation credit rating by one notch — to the lowerst rating in the state’s history — following a move earlier this week by Fitch Ratings. Moody’s downgraded Illinois’ $27 billion of general obligation debt to A3 from A2, with a negative outlook after state lawmakers last week failed to pass a plan to deal with a $100 billion unfunded public pension liability. Even prior to the downgrade, Illinois had the lowest rating of any U.S. state.

Friendly reminder: Illinois is controlled by a Democrat governor and Democrat super-majorities in both houses of the legislature; they’ve all worked together to raise taxes on families and businesses.  No gridlock, just liberal results — kind of like Obamacare!  Incidentally, the state with the second-worst credit rating in the Union is California, where Republicans are similarly powerless.  These are obviously bizarre coincidences because it’s widely known that liberal governance is very compassionate; what kind of monsters would even dream of downgrading Our Children’s Future?