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Politics : How Quickly Can Obama Totally Destroy the US? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/25/2013 12:10:13 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Timeline of Anthony Weiner’s Sociopathic Sexting and The Dishonesty of Him and His Wife Huma Abedin


Here is the timeline you need to read to understand what a sociopath Anthony Weiner is, and how his wife Huma Abedin has actively helped him lie to the public about his supposed rehabilitation.

The sources for this timeline include:

  • TheDirty.com timeline (TheDirty.com is the site that broke this story) based on interviews with Weiner’s latest sexting partner
June 3-5, 2011: Anthony Weiner (supposedly) dramatically decides not to lie to Huma any more. From the New York Times puff piece:

By June 1, when Weiner said, “I can’t say with certitude” if the picture was of him, it was clear, at least to most of the world, that he was guilty of something. That weekend, Weiner and Abedin escaped to a friend’s house in the Hamptons to get away from all the “hoopla,” as Weiner calls it, “and that’s when people starting coming out of the woodwork. I got a call from Chris Cuomo saying that they had someone who was going to say that I texted with her. It reached this point where I just sat down with Huma and said, ‘Listen, I can’t. . . . I don’t want to lie.’ . . . I just didn’t want to lie anymore to her.” Here, his voice cracks and tears well up in his eyes. “I have a choppy memory of it, but she was devastated. She immediately said, ‘Well you’ve got to stop lying to everyone else too.’ And basically we drove back to the city, and she said: ‘You’ve just got to tell everyone the truth. Telling me doesn’t help any.’ It was brutal. It was completely out of control. There was the crime, there was the cover-up, there was harm I had done to her. And there’s no one who deserved this less than Huma. That’s really the bottom line. No one deserved to have a dope like me do that less than she did.”

Abedin’s memory of this moment is a little sharper. “The weekend was over, we’re about to leave, the car is packed, and Anthony said: ‘I have something to tell you. I can’t lie to you anymore. It’s true. It’s me. The picture is me. I sent it. Yes, these stories about the other women are true.’ And it was every emotion that one would imagine: rage and anger and shock. But more than anything else, in the immediate, it was disbelief.The thing that I consciously remember saying over and over and over again is: ‘I don’t understand. What is going on? What’s happening to our lives?’ ”

June 5, 2011: Andrew Breitbart gets the goods on Weiner.I spoke to Andrew Breitbart on the phone on June 5, 2011, and he told me what he had. This part of the New York Times story still irritates me, because they wrote out of the history books the way that Breitbart’s revelations clearly prompted the hasty press conference. I have much more on this part of the timeline, but have placed it in a separate page because it is a distraction from the flow of this timeline.

June 6, 2011: Hasty press conference called. Weiner admits he had been smearing Breitbart and that he was sexting multiple women.

June 9, 2011: This blog publishes proof that Weiner sent direct messages to a Delaware high school girl, including a reference to “cape and tights,” a grooming line he also used with an adult woman with whom he had sexted.

June 10, 2011: Police show up to the Delaware teen’s home. Acting on the information from my June 9, 2011 blog post, a Fox News reporter is there when police arrive and reports the story.

June 16, 2011: Weiner resigns. Reports later say the revelations of his communications with an underage girl caused President Obama to withdraw his support, leading to his ultimate decision.

June 23, 2011: Mike Stack, one of the “Born Free Crew” who warned young girls on Twitter about Weiner’s sickness, is SWATted. On this same day, “Alicia Pain” writes me to tell me to stop writing about Gennette Cordova and Rep AW:

Please think about your family. This story is not worth it. I can assure you that.

Please remember, your safety cannot be assured if you continue.

July 1, 2011: My family is SWATted.

December 21, 2011: Weiner and Abedin have a baby boy.

July 12, 2012: Weiner starts talking to “Sydney Leathers”(identified by BuzzFeed here), according to this timeline from the site that broke the latest story. Quoting the girl:

Anthony Weiner And I First started talking July 12, 2012.

July 18, 2012: People Magazine puff piece appears:

“It took a lot of work to get to where are are today, but I want people to know we’re a normal family,” says Abedin, 37.

“Anthony has spent every day since [the scandal] trying to be the best dad and husband he can be,” she says of her husband, who does all the laundry. “I’m proud to be married to him.”

July 19, 2012: One day after the People Magazine puff piece appears, Weiner finds Sydney Leathers on Formspring:



July 19, 2012 – November 2012: Anthony Weiner engages in intense sexual discussions with Sydney Leathers.From the timeline:

Things were very intense by August 2012/already talks of the Chicago sex condo and having sexual conversations. We would send naked images to each other and have phone sex. Anthony Weiner would send me penis pictures from his Carlos Danger yahoo email to my Gmail.

You aren’t going to read this in Big Media, so I think you should see some of the stuff he was saying to this young woman while he was supposedly a diaper-changing new dad whose life was turned around by the birth of his son:











He really has a thing about gagging women with his erect penis. That concept come up a lot in Weinergate I.

It goes on and on and on like that. From another post:

She really thought Anthony Weiner and her were in love, they spoke on the phone daily multiple times a day for 6 months. Anthony Weiner played with her emotions and mind. Most calls were phone sex. He promised her many things including a condo in Chicago (1235 S. Prairie Ave) where they were planning to meet up to have sex. Anthony Weiner has a shoe fetish, particularly heels.

He even asked her which of the pictures from Weinergate I turned her on the most:





And, disturbingly for a guy who was talking about “cape and tights” to a high school girl in Delaware — a grooming line he had used with an adult woman with whom he had sexted — Weiner asks Sydney Leathers if her “pussy” is “smooth”:



Anthony Weiner called himself “Carlos Danger” in some of these messages. He promised the woman a job at Politicobut immediately after bringing it up he asked her to “do me a solid” and hard delete all their messages.

November 2012: Carlos Danger and Sydney Leathers’s relationship starts to fizzle out:

By November 2012 our relationship began to fizzle out.

December 2012: Sydney Leathers and Anthony “Carlos Danger” Weiner speak once:

We only spoke once in December 2012 . . .

April 10, 2013: Puff piece appears online in the New York Times that portrays Weiner’s supposed coming clean and being totally honest in June 2011. The article also has Weiner and Abedin portraying their new son as having totally changed Weiner’s perspective:

“But in the confines of our home and our relationship and our parenting this child and our love for each other — she said she wanted to get through it, she wanted not to conflate the giant international news story with the two people who were involved in it. And a lot of women couldn’t do that. And Jordan has given us a lot of perspective. We have to deal with this a lot. It’s not behind us. It kind of bubbles around and comes up in different ways. But she’s, um. . . .” Here, he paused and took a deep breath and started to cry. “She’s given. . . .” He stopped again, could barely get the words out. “She’s given me another chance. And I am very grateful for that. And I’m trying to make sure I get it right.”

Immediately after April 10, 2013 New York Times puff piece: After the appearance of the New York Times puff piece, Weiner reactivates his Facebook account and asks Sydney Leathers what she thought of it:

We only spoke once in December 2012, and then I didn’t hear from Anthony Weiner again until April 11, 2013 when a NYT article about him was released. He reactivated his Facebook and asked me what I thought of it.

May 2013: Weiner enters mayor’s race.

Huma Abedin says she knew about all this. Here is yesterday’s disgusting press conference, in which Weiner says in a sing-song and bored voice that this is nothing new, and his dishonest wife gets up to stand by him.

[iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ER6MJzyx9UY" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"][/iframe]

Here is what Weiner said at the press conference about when his wife knew:

She knew all along this process . . . I was more and more honest with her. I told her everything. This is something we knew going into the decision about whether I would run.

Huma Abedin says “it is between us, and our marriage.” No, ma’am, it isn’t. He is running for the office of Mayor of New York. And you helped him lie about this scandal to help his candidacy. This is a public matter now.

For what it’s worth, the New York Times, the very paper that gave a dishonest wet kiss to Weiner in April, is now telling him to get out of the race.

Mr. Weiner, your antics have become too much even for a paper that was essentially willing to lie for you, sir.

Lucky for you, they will apparently never be too much for the woman, Huma Abedin, who is willing to lie for you, by portraying you as a reformed man when she knew good and damned well you weren’t.

patterico.com

.........
Huma may be modeling herself after Hillary: a hapless female linked through careerism to a horndog for whom she has no feelings. Perhaps in the future, if Weiner is successful politically (really? yeah, maybe), she’ll be the wife never ever seen with her philandering dishonest husband in the same room, but who goes on to have political success of her own, and smiles as everyone refuses to talk about how their marriage is a sham, which they fail to discuss mostly because duh.

Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:49 am

A guy who recently published a book about Bill and Hillary says he doesn’t think they see each other that often.

Nobody but nobody thinks they love each other. But they are married, in name anyway.

Hillary is Huma’s mentor.

Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:52 am

To me, that’s a crap decision to make when you are this young and you have a new baby.

But that part is her business — until she starts participating in public lies about it.

Comment by Patterico (9c670f) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:53 am

Is it me or is Weiner almost deliberately daring us to not elect him? The guy looks like what I imagine a typical gay porn star would look like, he sexts underage children, he’s got a Muslim wife who wouldn’t leave him if he beheaded her. He’s the arch-typical Democrat.

Comment by CrustyB (69f730) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:56 am

Hillary is Huma’s mentor.

Perhaps in more ways than one. Admittedly the following is so-called hearsay. But all the gossip surrounding Hillary for years makes assumptions about her — far more than those about Huma — almost a given—eg, why she has long not mind being a symbolic doormat to Bill.

coachisright.com, June 2011: In mid 2007 rumors started to circulate about Huma Abedin a stunningly beautiful staffer working for Hillary Clinton. The wagging tongues of Washington asked logical questions about Huma. “If Hillary is bisexual (as had long been thought and occasionally uttered in public), what is the nature of her relationship with the dark eyed enchanting Abedin, a young lady from a strict Muslim family?”

“Is the fact that Huma was never seen twice in the same designer outfit and lived in a $649,000 condo explainable because she was trading sexual favors with Hillary for a fabulous lifestyle?” “If so what does that make Huma?”

“How did Huma, whose government salary was listed as $9,999, live as she did?”

“Is Hillary Clinton a lesbian?”

Is Huma Abedin her lesbian “kept woman?”

In 2007 Michael Musto a Village Voice columnist who writes about gay issues commented that Hillary might be “Gayle King-ing” Huma, that is getting her a higher profile in order to head off media scrutiny about her and why Clinton would be “hiding” Huma and the true nature of their relationship.

In her tell all book about her affair with Bill Clinton Gennifer Flowers wrote that when she asked Bill if Hillary is a lesbian he laughed and made reference to her being more experienced with women then he is.

Comment by Mark (18fced) — 7/24/2013 @ 7:59 am

..........

It’s funny how Democrats say the GOP (and conservatives in particular) are engaging in a “war on women”. And yet, Democrats like Abedin, like Hillary Clinton before her, enable and encourage, actively promote, sexual predation of women.

You know what Sydney Leathers, Huma Abedin, or Hillary Clinton aren’t? Victims.

Comment by SteveAR (874296) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:07 am

According to the lovely Sandra Fluke, it’s the wicked “conservative, evangelical, Tea Party Republicans” who are responsible for the little Weiner’s sexting.

Since we wicked conservatives won’t pay every penny of poor women’s birth control, the little Weiner was behaving responsibly in not engaging in behavior that might knock up some poor woman. The notion that, if he’s horny,l he could turn to someone like his wife seems to have eluded the lovely Miss Fluke>

Comment by The amused Dana (3e4784) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:14 am

............

Her demeanor and outfit seemed odd to me, yes. She looked like a worn out housewife, not a trophy wife.

She reminds me of the phrase “utterly indiscriminate” used by writers describing the left’s prohibition against moral judgment. Huma has no moral compass left; all that remains is the career and “the cause” of progressivism. So she goes to therapy to talk herself out of her husband’s moral depravity, and then tacitly even supports it. No wonder she’s worn out.

Comment by Patricia (be0117) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:32 am

Anthony Weiner is a sick, pencil-necked, pervert, a modern day flasher, and his wife, whatever she is, is at least smart enough to avoid being caught on camera.

But, on second thought, somehow, nagging at the back of my mind, Anthony is exactly the sort of guy who’d sneak a camera into his bedroom.

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the these two twisted pumpkins not by a long shot.

Comment by ropelight (fefd68) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:33 am

Weiner in 2013: “I have a choppy memory of it, but she was devastated.”

He didn’t claim that in 2011.

In 2011, he said:

nypost.com (note this leads to a page to print)

My wife has known about some of these online relationships since before we were married. And we spoke frankly about thembecause — well, we spoke frankly about them.

He stops himself, because if he went on hed be saying “because of the dangers to my political career if this became known.”

He also said:

…my primary apology, as I’ve said several times, is to my wife Huma. But she made it very clear that she thought what I did was very dumb, and she was not happy about it. But she also — and she’s very disappointed — and she also told me that she loved me, and wanted us to, you know, to pull through this.

Also from that press conference in 2011:

Q: Are you going to split up?

REP. WEINER: I love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this.

Q: What kind of — (off mic) — relationship –

Q: Where is she?

REP. WEINER: We have been through — we have been through a great deal together, and we will — we will weather this. I love her very much, and she loves me.

Through a great deal together?

Also:

Do you think it was inappropriate because you were married?

REP. WEINER: I think it is more inappropriate, things that I have done since I married.

Q: Then why –

REP. WEINER: My primary — my primary sense of regret and my primary apology goes to my wife. I should not have done this, and I should not have done this, particularly when I was married. That’s why I make that distinction.

Comment by Sammy Finkelman (7583fb) — 7/24/2013 @ 8:33 am



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/25/2013 12:32:35 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
The good wife? Oh, give us a break!
............................................................................................
» Anthony Weiner admits to sexting three women after resigning from Congress

By MAUREEN CALLAHAN 7 25, 2013
nypost.com


Our would-be Mayor Carlos Danger
has done it again.

After sitting for lengthy, sympathetic profiles with The New York Times magazine, New York and People — where he declared, “I feel like a different person” — serial online sexter Anthony Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, held a joint press conference in which they admitted Weiner, who’d been ahead of all Democratic contenders in the polls, was up to his old tricks.

When did New Yorkers at large become the equivalent of the doormat wife? Is this how we see ourselves — the collective masochist in Anthony Weiner’s endless psycho-sexual melodramas? It’s one thing to believe sexual infidelity has no bearing on the ability to govern — the city had a rather grown-up reaction to then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s cheating, which paid off in a great mayor — but it’s another to believe that this is all that’s wrong with Weiner and his compatriot in shamelessness, Eliot Spitzer.




David McGlynn
BAD CALL: Huma Abedin, in Chelsea yesterday, has not been honest with her sympathetic public.


LIMP XXX-CUSE: WEINER BLAMES SEXT RELAPSE ON ROCKY MARRIAGE


RANGEL ON HUMA: 'I DON'T RECALL SEEING A WIFE LOOKING AND FEELING SO SAD AND EMBARRASSED'

TWEETHEART: MEET ANTHONY'S SEXTY ONLINE HONEY

Spitzer is a hypocrite of the highest order, a self-styled paragon of moral rectitude who patronized prostitutes. Now he wants to be comptroller — yet won’t release his tax filings. How dare we, the mere electorate, ask? Isn’t it enough that someone of his intellect and prominence deigns to serve in such a lowly, unglamorous job? It’s not Spitzer’s sexual proclivities that are at issue; it’s the rampant sense of entitlement. His wife, Silda, who stood by his side as he announced his resignation, has made it clear that she’d rather her estranged husband not run. Clearly, that’s too much to ask.

Weiner, meanwhile, is a spectacularly unaccomplished politician
who did nothing in Congress other than alienate his staffers and colleagues. He’s spent months selling this redemption narrative — full of tears and therapy and a martyred wife — while continuing to solicit at least one other young woman online, promising to hook her up with a job at Politico and a condo in Chicago in trade for a “hard delete” of their exchanges.

And still, voters wonder?

This used to be a city where cynicism, skepticism and a general philosophy of F-you-ness kept even the most famous, accomplished arrivistes on edge. What happened? Is it our post-Oprah culture, where admitting you did something wrong — even only after getting caught — equals automatic forgiveness? Or have we lost our edge in going from lawlessness and race riots to debates over cigarette smoking and Citibikes? When did New Yorkers develop such low self-esteem that Anthony Weiner seems like the mayor we deserve? `

Weiner was quoted in last week’s New York magazine as saying that his personal and political reformation came about only when he “stopped lying.” When exactly was that? He also mocked a publishing house that had approached him about writing a memoir: “They think it has to have some plotline, like my rise, my fall, how I bottom out, feel all this remorse, have an epiphany, and then come back,” he said, as if he had far too much integrity to ever try that line. “I’m supposed to be sorry, sorry in this way you’re supposed to be sorry . . . but I don’t know if it’s hitting me like that.” It was yet another look into Weiner’s unstoppable self-destructiveness: He admitted to a journalist that he felt no remorse.

It’s also time to declare a moratorium on the line that Huma Abedin is the smartest, shrewdest, most level-headed and glamorous asset the Democratic Party has, and if she’s OK with Anthony, we should be, too. Clearly, there is something very wrong with Abedin — whether it’s simply that she shares her husband’s vaulting ambition or that she has a pathological need to be publicly humiliated, something’s up. When The New York Times is calling for you to take your sad assemblage of sexual compulsions out the door, you should consider that a wake-up call. Silda may have stood by Eliot, but even she never opened her mouth in his defense.

Abedin took the good-wife act one step further at Tuesday’s press conference, admitting her collusion in this new lie: “We discussed all of this before Anthony decided to run for mayor,” she said. So clearly, as Abedin sat for these joint interviews in which Weiner claimed to be a changed man, she knew that wasn’t the truth, and was happy to lie to a public that had been nothing but sympathetic toward poor, brilliant Huma, saddled with such a dud. Perhaps they’re a better match than we knew.

“So what I really want to say,” Abedin continued, “is I love him, I have forgiven him, I believe in him, and as we have said from the beginning, we are moving forward.”

How telling that Abedin didn’t acknowledge another harsh truth: It’s the New York electorate that decides how far — not her, not Anthony, and certainly not Carlos Danger.



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/25/2013 12:49:38 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Weiner planned secret sex bunker
..............................................................
07/24/2013 by Patrick Howley
dailycaller.com


The man who broke the most recent Anthony Weiner sexting scandal said that the embattled New York politician presented his marriage to young women as a sham and even planned to purchase a “secret bunker” in Chicago that could house real-life trysts.

“They talked to each other daily on the phone. They told each other they loved each other,” Nik Richie, the founder of the gossip website TheDirty.com, said Wednesday on HuffPost Live.

Weiner’s sexting partner, who began her virtual relationship with Weiner at age 22, felt that the marriage between Weiner and his wife Huma, a former Hillary Clinton aide, was “more of a staged marriage for political gain” and believed that her romance with Weiner would be actualized in a secret condo in Chicago.

“They were going to be able to act [their sex fantasies] out” in a condo in Chicago, which was going to be Weiner’s “secret bunker” for sex, according to Richie.

“She believed him. This girl was starstruck,” Richie said.

“He had a really strange shoe fetish,” Richie said. “The guy has serious, serious issues. There’s no way this is the only girl.”

Richie indicated that Weiner’s marriage may, in fact, be a political facade.

“They think they’re Bill and Hillary Clinton,” Richie said, adding that Huma Weiner “was just so stoic” in her press conference. “I didn’t see any heart, any love.”

Of Weiner’s textual mistress, Richie said, “She’s in shock right now.”

The 23-year old woman at the heart of the scandal has been identified in some reports as “Sydney Elaine Leathers.” She reportedly hails from Indiana and has worked in a variety of low-level political positions, including as a volunteer for Elizabeth Warren’s 2012 U.S. Senate campaign.

A Democrat official told The Daily Caller that the party has no record of “Sydney Elaine,” the name listed on the woman’s Twitpic page, being a field organizer or staffer for the Obama campaign.



Read more: dailycaller.com



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/26/2013 12:53:16 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
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  Respond to of 16547
 
Sheriff Joe Nails Illegal Alien Identity Thieves at Popular Restaurant Chain – Activists Enraged

.............................................................................................................

Stand With Arizona ^ | 07-26-2013 | John Hill





To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/26/2013 2:14:42 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Obama: America’s founders inspired communist Ho Chi Minh
..................................................................................
The Blaze ^ | 7/25/2013 | Meredith Jessup



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/26/2013 9:42:37 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
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  Respond to of 16547
 



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/27/2013 3:13:31 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/28/2013 9:09:49 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Honey_Bee

  Respond to of 16547
 
Hillary is the venal, incompetent tool the left is pitching as the first female president



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/30/2013 2:58:50 AM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

Recommended By
Honey_Bee

  Respond to of 16547
 
Weiner didn’t declare costs for lavish 2010 wedding
......................................................................................

07/29/2013 by Charles C. Johnson
dailycaller.com


Anthony Weiner may have violated federal law when he failed to disclose his lavish six-figure wedding in his financial disclosure forms, says a government accountability group.

Ethics watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center examined the federal Financial Disclosure Reports for both Weiner and long-suffering wife Huma Abedin for 2010, the year of their wedding.

The cost for the ceremony was at least $100,000 but probably ran closer to $250,000 including all accommodations, clothing and extras. Neither Weiner nor Abedin had the resources to pay for the ultra-expensive wedding, yet neither recorded gifts on their Financial Disclosure Reports for that year.



Even though there is an exemption for gifts from personal friends, the Ethics in Government Act requires written permission from the House Ethics Committee for any Congressman getting gifts worth more than $250. Weiner had no such written permission.

NLPC was preparing a complaint to the House Ethics Committee in 2011 against Weiner for filing a false Financial Disclosure Report when Weiner resigned from Congress after the first of his many sexting scandals, leaving the Committee without jurisdiction to take up an investigation.

NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm stated, “Knowingly filing a materially false Financial Disclosure Report not only violates the Ethics in Government Act but also the False Statements Accountability Act, a federal criminal statute. The public is entitled to know who paid the hundreds of thousands of dollars it apparently cost for Weiner to pay for such an extravagant wedding reception. Weiner is not above the law.”

House rules allow a waiver for wedding gifts but there must be a written waiver request and there must be disclosure on the Financial Disclosure Reports. A Member can seek a waiver of the disclosure reports but that request is open to the public.

Abedin and Weiner were married in Oheka Castle on Long Island in 2010, which was “Long Island’s most expensive wedding venue,” according to Newsday in January 2011. “The average wedding cost — $100,000 — does not include flowers, photography, band and hotel rooms.”

Abedin’s wedding dress may have been almost as expensive as the wedding. Made by world-famous designer and dressmaker to Hillary Clinton, Oscar de la Renta, the custom dress would have gone for over $50,000.

Another Clintonite, Bryan Rafanelli, was the wedding planner, some three weeks before he did Chelsea Clinton’s nuptials. The event was officiated by Bill Clinton, even though according to state law Clinton could not legally perform the marriage.

Abedin made only $135,000 annually working for the State Department, according to financial disclosures. Anthony Weiner made $175,000 as a congressman.

What is not known is how much Abedin made while working as a consultant and when that work began. Abedin has rejected attempts by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa to ascertain how much she was paid and by whom.

Read more: dailycaller.com



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/30/2013 11:35:52 AM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Weiner won’t flatly answer “no” when asked if he’s still sexting with women



To: Honey_Bee who wrote (4361)7/30/2013 12:05:17 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Gov't Knows Best?White House creates 'nudge squad' to shape behavior
.................................................................
By Maxim Lott July 30, 2013

The federal government is hiring what it calls a "Behavioral Insights Team" that will look for ways to subtly influence people's behavior, according to a document describing the program obtained by FoxNews.com. Critics warn there could be unintended consequences to such policies, while supporters say the team could make government and society more efficient.

While the program is still in its early stages, the document shows the White House is already working on such projects with almost a dozen federal departments and agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.

"Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals," reads the government document describing the program, which goes on to call for applicants to apply for positions on the team.

The document was emailed by Maya Shankar, a White House senior adviser on social and behavioral sciences, to a university professor with the request that it be distributed to people interested in joining the team. The idea is that the team would "experiment" with various techniques, with the goal of tweaking behavior so people do everything from saving more for retirement to saving more in energy costs.

The document praises subtle policies to change behavior that have already been implemented in England, which already has a "Behavioral Insights Team." One British policy concerns how to get late tax filers to pay up.

"Sending letters to late taxpayers that indicated a social norm -- i.e., that '9 out of 10 people in Britain paid their taxes on time' -- resulted in a 15 percent increase in response rates over a three-month period, rolling out to £30 million of extra annual revenue," the document reads.

Another policy aimed to convince people to install attic insulation to conserve energy.

"Offering an attic-clearance service (at full cost) to people led to a five-fold increase in their subsequent adoption of attic-insulation."

[ Read the full document here]

Such policies -- which encourage behavior subtly rather than outright require it -- have come to be known as "nudges," after an influential 2008 book titled "Nudge" by former Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and Chicago Booth School of Business professor Richard Thaler popularized the term.

The term "nudge" has already been associated with the new program, as one professor who received Shankar's email forwarded it to others with the note: "Anyone interested in working for the White House in a 'nudge' squad? The UK has one and it's been extraordinarily successful."

Richard Thaler told FoxNews.com that the new program sounds good.

"I don't know who those people are who would not want such a program, but they must either be misinformed or misguided," he said.

"The goal is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government by using scientifically collected evidence to inform policy designs. What is the alternative? The only alternatives I know are hunches, tradition, and ideology (either left or right.)"

But some economists urge caution.

"I am very skeptical
of a team promoting nudge policies," Michael Thomas, an economist at Utah State University, told FoxNews.com.

"Ultimately, nudging ... assumes a small group of people in government know better about choices than the individuals making them."

And sometimes, he added, government actually promotes the wrong thing.

"Trans-fats were considered better than saturated and unsaturated fats in the past. Now we know this is an error."

Every intervention would need to be tested to make sure it works well, said Harvard economics professor David Laibson, who studies behavioral economics and is in touch with the people in government setting up the program. He added that the exact way the team will function is currently unknown.

"We have to see the details to be sure, but this could work out very well," he said.

Asked about details, Dan Cruz, spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration (the department which the team will be a part of) told FoxNews.com: "As part of the Administration's ongoing efforts to promote efficiency and savings, GSA is considering adding some expertise from academia in the area of program efficiency and evaluation under its Performance Improvement Council."

Maya Shankar did not respond to questions.

Laibson added that he hoped the U.S. program would stay away from overly controversial subjects.

"Let's say we want people to engage in some healthy behavior like a weight loss program, and then start automatically enrolling overweight people in weight loss programs -- even though they could opt out, I'm guessing that would be viewed as offensive ... a lot of people would say, 'I didn't ask for this, this is judging who I am and who I should be."

But Laibson added that there are very real benefits to some "nudge" policies -- such as one that increases the number of people registered as organ donors by making people decide when they apply for a drivers' license.

Thaler, who is also an adviser to the British Behavioral Insights Team, said that his research also supports automatically enrolling people in retirement savings plans.

"Many people have struggled to save enough to provide for an adequate retirement. ... Two simple design changes can dramatically improve the situation ... automatic enrollment (default people into the plan with the option to easily opt out) and automatic escalation, where workers can sign up to have their contributions increased annually," he said.

Jerry Ellig, an economist at the Mercatus Center, said that some "nudges" are reasonable, but warned about a slippery slope.

"If you can keep it to a 'nudge' maybe it can be beneficial," he added, "but nudges can turn into shoves pretty quickly."


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