Last Call For A One-Sided Battle

So Tuesday's "Anti-terrorist" operation in Eastern Ukraine didn't exactly go so well, and as a result, the Russian predictions of civil war and a breakup of the country seem pretty damn prescient, rather than propaganda.

Ukraine’s “anti-terrorist operation” against anti-government rebels has proved a spectacular debacle. Soldiers refused to move in on rebel-held positions. The rebels captured six APCs, drove the soldiers into Slovyansk flying the Russian flag, and sent them back on dingy buses, dejected, disarmed, and defeated. Self-appointed “self-defense” commanders who couldn’t even agree on which one of them was in charge disarmed and defeated Ukraine’s army.

On the eve of talks in Geneva between Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the European Union on the country’s crisis, Kiev seems to have proven many of the points the Kremlin and its propaganda machine have rammed home for weeks. Eastern Ukraine is in chaos, and Kiev’s central government has no power over large parts of it. Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov acts deaf to protesters’ demands, and frightens them with force. Moscow’s calls for a federalized Ukraine with special status for the Russian-speaking southeast, which Kiev and its Western backers decried as tantamount to breakup only weeks ago, now seem inevitable.

Kiev's government has no power outside Kiev itself, and that was proven this week.

Asked what they wanted, nearly all the protesters made identical demands mirroring those voiced on Russian television for weeks about a federalized Ukraine. That, many commentators say, suggests Moscow’s goal may be to destabilize Kiev’s government, which it says is illegitimate, and disrupt presidential elections set for May 25 to help bring a more favorable candidate to power. In any event, the protesters appeared to have succeeded in bypassing Kiev’s ban on Russian state television, which it shut off last month. Many of them would not talk to BuzzFeed without assurances this reporter was not secretly working for oligarch and presidential favorite Petro Poroshenko’s Channel 5, which is seen as having supported protests in Kiev against Yanukovych last winter.

Even some of the soldiers seemed affronted by Kiev’s mixed messages and failure to address the concerns of eastern provinces. “Some people say one thing, others another – it just leads to clashing heads with locals. I don’t know whom to believe anymore,” Dima, 27, a reservist, said. “The only thing we are scared of is armed conflict with the locals. We are not scared of the Russian army,” he added.

So given a choice between Russia and Kiev, a lot of folks in eastern Ukraine are choosing Russia.  There's next to nothing that the West can do, so we'll see how all this shakes out.  But the practical upshot is Ukraine will not be the same country anymore.

Tuesday I was worried about a shooting war.  Now it seems that the government of Kiev is so incompetent and hated that nobody wants to take a bullet for them.

Oh Susana, Now Don't You Cry For Thee

Andy Kroll at Mother Jones posts an article revealing that New Mexico GOP Gov. Susana Martinez is petty, vindictive, ignorant, and thin-skinned to almost Palinesque levels.  (I know, shocking, right?)

Despite numerous requests, the governor and her aides declined to comment for this piece. But previously unreleased audio recordings, text messages, and emails obtained by Mother Jones reveal a side of Martinez the public has rarely, if ever, seen. In private, Martinez can be nasty, juvenile, and vindictive. She appears ignorant about basic policy issues and has surrounded herself with a clique of advisers who are prone to a foxhole mentality.

Martinez doesn't look like any of the governors who came before her, and members of her inner circle sometimes feel that she has been subject to unfair attacks. Jay McCleskey, her closest aide, once sent a text message complaining about an opponent's negative mailing: "They're trying to keep the brown girl down!!!"

Still, interviews with former Martinez aides, state lawmakers, Democratic and Republican officials, fundraisers, and donors show a governor whose prosecutorial style and vindictiveness have estranged her from leaders in her own party and from the Democratic lawmakers she must work with to get anything done. Martinez and her staff, they say, have isolated themselves in her fourth-floor office inside the modest state capitol known as the Roundhouse. As one major Republican donor in New Mexico puts it, "They've got this Sherman's march to the sea mentality, burning everything in sight until they get to the finish."

Martinez's office wastes no time proving the core of the piece to be true.

Hours after it was published, Martinez circulated a fundraising email decrying the "D.C. Liberal media."

"We’ve come a long way since the days of Bill Richardson, but now liberals in Washington want to undo the progress we’ve made," Martinez said in the email. "In the absolute height of desperation, one of the most radically liberal publications in the country is now peddling false, personal attacks against me, using stolen audiotapes from our debate prep sessions four years ago.

"Their 'smoking gun'? I referred to Diane Denish using the B-word four years ago in a private conversation with close advisers," she continued. "I admit it — I've had to fund the cuss jar a few times in my life."

Can't make this stuff up, folks.  How dare the liberal media use my exact words verbatim!  Meanwhile...

Martinez's crew saw enemies everywhere. A former staffer recalls the campaign on multiple occasions sending the license plate numbers of cars believed to be used by opposition trackers to an investigator in Martinez's DA office who had access to law enforcement databases. In one instance, a campaign aide took a photo of a license plate on a car with an anti-Martinez bumper sticker and emailed it to the investigator. "Cool I will see who it belongs to!!" the investigator replied.

Nope, not vindictive, petty, or thin-skinned at all.

Back To Barack Bashing

And Sen. Mary Landrieu has learned precisely nothing from the awesome collapse of Blanche Lincoln four years ago as she rolls out a new ad attacking President Obama on oil and gas drilling.

A new ad by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) features TV clips of her going after the Obama administration's oil and gas policies, spliced with footage of Louisianans who appear to be energy workers in the state. The ad is running statewide with a buy of $250,000 this week, a Landrieu campaign source told TPM.

"The administration's policies are simply wrong when it comes to oil and gas production in this nation," she says in one clip. In another, she says there are 300,000 oil and gas workers in Louisiana, and "you can't just beat up on them." Landrieu chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

So when Republican Bill Cassidy wins by 15 points in November, recall what Mary was doing to her fellow Democrats.   Because the energy industry has been so good for the Louisiana coast.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has overturned North Dakota's "Heartbeat" abortion law, which would have been the strictest in the nation in banning abortions as early as after six weeks.
• The former city administrator of Bell, California will face 12 years in prison and will have to pay $8.8 million in restitution after pleading guilty to 69 criminal counts.
• Syrian opposition forces are accusing the al-Asaad regime of once again using chemical weapons, posting footage of four alleged victims on the internet.
• China's ban on genetically modified grain from the US could cost farmers as much as $6.3 billion in losses over the next 15 months.
• A new "thermal fuel" to store solar energy and release it as heat without degrading could revolutionize energy storage, making solar power much more reliable.

Last Call For Electile Dysfunction

I have to say that with both Mitch McConnell and John Boehner voters served by the Cincinnati media market, we get some hysterical political ads like this one from J.D. Winteregg, the Tea Party challenger gunning for Orange Julius's seat in the Ohio primary on May 6.



Winteregg is an awful candidate of course, but the ad is actually very funny.

Winteregg’s policy agenda includes term limits to make people more comfortable about how they’re represented in Washington — an issue that could be highlighted nationally by an abrupt end to Boehner’s term — and a blend of fiscal conservatism and moral values. “I’m 100 percent pro-life,” he said, adding that he strongly supports the Second Amendment and opposes illegal aliens being “suddenly entitled to this welfare system.”

“When they talk about the debt ceiling they ask, ‘Will you raise it?’ I say look at how it got here. We need to cut spending. We can find waste fraud and abuse everywhere. That will resonate with people because we’re all doing that [in our own lives]. The government is the only thing that’s not,” Winteregg said. “The fastest-growing place in America right now is Washington D.C. These people work for us and they’ve become independently wealthy?”

As a teacher, Winteregg has special ire reserved for federal school reforms, including the 2001 Bush administration policy that Boehner co-sponsored.

“You can’t address individual students’ needs when it’s centrally planned. Boehner was a co-sponsor of No Child Left Behind which has opened the door to Common Core. It takes a toll on the kids, a toll on the teachers,” the challenger declared. “You have a bunch of politicians making decisions in education. We need teachers making decisions on education. You get that when you diminish the role of the federal government.”

The guy hits all the Aggrieved Ohio White Guy buttons here, including comparing Orange Julius to a union leader ("If you say anything bad about the party you’re a scab") and is running on the notion that Boehner spends too much time fundraising to vote, so the people in the tony suburbs north of Cincy towards Dayton don't actually have any representation, or something.

Whether he has a chance in hell, well who knows.  But Tea Party groups are throwing money at Winteregg to get this ad up, and Boehner actually is buying TV ads now.

Just in case.

Oh, and the Democrat running is Tom Poetter, who is light years ahead of either of these clowns.  Drop by his website or his ActBlue page and drop in a few bucks.

My Conversation With Frazier Glenn Miller

     I read about the shootings in Overland Park, Kansas and was shocked.  That is not normal for this part of the country, for a lot of reasons.  I happened to be on Facebook when news sources began running the updates, and people began to clog feeds sharing every update.  I went to bed, upset at the events but figuring I would get better information tomorrow after the news hawks had done their job, and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the name of the alleged shooter.  I do not know Frazier Glenn Miller.  I have never met the man in person, and I would not have known him if he sat by me on the bus.  However, once upon a time I did speak with him.  And believe me, once was enough.  Our conversation was so memorable that years later I recognized his name immediately.  You never forget your first psycho.

     About six years ago, I joined an experimental group of writers who were brought together to represent different opinions and viewpoints for a local publication.  I was in the first group to go in, and through some crossed wires, my cell phone number was given out to a couple of people by mistake.  One of those people was Frazier Glenn Miller, who asked to speak with someone about a lack of news coverage.  That’s just the kind of thing we were created to cover.  I was surprised that I got an actual phone call, but grabbed a pen and notepad and began jotting notes.  Novice or not, I wasn’t stupid.  Someone was calling me with a story and I wanted to get it right.

     What I heard that night was an upsetting mix of conspiracy theories gone wrong, hate and stubborn stupidity.  Anything that did not meet his theory was rejected outright for being biased.  Meanwhile, he ignored anything inconvenient and considered himself an expert.  What in the world made him call a woman, I’ll never know.  I cannot tell you how many times I bristled and wondered what to do.  I don’t remember now how I set him off, only that he eventually turned belligerent and ultimately threatening.  I finally ended the call, and after I regained my composure I emailed our contact and let him know what had happened.  Immediately, our information was protected and there were no further incidents.  When the name of the caller was mentioned at our next meeting, there was a hush and a feeling something weird had happened.  I got a glossy explanation at the time, but even back then Miller was outspoken and of concern.  He was scary, loud and persistent and dangerous, he knew my name and my picture had just been published alongside my bio.  I was escorted to my car the remainder of our meetings.  When my term was up, I think they were a little relieved, right up until Frazier applied for membership.

     I thought about Miller several times over the years.  I still hear him, every time I read about how the [insert minority] has [insert ridiculous accusation].  When the Tea Party was at its peak, I told a friend from those days how much their stupidity sounded like it had been written my Miller.  That friend agreed, and he is a Republican.  Miller isn’t just a lone nut from a small town.  He’s everywhere.  He’s spreading lies, fear and hate because he’s angry and it’s all he knows.  He stirs terror and paranoia, a black hole who sucks goodness out of the world with purpose.  He is the opposite of everything I stand for and fights against everything I love.  But now I’ll always think of him, and every time I hear people marginalized by hate wrapped with lies I will hear the echo of his voice.  That snap.  That anger.  That need to see that hate in others to validate its existence.  That’s Frazier Glenn Miller in a nutshell, and it didn’t take a genius to figure him out.
     If we are to be afraid of men like Frazier Glenn Miller, let it be for the right reason.  Not because they are oddities or exceptions, but because they are everywhere.  For example, the mayor of Marionville, Missouri says he agrees with Miller's views, just not the killing.   I'm glad he clarified where his line of decency is.  I sure as hell had a hard time finding it without help.  While trying to speak for Miller's character, the mayor said he was very respectful of his elders, as long as they were the right color.
     This is what passes for upright character in the world, and don't you dare forget it.  If you're a woman, a minority, or a non-approved religion you can pay with your life if you slip for even a second in the presence of men like this.  Miller didn't get to this point all by himself.  He came with friends, liars and hatemongers who came before him and paved the way.  He will be followed by more of the same, and if unchecked and ignored we'll be here next week mourning different victims who died for the same ridiculous reason.  

Bobbing For Martyrs

Yes folks, the militia groups who showed up at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada to protest the Bureau of Land Management's decision to confiscate cattle (after rancher Cliven Bundy went 20 plus years without paying grazing fees mind you) wanted bloody corpses and world headlines.

It appears that the anti-government activists protesting the Bureau of Land Management's actions against a Nevada cattle rancher were considering using women as a human shield if a gun battle had erupted during the standoff.

The Blaze, the conservative news site affiliated with Glenn Beck, flagged the comments made Monday by Richard Mack, identified as a former Arizona sheriff who had joined more than 1,000 other protesters alongside Cliven Bundy, who has been feuding with BLM over his use of federal land to graze his cattle.

“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” Mack said in a Fox News clip pulled by The Blaze. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”

 Richard Mack is a real piece of work, by the way.

Sheriff Mack has been a celebrity amongst anti-federalist militia types and Second Amendmenters for years. In 1994, the NRA recruited him as a plaintiff in one of nine lawsuits against the Clinton administration over the 1993 Brady Law, which required federal background checks on firearms purchasers. "The case was based on the principle that the federal government is not our boss," Mack says. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled in Mack's favor, finding that federal agents may not force local law enforcement to require those background checks. In appreciation, the NRA made Mack its Law Officer of the Year and inducted him into the NRA Hall of Fame.

Mack has done PR work for Gun Owners of America, a gun lobby that makes the NRA seem moderate, and is on the board of the Oath Keepers (read our profile here), which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls a "Patriot group" made up of vets, military folks, and cops who believe the government is turning on its citizens. They vow to disobey 10 specific (and sometimes fanciful) federal orders that they consider unconstitutional, such as declarations of martial law, the herding of people into concentration camps, and the taking of guns from law-abiding citizens.

So yes, rather than give these ghouls the martyrs they were looking for, the BLM walked away before anyone got hurt or killed.

Brave man, wanting to put women up front as human shields to be killed on purpose.

StupidiNews!

• Tuesday's memorial for the victims of last year's Boston Marathon bombing was marred by a bomb hoax, a suspect has been arrested by police.
• A Spanish federal judge has refused to dismiss a torture probe into Guantanamo Bay under former US President George W. Bush, despite pressure from Spain's parliament.
• At least two are dead in a ferry accident in South Korea as hundreds were rescued from the waters off the port city of Inchon.
• In signs that the American job market is improving, several large US cities now have jobless rates well below the national average, creating spot worker shortages and higher pay.
• Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey says flat panel monitors have at most 20 years left before they are replaced by VR displays.

Also, Bon will be posting her recollection of her conversation with KC Jewish Center shooting suspect Frazier Glenn Miller this afternoon, so stay tuned.  It's a hell of a story.

Last Call For Heartbleeding Liberals

If anonymous sources are enough to convict the NSA in the court of public opinion over the Heartbleed bug, what does that mean for news that Google knew about it and didn't tell users or the government?

On purpose, mind you.

Google knew about a critical flaw in Internet security, but it didn't alert anyone in the government.

Neel Mehta, a Google engineer, first discovered "Heartbleed"—a bug that undermines the widely used encryption technology OpenSSL—some time in March. A team at the Finnish security firm Codenomicon discovered the flaw around the same time. Google was able to patch most of its services—such as email, search, and YouTube—before the companies publicized the bug on April 7.

The researchers also notified a handful of other companies about the bug before going public. The security firm CloudFlare, for example, said it fixed the flaw on March 31.

This is not an anonymous source, but a named Google employee admitting to this.

Asked whether Google discussed Heartbleed with the government, a company spokeswoman said only that the "security of our users' information is a top priority" and that Google users do not need to change their passwords.

Companies often wait to publicize a security flaw so they can have time to patch their own services. But keeping the bug secret from the U.S. government may have left federal systems vulnerable to hackers. The IRS said it's not aware of any vulnerabilities in its system, but other agencies that use OpenSSL could have been leaking private information to hackers.

The government encourages companies to report cybersecurity issues to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which is housed in the Homeland Security Department. US-CERT has a 24-hour operations center that responds to security threats and vulnerabilities.

Why would Google tell the government or competitors and not keep this to themselves, so they could fix the bug on their servers while other internet giants were vulnerable?  Then they could say "Hey, we fixed the problem, these other guys were the ones that exposed your password info."

Of course that only works if people don't find out Google is a bunch of bastards.

But let's blame the NSA and Obama some more.  They're the real bad guys, right?  I mean hey, if the Electronic Frontier Foundation has finally decided to back the Tea Party since the unsourced NSA accusations made last week, this isn't a mass effort to depress Democratic voter turnout, right?

Right?

Things Just Got Bad In Ukraine

Monday's deadline from acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov for Russian militants holding Ukrainian government building in eastern Ukraine to leave has passed without incident.  Unfortunately, all that meant was that the promised military operation was postponed until today and the shooting has now begun in earnest.  Bloomberg News:

Ukraine unleashed an offensive to dislodge militants from towns in its eastern Donetsk region as Russia’s prime minister said the country risks civil war.

Ukrainian units backed by armored personnel carriers blocked all approaches to the town of Slovyansk, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported, citing an unidentified pro-Russian activist. Two militants were wounded when an airport in Kramatorsk was stormed, forcing the protesters to retreat, according to RIA.

The government in Kiev started the operation after fighting between its forces and pro-Russian separatists turned deadly this week. The U.S. and the European Union also deliberated deepening sanctions against Russia, which they blame for stoking the unrest, as Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin remained at odds over who was at fault.

“The aim of these actions is to protect people,” acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said in a statement on his website. “Apart from Russian special forces and terrorists, there’s hundreds of thousands of innocent Ukrainian people deceived by Russian propaganda, and that is why we will take any needed anti-terrorist actions prudently and responsibly.”

Reuters too is reporting that the Ukrainian operation is underway.

Turchinov said the offensive, which he first announced on Sunday, was finally underway. "The anti-terrorist operation began during the night in the north of Donetsk region. But it will take place in stages, responsibly, in a considered way. I once again stress: the aim of these operations is to defend the citizens of Ukraine," he told parliament.

At least 15 armored personnel carriers displaying Ukrainian flags were parked by the side of a road around 50 km (30 miles) north of Slaviansk, witnesses said.

Ukrainian troops wearing camouflage gear and armed with automatic weapons and grenade launchers were stationed nearby, with a helicopter and several buses containing interior ministry personnel near the road.

Things just got bad.  Really bad.  The Russians are already using the excuse that this is a "civil war" in the Ukraine and that Russian forces have nothing to do with what's going on, and that the "illegitimate" government of Kiev is fighting the people of Ukraine who are resisting tyranny or something, because everyone really wants to be part of Russia, so of course we'll have to assist these rebels...

You can imagine where this is going next. 

Cheaper Than Advertised, Better Than Expected

The latest Congressional Budget Office projections find that Obamacare will cost far less than last year's estimates, to the tune of over $100 billion less over ten years.

More than 12 million people will gain health insurance under the Affordable Care Act this year, according to new projections released by the Congressional Budget Office on Monday. And millions more stand to benefit from the law over the next decade.

At the same time, the law's costs to the federal government are shrinking. According to the new projections, the federal government will spend more than $100 billion less on Obamacare's coverage provisions through 2024. That includes a downward estimate of about $5 billion this year. Overall, spending on the federal and state insurance exchanges are projected to cost 14 percent less than originally forecast.

The CBO said plans offered through the exchanges are narrower, allowing companies to keep premiums low and the federal government to pay less in subsidies. The lower spending projections on the Affordable Care Act will help shrink deficits overall. The CBO said the federal government will now run a deficit of $492 billion in fiscal year 2014, which is almost a 33 percent decrease from 2013.

But, but, but...death spirals!  Unsustainable!  Failure!




Watch the FOX News headline be "Seven MILLION Americans will lose employer health insurance by 2024 thanks to Obamacare!"

Of course, Republicans want to repeal Obamacare and take insurance coverage away from millions.  Good luck with that.

StupidiNews, Tax Day Edition!

• Police say a Utah woman has confessed to killing six babies immediately after giving birth to them over a period of several years.
• The suspect arrested Sunday for the murder of three in a shooting spree at Jewish centers in Kansas City will be charged under the federal hate crimes statute.
• This year's Pulitzer prizes in journalism went to the Guardian US and the Washington Post for their coverage of the NSA, and Reuters for coverage of the persecution of Myanmar's Muslims, among others.
• Chinese hackers have wasted little time in going after "Heartbleed" secure website vulnerabilities, attacking a University of Michigan server less than 12 hours after the bug was announced.
• A mural purported to be by British street artist Banksy has popped up near the UK's Government Communications HQ, depicting men tapping and recording an abandoned phone booth.

Last Call For Cheesed Off GOP In Wisconsin

Republicans can be such petulant clowns sometimes.  Why should anyone take them seriously?

Wisconsin Republicans will vote at their convention next month on a proposal affirming the state's right to go it alone, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's Daniel Bice reported Monday.

The state party's Resolutions Committee has voted in favor of a so-called "state sovereignty" measure stating the party "supports legislation that upholds Wisconsin's right, under extreme circumstances, to secede," according to the Journal-Sentinel. The resolution came out of one of the state party's regional caucuses and was edited and adopted by the committee despite top GOP officials' efforts to quash it.

Why would you vote on this unless you wanted people to think you hated America and no longer wanted to be a part of it?   What "extreme circumstances" constitute the necessity for secession?  Another Democrat in the White House? 

Gov. Scott Walker (R) dismissed the unconventional proposal last week.

"I don't think that one aligns with where most Republican officials are in the state of Wisconsin — certainly not with me," Walker said Friday at a press event, as quoted by the Journal-Sentinel.

Gosh, what a bold statement.  He doesn't think secession "aligns" with GOP officials in the state.

Why do Republicans hate America so much that they want to leave it?  That kind of was the problem 150 years ago, yes?  So do Republicans want a second Civil War?

Why else would you want to affirm the right to secede?

Grimes: Fight To Raise Minimum Wage

In a Sunday op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes went after Sen. Mitch McConnell over the GOP's refusal to even consider raising the minimum wage.

Times may be tough, but I am running for the U.S. Senate because I believe Kentucky's best days are still ahead of us. It starts with leaders who will start working for Kentucky again. That begins with raising the minimum wage.

President Clinton once said that raising the minimum wage is "pro-work, pro-business and pro-family." I share his view and have made clear since entering the race, we must raise the minimum wage for all Kentuckians to strengthen the middle class and help our people — including over 250,000 Kentucky women — provide for their families and put food on the table.

Those against raising Kentuckians' wages, including my opponent Mitch McConnell, defend the status quo by falsely claiming that it would cost the economy jobs. But taking a step back and looking at the facts — a very different picture is presented. Historically, raising the minimum wage has created jobs and boosted the economy. This time, economists who have studied this issue at length have found that increasing the minimum wage now will cut unemployment again and once more create jobs.

Kentucky includes some of the poorest counties in America, with median incomes well below the national average.

Indeed, the nonpartisan Kentucky Center for Economic Policy (KCEP) released a report just last year detailing the economic benefit that raising the minimum wage would have. The KCEP found that a minimum wage increase to $10.10 an hour would create 2,200 jobs right here in Kentucky, boost earnings for hundreds of thousands of hardworking Kentuckians, and grow the commonwealth's GDP by over $500 million.

Critics also claim that the minimum wage is an issue that solely affects teenagers. In reality, nearly 90 percent of Kentuckians who would see their earnings go up from a minimum wage increase are 20 years of age or older.

Furthermore, nearly 30 percent of those who would benefit from increased wages have children. As the UK Center for Poverty Research notes, minimum wage workers head an increasing number of households today.

Raising the minimum wage is also wildly popular here in the state, with 61% of Kentuckians wanting to raise the minimum wage.  This is a good issue for Grimes to attack on, and hopefully it will continue to help her campaign.

Why She Left, In Her Own Words

Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appeared on Meet the Press Sunday to explain why she resigned her cabinet position.

"Well, actually, I made a decision at the election that I couldn't leave along with a lot of my colleagues who left at the end of the first term. That did not seem to be even a topic to consider since there was still one more chapter in this Affordable Care Act that needed to roll out," she said. "There is never a good time."

But she said that at the beginning of January, she began to discuss her departure with President Obama.

"And I went back to him in early March and said, 'You know, I'm really optimistic we're gonna meet the targets and the enrollment is good. While the site is working well, I think once we finish this first chapter you really should begin to look for the next secretary who can be here through the end of your term.' And that really wasn't a commitment I was willing to make," she said.

"I made it pretty clear that that really wasn't an option, to stay on. I mean, it was fair to either commit till January of 2017 or leave with enough time that he would get a strong competent leader."

So yes, Ezra Klein was right.  She quit while she was ahead.