7 Year Rash

Today is the 7th Anniversary of this blog. For a long time this year I considered making this one my last because, quite simply, The Stupid Have Inherited the Earth. Intelligence and Common Sense (let alone <gasp> Logic) are Politically Incorrect. Hell, some Leftists have decreed that just saying “politically incorrect” is Politically Incorrect. 😦

So instead I thought I’d revisit one of my favorites from the last 7 years.

This also goes out the #NeverTrump -ers who are so mindlessly obsessed with hating Donald Trump that they are willing Hillary into the White House.

Hate never felt so Right. 🙂

And a special shout out to the Sabotage Republicans (The Establishment ones and their followers) WHO ALSO want Hillary.

The Generations (and possibly permanent) of damage you want to inflict on what’s LEFT of this country is so short-sighted you deserve her.

It will be YOUR fault.

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone — to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink — greetings! -George Orwell

So with that in mind, cast your mindless adherence to January 21, 2012  and this Blog and see yourselves currently in it also.

THE ZOMBIE HOARD

They are just a zombie hoard.

Remorseless. Merciless. Incapable of shame, morals or ethics.

They want want what they want when they want it and because they want it and will do anything to get it. Relentlessly.

And what they want is YOU. You to be either converted or cow-towed to their every whim. To do whatever they want when they want it.

Evidence John King, the CNN Liberal Moderator of the South Carolina Debate. He opens the debate with a salicious question to Gingrich about his “open marriage” and Gingrich blows him to bits for it and the crowd goes wild.

He did this to prove his “courage” to stand up to the evil “right wingers” and puff out his chest that he was “journalist” and was going to bravely confront the issue. Meanwhile, anything remotely damaging to President Obama is ignored with great speed and spin.🙂

2016: Just Like they do with Hillary. The Debate will be set up to show that Trump is grumpy, unstable and mean. The fact that Hillary is a congenital, sociopathica Liar has no bearing on the debates whatsover.

Their will be more Candy Crowley moments than ever.

And the Zombie hoard will eat it up like candy. “Brains…”

“In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.- George Orwell.

And their has never been more deceit now than ever in American History and more mindless Zombie Hoards out to make sure “What difference does it make, anyways?”

Rush Limbaugh (who I rarely get a chance to listen to because of my work schedule): Now, let me tell you one thing here, folks: You cannot shame the mainstream media. If any of you are thinking that the media learned a lesson — if any of you believe that the media finally had it handed to ’em, if you believe that the media had their eyes opened and they are fully awake now and they understand what they’re dealing with — forget it. John King is proud of what happened last night. John King is a hero in the Main Street media because he didn’t back down, because he continued to illustrate how it is that the media does really control the agenda. That was a demonstration of the power they hold over every public figure’s head, that they choose to hold like a guillotine. John King… There may even be some jealousy and envy within the journalist ranks (well, not journalists; within the Democrat Party ranks) because John King is a guy that got in Newt’s face, stared him down — and the fact that Newt told him off? It’s a badge of honor. If you are thinking that John King was embarrassed and ran away with his tail tucked between his legs and learned his lesson and it’ll never happen again? Ah, ah, ah, ah. You cannot shame the mainstream media. They are proud of this. They delight in their power to destroy candidates that they don’t like.

And they don’t like anyone who doesn’t cow-tow to them.

2016: They made THEIR Choice. Now it’s you’re Zombie duty to vote for it or else.

“At the end of the day the message to every conservative who hasn’t run for office is: “You want a piece of this? You want some of this? You want Brian Ross hounding you and your ex-wife and then you want me asking you about it on national TV the next night? Come on in. We’re ready.” That’s the message from John King and CNN last night, and do not doubt me on this.”

2016: look at the evidence, every time new “evidence” comes out about Hillary they bury it. Every time Trump even raises his voice or say one less than perfect political phrase they are on it like flies on shit and they stick to it like super glue and blow it up.

So the alternative is to cow-tow. To live in fear of the Liberal wrath.

2016: To acquiesce. Given in, the Ministry of Truth has the system rigged.

Hell, the Democrats got caught rigging the Primary, blatantly.

No one really cared.

The Zombie Hoard just went, “oh” and moved on. The Media covered it up.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was sacrificed.

End of Story.

#2: Hillary is caught re-handed on the Email Scandal. The FBI even says so. But since Comey has connections to Clinton and doesn’t want to have a mysterious “accident” she is not prosecuted.

Future Hillary Supreme Court Nominee Loretta Lynch, Attorney General and Clinton Cronie refuses to prosecute her.

Other people not connected to Clinton aren’t so lucky.

And the reaction from the Zombie Hoard, “Yawn”.

Hillary is still leading in the Polls!

“Brains…”

The Food Police. The TSA. The EPA. The Justice Department. Homeland Security. The FCC.

Because if they can’t make you a zombie, they can at least make you a peasant in fear of your Masters who will not challenge them or not have the power to challenge them.

“[…]you don’t have to be Sun freakin Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it a day.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

They’ll just turn your children into zombies instead. 12 years of Grade School and 4 years of College is a lot of Zombie Voodoo time after all. And “getting them while they are young” is entirely within the Zombie Liberal playbook. Make them a zombie before they even know what one is and then make them as immune as possible to any anti-virus and get them addicted to their own Kool-Aid. Feed it to them constantly through the Media and the Internet.

2016: They’ll DEMAND Segregation, “Safe Spaces”, “Diversity” and “Inclusion” mindlessly and will trample Free Speech because they don’t want to be “offended”.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

WAR (Class, Gender, Race, Religion) IS PEACE

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Hell, even white people getting a tan will set the little zombie off…

What it does is illustrate that they can be dealt with. But you can’t beat ’em. They’re not gonna be shamed. They’re not going to be shamed into stopping the coverage of conservatives as they do it. It’s going to continue. No matter what kind of shame you think they suffer in a contest like that — no matter how much money they lose, no matter how many of them get fired, no matter how many magazines or TV stations or newspapers get shut down — they are not gonna change. They are hard-core, leftists”

And as I have said over and over again, they are have no morals or ethics because they are governed not by logic and reason but by emotions, mostly the most basic of primitive emotions, Fear, Lust (for power), anger, jealousy, ENVY, etc. –Raw emotions.

2016: THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS!

Which is why when you engage them they sound and act like an immature 5 year old. And as we all know from childhood development the child has to develop a sense of shame by have having boundaries and limitations and consequences. And if they don’t, they will grow up with little to no sense of shame.

2016: “Microaggressions” anyone?

They are usually called sociopaths. I can call them Liberal Zombies.

2016: And the #Never Trumpers and Establishment RINOs.

Liberals have no shame. They want what they want when they want it because they want it.

2016: And the #Never Trumpers and Establishment RINOs.

“…one of the upsides that isn’t gonna happen is the media saying, “Gosh, we’ve been so mean to these people and so unfair. You know, maybe we ought to start being fair.” That’s not going to happen.

Liberals talk about being “fair” which means you’re being unfair to them and should do what they want.

Liberals talk about “compassion” but it’s to make you feel guilty, not them, and to do what they want.

Liberals will talk about “bi-partisanship” but that just means you have to compromise your principles so they can do what they want.

“Diversity” means you’re evil and need to do what they say to repent for your sins.

2016: “Inclusion” Means you include everything THEY say and do it without hesitation.

They are a remorseless hoard. They want what they want when they want it and on their terms only.

Give them everything they want or they’ll cry, scream, bitch, moan, pout and lash out at you.

2016: “White Privilege” anyone?

That is their primitive zombie hoard mentality. And they want YOU.

“Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they’re used.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“Often, a school is your best bet-perhaps not for education but certainly for protection from an undead attack.”
― Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide

“Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent
thinking clearly is never time wasted.”
― Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide

“I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“They feel no fear, why should you?”– Max Brooks

“The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.”
― Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide

Get rid of one zombie, and 10 more will take it’s place. So you have to be ready to do battle constantly.

Look at 2010. The Democrats suffered the worst defeat in 80 years. Does it look like they learned ANYTHING?

No.

As a matter of fact the zombie hoard is even tighter, even more determined than ever. They want it EVEN MORE.

So if we defeat then in 2012 will they go away?

HELL NO!

2016: They weren’t defeated. Even more hoards joined them. So if they are beat in 2016 will they finally be defeated and go away.

HELL NO!

They will just keep coming back like a remorseless zombie hoard until you are overwhelmed.

Which is why you will have to fight them all of your days, your kids days and their kids days until the infection is wiped out.

But like any good zombie plaque it only takes 1 to re-ignite it and spread it all over again.

And these zombies have Media and Internet outlets! (and Europe!)

“Looking back, I still can’t believe how unprofessional the news media was. So much spin, so few hard facts. All those digestible sound bites from an army of ‘experts’ all contradicting one another, all trying to seem more ‘shocking’ and ‘in-depth’ than the last one. It was all so confusing, nobody seemed to know what to do.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“The only rule that ever made sense to me I learned from a history, not an economics, professor at Wharton. “Fear,” he used to say, “fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe.” That blew me away. “Turn on the TV,” he’d say. “What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products.” Fuckin’ A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

The Democrat Party in a nutshell.

FEAR IS HOPE!

My own personal Fourth Orwellian Precept (which includes WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH).

“If you believe you can accomplish everything by “cramming” at the eleventh hour, by all means, don’t lift a finger now. But you may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining”
― Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide

“When I believe in my ability to do something, there is no such word as no.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“. . . show the other side, the one that gets people out of bed the next morning, makes them scratch and scrape and fight for their lives because someone is telling them that they’re going to be okay.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren’t just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don’t have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don’t have a common heritage, we don’t have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have…is what we want to be.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

“…We were a shaken, broken species, driven to the edge of extinction and grateful only for tomorrow with perhaps a little less suffering than today. Was this the legacy we would leave our children, a level of anxiety and self-doubt not seen since our simian ancestors cowered in the tallest trees? What kind of world would they rebuild? Would they rebuild at all? Could they continue to progress, knowing that they would be powerless to reclaim their future? And what if that future saw another rise of the living dead? Would our descendants rise to meet them in battle, or simply crumple in meek surrender and accept what they believe to be their inevitable extinction? For this alone, we had to reclaim our planet. We had to prove to ourselves that we could do it, and leave that proof as this war’s greatest monument. The long, hard road back to humanity, or the regressive ennui of Earth’s once-proud primates. That was the choice, and it had to be made now.”
― Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War

The Future is yours. So is living through “The Walking Dead” and “1984” for real.

Reality Check

“The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.” — Milton Friedman

“If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” – Jonah Goldberg

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (Orwell)

In a time where consumers have almost unlimited choices of music, movies, websites and every product you can imagine in the supermarket, socialism is an outdated economic system that no longer fits with the world we live in. Socialism requires the intervention and control of the marketplace by an overwhelmingly powerful centralized government. It penalizes high achievers, rewards laziness and stifles choice.

Socialism is a government regulation that stops you from creating a successful business. It’s the Bureau of Land Management or the EPA making arbitrary decisions about what you can do with your own land. It’s the IRS taking the money you busted your butt to earn and giving it to people who didn’t work as hard as you did.

Almost every socialist policy requires taking resources from someone who’s earned them and giving them to someone who hasn’t. Even programs that are supposed to be self-funding rarely are because the juice is never quite worth the squeeze. The real reason we’re so deeply in debt is because if the middle class was forced to choose between paying for what our government is spending or dramatically cutting back, our government would already be much smaller than it is – and no wonder.

What does our government do well anymore? Do you trust the IRS? FEMA? Are our borders secure? How does the customer service of the post office or DMV compare to, let’s say Apple or Amazon? Who wants to live in government housing? Who wants a minimum wage job? Who wants to answer to bureaucrats, jump through their hoops and do as he’s told by people who see him as a nameless, faceless slob dependent upon them for his livelihood?

This is what socialism offers.

This is the Democrats.

Socialism will take something from someone else who earned it and give it to you and in return, you will do what socialists want you to do. If you’re irresponsible, lazy, have a habit of making poor decisions or just need a master, this can seem like a good deal. You can work a menial job and get paid more than you’re worth! You can go to college and you don’t have to pay for it! Someone else will give you a place to live, food stamps, welfare and health care! In return, you just have to give up on your pride, your dreams and control of your own life.

People who can take care of themselves don’t need socialism and most of those who have difficulty taking care of themselves would still be better off under a more capitalistic system. The more capitalistic an economy is, the faster it grows. The faster an economy grows, the more jobs and wealth are created.

Eighty percent of humanity lives on less than $10 a day. Meanwhile, 96% of the poor in America have televisions, 93% have microwaves and 81% have cell phones. Ultimately, it’s the economic growth produced by capitalistic policies that has allowed America’s poor to do so well compared to the poor in more socialistic nations. Paradoxically, the more we move towards socialism in the name of “helping” the poor, the less poor Americans will ultimately have. That’s because the more regulations, the more taxes and the more GOVERNMENT a country has, the slower its economy grows.

Socialism requires a gargantuan government so it can confiscate property, control behavior and manage an always growing list of programs to achieve “fairness.” Unfortunately, “fairness” is a will-o’-the-wisp that can never be caught because human beings have different levels of talent, skill and effort.

The factory worker who spent 30 years working his way through the ranks to become regional sales manager should make more than the new guy who just started yesterday. The man who spent 10 years building his own successful business should make more money than his employees. The man who invested every extra dime he had and does well should make more money than the fellow who used all his extra money to buy a bigger car and nicer furniture for his house. Socialists say, “Not so fast. Maybe those guys should make more money, but they’re making too much money. We should control how much they make. We should decide how much of their money they get to keep. We should control how much of their money is given away and to whom.”

 

On the other hand, capitalism is freedom. Capitalism says you should do what you want to do with your own time and either suffer the consequences or reap the rewards. Sure, we might all cooperate to create a military and a police force along with building sewage systems, roads, street lights and stop signs and a few other necessities, but beyond that, let everyone rise and fall as he deserves.

If you want to get a four year degree in women’s studies at an Ivy League university? Great, pay for it yourself. You want to live cheaply and work a second job so you can save up money? You should be able to do that and someone else shouldn’t get the benefits from your hard work. If you want to spend your twenties as a beach bum, surfing all day and sleeping in a tent at night, you can do that, but no one else should be asked to help pay for your lifestyle.

Having real freedom means you get to make real choices and when that happens, some of those choices will work out better than others. The only way to change that is to build a massive government apparatus that makes everyone poorer in return for reducing the amount of natural inequality that will happen when people are allowed to pursue their wildly differing hopes and dreams.

Capitalism is not perfect, but it won’t bankrupt the country, it doesn’t reward failure and it can’t control you like socialism. To the contrary, in a capitalist system, businesses benefit from voluntary transactions. Do you want to get rich in a capitalist system? Find a way to give people what they want. If you’re just okay at it, you can make a decent salary. If you’re as good at it as Henry Ford or Bill Gates, you can become rich beyond imagination.

Do you want to get rich in a socialist system? Be well connected. Make friends or just pay off people who can give you government contracts. Make contributions to politicians so they’ll change the laws to help you and hurt your competitors. Get the government to take money from other people and give it to you as part of a bailout.

Which sounds more admirable? Which sounds healthier for our country? When you give the government unlimited power to create “equality,” you also give it the power to tilt the playing field towards corrupt businesses that have every incentive to try to take advantage of it.

At the end of the day, socialism is for slaves who are willing to give up their freedom for promises that they’ll be given some minimal level of support no matter what. On the other hand, capitalism is for people who want the freedom to rise or fall based on their own effort. If you know which type of person you are, then you know whether you should be a capitalist or a socialist.

The Sheeple Have Voted

And Hillary wins Iowa by .2% on a 64-1 series of “coin flips”. Seriously? You can’t make up shit up. The corruption is even deeper than this massive cynic thought.

The Democrats narrowly voted for the Massively Corrupt Liar that would make Baron Munchhausen look like Mother Teresa over the All-Proud Socialist and they are too ignorant to understand it.

It will separate the corrupt Democrats who go for Hillary versus the foolish ones who go for Sanders and that Democrats don’t care about the Truth in anyway, shape or fashion…

So with that in mind.

Not only do Democratic billionaires spend more on campaigns then Republicans do, as Katie Pavlich noted yesterday, but Democrats also represent the nation’s richest congressional districts, while Republicans represent the middle class.

They also win with coin flips (and some cash under the table I’m sure). Seriously?

With as many times as outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid mentioned the Koch brothers in Senate floor speeches this year, you’d think that they were the ones who spent the most money during the 2014 midterm elections. Think again. Out of all the billionaires who donated money to causes or campaigns for the midterms, the top two were Democrats and they outspent everyone else on the list, combined. David Koch isn’t even near the top. More from POLITICO: 

And Bloomberg is considering running for President to preserve his Elitist status. 🙂

Billionaire Tom Steyer’s pet issue is global warming. With the amount of money Steyer spent, a whopping $74.3 million, and the results he received in return, he got trounced. Michael Bloomberg has of course been focused on gun control.  Neither one of these topics is popular with the majority of American voters and the results of the election, a Republican landslide, prove it.

And don’t forget George Soros. 🙂

I look forward to the left continuing their charade about money being a problem in politics. 

According to 2012 U.S. Census data, Democrats represent seven of the nation’s ten richest congressional districts including, California 18 (median household income $100,917), California 17 (median household income $100,652), Virginia 11 (median household income $98,815), New York 3 (median household income $96,626), Virginia 8 (median household income $92,918), California 33 (median household income $92,111), and Maryland 8 (median household income).

Meanwhile, Democrats also represent nine of the nation’s ten poorest congressional districts, including New York 15 (median household income $23,314), Mississippi 2 (median household income $29,981), Michigan 13 (median household income $30,273), Alabama 7 (median household income $31,080), Florida 5 (median household income $31,116), Ohio 11 (median household income $31,331), Arizona 7 (median household income $32,259), North Carolina 1 (median household income $32,488) , and California 34 (median household income $32,714).

And not only is the Democratic Party sharply divided between those that represent rich and poor congressional districts, but income inequality within Democratic congressional districts is far greater than it is within Republican ones. Of the top ten congressional districts with the highest levels of income inequality, Democrats represent nine of them.

The policy preferences of the Democratic Party reflect their top bottom divide. Just look at the cause of the last recession: housing. 

Citibank, who was Hillary Clinton’s biggest donor while she was in the Senate, made billions on subprime loans to poor households in the run up to the recession, then received billions in taxpayer bailouts when those loans went bad.

Now that Citibank has paid off the Obama administration, Obama is again pushing banks to make subprime mortgages to poor households again. 

The rich Democrats on Wall Street get richer, Democrats can tell their poor constants they are “doing something” to make housing cheaper, and middle class American taxpayers get stuck with the bill. 

Hope & Change!

The rich get richer and the poor get excuses and “white privilege”.

Epic Fail

With major insurers poised to pull out of the exchanges, out-of-pocket costs soaring, premiums rising across the board, the overall healthcare cost curve rising, and access to care constricting for millions, defenders of the unpopular Obamacare program have been clinging to the thin reed that the new law has at least provided coverage to millions of Americans. This is a weak argument, for two reasons: (1) The “Affordable” Care Act, by definition, emphasized affordability. The sales pitch was that the legislation would lower rates, improve care, and insure tens of millions — while reducing costs overall, and allowing anyone who was happy with their existing arrangement to keep it. A no-loss proposition. This was pure, dishonest fantasy, of course; the American people smelled a rat from the beginning, which is why disapproval of Obamacare has significantly outpaced approval ever since it was introduced in 2009. (2) Celebrating the fact that millions of people have signed up for coverage for which they are legally obligated to sign up isn’t exactly an achievement, especially when one considers how many people have run the math and chosen to pay for the privilege of remaining uninsured because they can’t afford the “Affordable” Care Act.  And when one considers how many of the “new” enrollees previously had insurance.  But even on the sign-ups metric, the law is failing, and failing badly. Decline:

ObamaCare will enroll significantly fewer people than expected in 2016, ending the year with about 13 million customers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Monday. The figure, which was included in an expansive budget report, is a decline of about 40 percent from last year’s enrollment prediction of about 20 million people. The latest projections confirm the Obama administration’s previous assessment that fewer people are signing up as the marketplace closes in on its third enrollment season — the final one under President Obama.

The New York Times also notes the dramatic downgrade, speculating that future projections are also likely to be slashed:

When the Affordable Care Act was drafted, the Congressional Budget Office expected people to sign up quickly for new health insurance. Now, two years into the law, it’s clear that progress is going to be slower. The Obama administration acknowledged as much in late 2014, and again in October, when it presented its own modest predictions. Monday, the budget office also agreed, slashing its 2016 estimate by close to 40 percent…It has proved harder to spread the word about new health insurance, and harder yet to persuade people to shell out money for new health insurance they hadn’t had in their household budgets… The budget office’s estimates for future years won’t be released until March, but it seems reasonable to assume they will also come down.

The Times story tries to salvage some good news from this disaster, desperately editorializing that this exodus “is not a sign that the health law is failing.” As evidence for this sweeping generalization that fails to adhere to most of the data, the “news” report cites sign-ups under the law’s Medicaid expansion program — which is already straining state budgets, redirecting precious resources from the truly indigent, and failing to produce superior health outcomes for its enrollees compared to uninsured people.  Republicans in the House and Senate recently passed a bill repealing almost all of Obamacare, which was immediately vetoed by the president. And as she attacks Bernie Sanders over the massive expense of socialized healthcare, Hillary Clinton stubbornly insists that the new law has been a success, vowing to pour more taxpayer money into itIowa’s CoOportunity Health, the second largest CO-OP in the nation, was shut down by the state’s insurance commissioner in January 2015 after losing $45.7 million in the previous 10 months.

(CNSNews.com) – Despite guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year that allowed Obamacare Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (CO-OPs) to use “creative” accounting and record “loans as assets in their financial filings,” “CO-OPs are failing left and right,” Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said during a hearing Thursday.

Last year, more than half of the 23 non-profit CO-OPs set up under the Affordable Care Act as an alternative to for-profit insurers were closed by state regulators after they failed to take in enough premiums to cover their costs.

“Of the 11 CO-OPs still in operation, there is reason to call their long-term financial viability into question. All but two of them are losing money,” Hatch pointed out during the hearing. “Not a single one of them had an underwriting gain through the third quarter of 2015.

“And as CO-OPs generally continue moving into weaker financial conditions, several show signs of running out of money this year,” Hatch said.

“CMS has actually encouraged the CO-OPs to cook their books with some creative accounting. Last year, the agency issued guidance allowing CO-OPs to apply surplus notes to program start-up loans, which essentially allowed the CO-OPs to record loans as assets in their financial filings,” he continued.

“Taxpayers have been forced to foot the bill for the CO-OP experiment, to the tune of $2.4 billion in federal loans for 23 CO-OPs around the country.  And, to date, more than half of the CO-OPs have failed, while the vast majority of the others are in poor financial shape.

“As a result, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost or will lose their health insurance and taxpayers are still on the hook,” Hatch added.

But acting CMS Administrator Andy Slavitt assured the committee that the remaining CO-OPs “have every opportunity to be successful long-term market participants.”

“For the CO-OPs that are closing, we are working closely with the CO-OP and state regulators to facilitate a smooth transition for consumers to retain access to coverage and ensure providers are reimbursed for covered services rendered to CO-OP enrollees. Affected CO-OP enrollees have access to a special enrollment period, and are able to shop for 2016 coverage on the Marketplace until February 28, 2016,” Slavitt told committee members.

A July 2015 report by the inspector general of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services stated that “member enrollment for 13 of the 23 CO-OPs that provided health insurance in 2014 was considerably lower than the CO-OPs’ initial projections and 21 of the 23 CO-OPs had incurred net losses as of December 31, 2014.”

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) noted that CoOportunity Health, the first CO-OP to go out of business – leaving 120,000 people “scrambling for health insurance” – was in his home state of Iowa. If the second largest CO-OP in the country failed, Grassley asked Slavitt, how could CMS be sure that smaller CO-OPs would not face a similar fate?

“One of the things we learned there was how quickly things can happen, and how quickly things can deteriorate,” Slavitt replied, noting that the regulatory agency has learned valuable lessons from the failed CO-OPs.

“The reason that there were so many CO-OPs that closed last year was that we worked very aggressively with the departments of insurance to make a full-on, 12-month assessment, and even those that seemed like they were in pretty good shape at the time didn’t have the wherewithal to last through the end of the year,” he said. (CNS and townhall))

Rock Meet Hard Place

You have to feel for the Republicans (unless your a Liberal then the only feeling you have is a seething hatred and nothing else) because they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

UPDATE: Congressional Republicans have passed legislation to repeal Obamacare for the first time.

They know it’s an empty gesture because King Obama would never sign it.

But they have to do it to make the Rebel elements in the party happy.

But a lot of them also figure it’s a stunt to curry favor made by the disingenuous RINOs.

Both are likely true.

The Republicans spent so many years, especially under Jar Jar Boehner, being the Capitulation Weasals that they were no one quite believes them.

I know I don’t, YET. But it’s a good start.

The legislation would also significantly reduce taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, redirecting those dollars to other women’s health clinics and organizations that aren’t languishing under an ethical cloud amid credible allegations of criminality.  (When poll question wording includes the important point that no women’s health funding is actually being cut, a majority of Americans support the move).  A recent undercover journalistic investigation exposed the abortion giant’s grisly practice of harvesting and selling body parts from late-term fetuses.  The videos show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the profits associated with this endeavor, as well as altering abortion procedures in order to obtain more intact organs — both of which are illegal.  A whistleblower also alleged that aborted children were picked apart and sold without their mother’s consent, another violation of the law.  Separately, Planned Parenthood has come under fire for its active promotion among young people of the notion that an individual’s ‘right’ to sexual pleasure supersedes his or her obligation to inform a partner of an HIV-positive status.  Republicans argue that taxpayers should not subsidize an organization that engages in these horrific abortion-related activities, and that pushes breathtakingly dangerous sexual ethics.

On Obamacare, the GOP says it is keeping its word to voters and fighting on behalf of the majority of Americans who continue to oppose the failing law.  A recent Gallup survey showed that uninsured Americans — who still number in the tens of millions — are most likely to disapprove of the so-called “Affordable” Care Act, largely because they can’t afford it.  The law has broken most of the biggest promises upon which it was sold, is actively harming real people, and is hurting the US economy, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — which has also just concluded that repealing the law would substantially reduce deficits:

    “CBO: ObamaCare repeal bill would reduce deficits by half a trillion dollars over 10 years”
    — Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) January 5, 2016

The New York Times reported this week that many Americans have run the math and determined that paying Obamacare’s individual mandate tax is more affordable than paying through the nose for costly coverage that doesn’t even kick in until after consumers fork over thousands in out-of-pocket costs. Meanwhile, a recent survey finds that more than one-quarter of American households have struggled to pay medical bills over the past 12 months, several years into the full implementation of the “Affordable” Care Act.  Among this group, a majority was insured:

    Kaiser/NYT: 62% of people who can’t afford to pay their medical bills are insured. pic.twitter.com/xVjqwlFjRS
    — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) January 5, 2016

For the umpteenth time, coverage does not equal care — and being insured to does not mean your healthcare-related financial hardships disappear.  Indeed, under Obamacare, expensive compulsory coverage may very well exacerbate affordability woes.  Parting thought: Of the many worthy provisions in the soon-to-be-vetoed repeal legislation (exhibit A in the case for electing a Republican president), only one element will actually be the law of the land in 2016.  One of the bright spots of December’s ugly omnibus spending bill was an extension of the 2015 rollback of funding Obamacare bailout-style programs, which were designed to hide the true costs of the law for several years by defraying insurer losses with huge sums of taxpayer money.  This successful push to protect taxpayers and force policy transparency, spearheaded by Marco Rubio, constitutes a rare Obamacare win for conservatives.

But we have to start somewhere. King Obama will not relent on his Agenda one bit. He’s incapable of that.

So we have to force him to defend his Royal Majesty until we get someone that isn’t King Bernie or Queen Hillary.

Then maybe the American People have a chance. Maybe.

Education Down

The Liberals in California have effectively done away with Education, they just don’t know it yet. They were too busy with their touchy-feely feel good equality to notice.

SB 172, Liu. Pupil testing: high school exit examination: suspension.

This bill would suspend the administration of the high school exit examination and would remove the high school exit examination as a condition of receiving a diploma of graduation or a condition of graduation from high school for each pupil completing grade 12, for the 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18 school years. The bill would, until July 31, 2018, require the governing board or body of a local educational agency, as defined, and the State Department of Education on behalf of state special schools, to grant a diploma of graduation from high school to any pupil who completed grade 12 in the 2003–04 school year or a subsequent school year and has met all applicable graduation requirements other than the passage of the high school exit examination.

Regardless of any performance or no performance at all, you get a HS Diploma no matter what.

So doesn’t that make Education and Teachers superfluous?

If they get it no matter what what incentive is their to even study, to learn, ANYTHING?

What incentive is their to teach anything if no matter what they get the Diploma anyhow?

And further more, if you flunked out in the last 11 years (back to 2004), you retroactive get it anyways.

So go forth you ignorant masses and collect your $15/hr job (“that is only fair”), your free college tuition, your free phone, cable. Who cares!

The “rich” will pay for it all and you don’t have to do anything to earn it!

As the late Chicago columnist Mike Royko said as far back as 1979, “If it babbles and its eyeballs are glazed, it probably comes from California.”

The Granola State, what isn’t fruits & Nuts is flakes!

high school students will no longer have to actually pass high school to receive a diploma. This takes the participation trophy concept to a new disgusting low.

Just show up and you win. Eventually, they’ll figure out they don’t even need to show up because if it’s guaranteed regardless why bother.

THe irony of them holding the ultimate winner-and-loser game this coming year, The Super Bowl, is just just that, lost on them. In their fervent hate of competition and “winner and losers” they have created the ultimate destruction but it “feels good”.

Nothing could epitomize Liberalism better.

Sen. Carol Liu, D­-La Cañada Flintridge, who authored the bill, initially introduced the bill because the exit exam is not aligned with new Common Core standards.

Meaning they were failing even the Obama Administrations own handpicked “standards” so in true Liberal fashion they just threw the baby out with the bat water!

It was later amended to remove the exit exam as a requirement for graduation for students who still hadn’t passed because they no longer had an opportunity to take the test.

The poor dears. 🙂 It’s so unfair!

How can businesses properly evaluate prospective employees when “high school diploma” is required if it is essentially meaningless? Who does this actually help? Certainly not the students who “graduated” without mastering any basic skills.

Well, Corporate America is the spawn of the Devil anyways, isn’t it? Full of greedy,misogynistic, bigoted, white people!!

Everyone should make at least $30,000 a year no matter what! Life must be fair for everyone, right? 🙂

But you can bet there will be a ginormous outcry when companies looking for entry-level employees start requiring application exams to determine if candidates can actually read and write beyond the 8th grade level.

That’s discrimination, and probably racism, me old son. That’s just not “fair”.

So why stop at high school diplomas? Who needs a college degree? Why require physicians, accountants and lawyers to take exams to prove their knowledge? Or is California simply admitting its public education system is so worthless that a diploma from one of its high schools is as well?

Well, a huge number of kids graduate who can’t read the damn thing right now anyhow.

It is terribly disheartening to see this nation, step by step, lose all appreciation for achievement and excellence.(alan west)

But it’s only “fair” and it make everyone “feel good”. Competition is bad. Excellence is too hard and too unfair.

Veronica Steele, a 27­-year­-old who received a certificate of completion from Rio Linda High, which is near Sacramento, said she was also excited after learning she will now be able to get her diploma and pursue a career as a veterinary technician. Failing the exam and not graduating, she said, negatively affected her.

“It shot my confidence,” she said. “I lost complete self esteem because of that test and now that I’m going to get my diploma, it feels like a weight’s being lifted off my shoulder.” (edsource)

Thank you, Governor Moonbeam for making my dreams come true! 🙂

nothing. The test is hardly complex. The math test, for instance, only covers 8th grade-level material and can be passed if students answer 55 percent of questions correctly. About 80 percent of California high schoolers take and pass it on their first try while in the 10th grade, and overall passage rates for the class of 2014 were above 97 percent.

But poor Veronica has been saved from a life of humiliation and self-destruction where she could pass a test with an E but now doesn’t have to.

That’s the kind of Vet Tech I want working on animals! 🙂

And don’t aspire to greater things because it requires a State License and that’s another evil test you might fail and suffer crushing self-esteem issues…

CARVTA: To be eligible to take the RVT (Registered Veterinary Tech) licensing examination, a candidate must meet the requirements of one of three eligibility categories:  (for now) 🙂  It’s so unfair and unequal!

• 1. Graduate from, at minimum, a two-year curriculum in veterinary technology in a college or other post-secondary institution approved by the California Veterinary Medical Board (VMB). (Generally an AVMA approved school) or complete a program or curriculum that has been deemed “equivalent” to a two-year approved program by the VMB (California approved school). *  (even if you have a HS Diploma regardless 🙂 )
• 4. Licensed, certified or registered as an RVT in another state (or in Canada) and have taken an examination determined by the VMB to be equivalent to the California RVT examination and have at least 4416 hours of directed clinical practice in no less than 24 months under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian. *  (and I bet it takes more than 55%!! to pass!)
• 5. Complete a combination of at least 4416 hours of directed clinical practice in no less than 24 months under the direct supervision of a California-licensed veterinarian and 300 hours (or 20 semester or 30 quarter units) of specific education. (This is the Alternate Route). **

Other Requirements for Licensure

In addition to meeting the requirements of one of the above eligibility categories, candidates must be:
1. At least 18 years of age
2. Fingerprinted (live scan) prior to licensure
3. Free of convictions for crimes substantially related to the practice and duties of an RVT. (Anyone who has any convictions should contact the VMB to be sure they will be eligible.)

So no #BlackLives Matter convictions, DUI, riots, etc bec a good little liberal robot… 🙂

We would never have become the most powerful nation on earth without demanding high standards from ourselves, our countryman and our leaders. But clearly it no longer matters. Lying and criminal behavior no longer disqualify anyone from the presidency, so who cares about something as trivial as high school diploma?

If you don’t believe this is just the tip of the moral decline iceberg, here’s another disturbing law just passed:

AB 329: Makes participation in sex education courses mandatory for students unless parents opt-out, would also inculcate the teaching of a fluid gender identity

“Fluid gender?” I suppose that’s separate to the “gender fluids” discussed in the sex education course. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

AB 359: Forces stores to keep employees for at least 90 days so they cannot be fired as a result of buyouts or mergers;

Because that’s just not “fair” and the greedy corporate bosses…I mean really… 🙂

AB 1014: Will permit family members to obtain a restraining order to keep relatives who might commit gun violence from owning a gun;

I am trying to find the humor in all of this because it’s all so terribly sad. (Michelle Hickford)

Who needs to do anything but sit back, enjoy life and let the government take care of you, you ignorant Matrix-style moron. They just hand you everything you need so why strive for anything better. It’s too “unfair” and too “hard” so why bother.

Just vote for us to take it from those greedy others. They can’t object without being bigots, racists or intolerant anyways. 🙂

About 249,000 students, or 6 percent of test­-takers, could not pass the test before the end of their senior year since it became a graduation requirement for the class of 2006. It’s unclear how many of these students did not receive diplomas only because they failed the test, and how many wouldn’t have graduated anyway because they also lacked enough credits, or did not meet grade requirements.

The new law also calls for the state to suspend the exit exam in the 2015-16, 2016­-17 and 2017­-18 school years and to eliminate it as a graduation requirement during that time. Meanwhile, lawmakers and educators will determine if the state should create a new version of the test that’s aligned with the Common Core State Standards, or eliminate it altogether as a graduation requirement in the future. (edsource)

So by 2018 when Governor MoonBeam is up for re-election…. 🙂

It’s just so unfair. 🙂

 

 

The Best and Worst of 2015

Derek Hunter: As far as years go, 2015 certainly was one of them. The news was not wanting for content, and we columnists were not wanting for material. It was a year of tragedies and triumphs bookended by terrorist attacks in Paris. A reality TV star became the leading candidate of a major political party, “Star Wars” returned, and I got married. Yep, 2015 was quite a year.

I had a health scare that resulted in a pacemaker and a different view on mortality just months after my Dad died.

Not the best of times by far.

Politics:

The Best

Donald Trump. For all his problems, and they are legion, and the bluster, and it is constant, he’s done more than anyone in recent years to get people to pay attention to politics and just how corrupt the media and the Democrats have become. He’s been battering the media since the start, slamming his opponents since and changing how politics is done.

While, I’m still not a full on Trump guy I do like that he makes the Left and the RINOs crazy and just doesn’t give a damn. That really shakes them up.

Trump has been holding a clinic on how to run against Democrats and the media since his announcement. Aside from momentary flashes, none of the rest of the field appears to have learned a thing.

Because they are all stuck in their ways. They can’t see doing it any other way. Especially, Democrats, they have one playbook and they go to it every nanosecond of every day.

Expect all out nuclear war again on the Republicans. No atom will be lest un-nuked, no ethic or moral will not be cr0ssed in the quest for the Coronation of King Barack’s successor Queen Hillary.

The Republican RINOs are just plain lost.

If Trump is the nominee, Democrats may well win, but they will have been so battered and bruised they’d be hard-pressed to govern with any effectiveness. If he isn’t the nominee, whoever is will have learned how to be locked in a box with a rabid spider monkey and survive. The eventual nominee, whoever it ends up being, will be a much more devastating candidate thanks to Trump’s entry into the race.

The Media is still setting up the Coronation of Queen Hillary I like they have for 4 years now. I doubt they are going to change.

But maybe, just maybe, the sleeping stupid will recognize it for what it is.

That,and just maybe, the Republicans will actually run a campaign to WIN this time. Maybe.

 

The Worst

As awful as she is, Hillary Clinton is not the worst person on the national political stage. Until he leaves office, Barack Obama’s head wears the crown.

In a post-9/11, post-Paris, post-San Bernardino world, the president of the United States managed to go 12 months in which he used the words “radical Islamic terrorism” only to chastise others for saying them.

Well, you’re talking about his friends and mentors, the Muslims. They can’t be evil. That’s like Lule finding out Darth Vader is his Father…. 🙂

The economy continues to falter, our enemies are on the march, and the president has improved his short-game. The Obama presidency is a hilarious joke, but sadly it’s not the funny kind of joke.

But the Democrats continue to self-delude themselves that everything is awesome and we just need to get rid of those naybobs negativity.

One more year…

11 Months+ a few days. Don’t make it any longer than it has to be. Though if Queen Hillary wins we’re all doomed and you might as well close up shop and move to Fiji because it’s over.

Lie Of The Year

The “winner” of this category is obvious, which is why it hasn’t won any of these “awards” from the mainstream media: Hillary Clinton’s ever-evolving claims about classified material on her secret, unsecured email server.

Though I think her saying that the Benghazi families who have been ripping her for years about her You Tube cause of the incident are now lying because she never said it was pretty close.

“What Difference Does it Make?”

Her original statement at her press conference at the UN, was, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.” High-stakes divorce settlements are less carefully worded.

Note how she specifically said she didn’t send any classified material, and how there “is” nothing classified on her server. She’d wiped it by then, though not thoroughly, so, in using present tense, she was telling her version of the truth.

After that original statement, Hillary’s story “evolved” at least two more times to she never “sent or received anything marked classified at the time.”

After that lie the media lost interest. Why wouldn’t they? Their candidate is ensnared in an FBI investigation that, were it anyone else, already would have led to an indictment and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees by now.

But we aren’t named Clinton; we haven’t been selling, or at least renting, our positions for sums of money that rival the worth of third-world economies, and a president of her party still controls the prosecutors.

No, we’re civilians, bound by truth, and she’s Hillary, utterly unburdened by such trivialities.

As we wind up 2015, I think we’ve dwelled enough on politics. So a few notes on a couple of other things.

Sports

The year started with a great Super Bowl. What a game! But it will be remembered as the game that gave us Deflategate. Tom Brady won – everything. He continues to live a charmed life, and good for him. Unless you bet against him.

And the Seahawks created a blunder for the ages that will be talked about until Liberals outlaw football altogether sometime later in the Century.

 

The Super Bowl was the highlight of the year for New England sports fans, but the rest of the world had to suffer until the World Series. After decades of miserable losing, New England (particularly in Boston) started winning. And their fans, both in baseball and football, became even more miserable to be around during a game. And I say that as someone with many friends who fit this description.

But the highlight of the year was the World Series.

The Kansas City Royals are a lot of fun to watch. They scrap and scrape together runs in a way no other team does.

Arizona Cardinals anyone? Anyone?? 🙂

Movies

I love “Star Wars,” saw it three times the weekend it opened. But it doesn’t win for movie of the year with me. There were a lot of great “art house” movies, and I’m sure one with $48 in box office receipts will win the Oscar. But “The Martian” was the most enjoyable movie of 2015. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor. Even if you don’t care for Matt Damon (and I wouldn’t blame you), you’ll enjoy this movie.

I love “Star Wars” but I still think either Jurassic World or Avengers 2. I never saw “The Martian”.

Television

“The Walking Dead” remains TV’s best drama.

DOCTOR WHO! 🙂

The zombie aspect might turn your off, but it’s much more than that. Moreover, it’s a show that generates true suspense, in which no one knows what’s going to happen from week to week and no character, no matter who they are, is safe.

DOCTOR WHO! 🙂

If you’re a comic book nerd, or if you don’t mind super hero movies, might I also suggest checking out “Jessica Jones” on Netflix. It’s a surprisingly good series with humor, action and a great anti-hero. And, unlike “The Walking Dead,” you can binge-watch it over a weekend.

Haven’t got around to it yet. And that shows you how technology has changed so much.

I’m not sad to see 2015 go, though it does seem like it went fast. With 2016 being an election year, it will fly by as well. While I work and play in the first half of this column, life happens in the rest. Hope you had a great 2015, and I hope you have as much fun as possible in 2016. 

Here’s to 2016. The Hope of the future of our Country rests on your shoulders.

No pressure. 🙂

If you Like your Job…

Please enjoy the latest installment of the “it’s working” chronicles. Sorry, American workers (via The Hill):

ObamaCare will force a reduction in American work hours — the equivalent of 2 million jobs over the next decade, Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper said Monday. The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of changes in worker participation because of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “Some people would choose to work fewer hours; others would leave the labor force entirely or remain unemployed for longer than they otherwise would,” the agency said in its latest analysis of the now five-year-old law.

This assessment largely confirms the bombshell February 2014 analysis from the nonpartisan entity, which also projected that Democrats’ $2 trillion healthcare scheme would slow economic growth and slow job creation.  Take it away, 2011 Nancy Pelosi:

“Four million jobs will be created by the legislation when it is fully in effect.”

In 2010, she said Obamacare would create 400,000 new jobs “almost immediately.”  Last year, the law’s defenders were reduced to arguing that the reduction in worker hours was a positive development, offering Americans more time to spend with their families, and freeing them from “job lock.”  CBO’s findings determined that Obamacare disincentivizes work, shifting the burden of subsidizing health coverage for people who choose to work less or leave the workforce altogether onto the backs of middle class taxpayers.  Democrats’ frantic “liberation from job lock” spin worked out…about as well as one might have expected.  Obamacare’s cheerleaders have been wrong about virtually everything: Their law was not a job creator.  Their law has not bent the national health spending “cost curve” down.  Their law has not even approached lowering rates across the board.  Their law has not made healthcare more affordable.  Their law has not secured access to care.  Their law has not reduced emergency room visits, or decreased uncompensated care. Their law did not guarantee that satisfied consumers could keep their preferred doctors and plans. And their law has not attracted nearly as many enrollees as they expected, largely due to lack of affordability.  Their law has not signed up as many young and healthy consumer as they’d anticipated, raising new fears of an adverse selection spiral.

Gee, How many times have I said that very thing? 🙂

And their law has not become popular post-implementation.  Meanwhile, the string of high-profile failures among Obamacare co-ops is inflicting more chaos onto an already-strained system:

Health care providers could get stuck with unpaid bills in a half dozen states where co-op plans have collapsed. That’s because there’s no financial backstop in those states if the failed nonprofit startups backed by Obamacare loans run out of money before paying off all of their medical claims. That messy scenario is already playing out in New York, where the state’s co-op shut down at the end of November after its financial situation proved direr than originally known. The Greater New York Hospital Association estimates the co-op, Health Republic Insurance of New York, owes its members at least $165 million. And the Medical Society of the State of New York found that of more than 900 doctors surveyed, 64 percent reported being owed money by the co-op plan. For most insurers, a state’s guaranty fund – bankrolled by the industry – will cover unpaid medical claims if they become insolvent. But in some states, like New York, that fund doesn’t support plans that are licensed as health maintenance organizations, which is typically how the co-ops were set up. The other five states where providers could end up with unpaid bills if the failed co-ops run out of money: Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Oregon and Utah…Just over half of the 23 co-ops seeded with $2.4 billion in loans have collapsed, with most set to cease operations at the end of this year. That’s left roughly 600,000 individuals scrambling to find new coverage.

On Capitol Hill this week, Republican lawmakers are demanding answers about how the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on state-level Obamacare exchanges that ultimately collapsed, and have since been abandoned.  Here’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) grilling acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt about whether or not he agrees with the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recently-announced verdict that zero of the remaining state-level exchanges are “fully operational,” after five years and $1.45 billion in IT spending, courtesy of taxpayers:

Senate Republicans used a budget maneuver called reconciliation to vote to repeal vast swaths of Obamacare last week, approving a bill that would gut the law.  Once it passes the House, President Obama is expected to veto the legislation in order to protect his unpopular, harmful law. Hillary Clinton, who invented Obamacare, asserted last week that the law is working.

And The Ministry of Truth assures us that it’s all just a plot by dissidents and Thought Criminals and that they just want poor people to die. 🙂

THE AGENDA IS THE AGENDA. They fight for it to very last drop of YOUR blood. 🙂

 

DoubleThink Ahead

Just when you though the Orwellian BS on the Left couldn’t get more insane…Let’s recap first.

“Safe Spaces” for “Blacks only” is all the rage on College Campuses. Where whites are not allowed and Segregation is NOT “racist”, it’s required.

Jamie Boiue of the Leftist rag The Slate: I tend to think that you have this atmosphere of racial insensitivity, a feeling that the university isn’t really there for you. 

Females also, as a protected class,  like Katherine Hall of Brown University:

“I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs,” Ms. Hall said.

Safe spaces are an expression of the conviction, increasingly prevalent among college students, that their schools should keep them from being “bombarded” by discomfiting or distressing viewpoints. Think of the safe space as the live-action version of the better-known trigger warning, a notice put on top of a syllabus or an assigned reading to alert students to the presence of potentially disturbing material.

But you try it the Politically INcorrect way (in other words REALITY), well, your ass is dog meat. Leave it to the Professional Crybabies… 🙂

EAGNews.org: A lesson on segregation landed an Indiana high school teacher on administrative leave after students posted “whites only” and “blacks only” signs near school bathrooms and drinking as part of social studies class.

Officials did not release the name of the Concord High School social studies teacher who Concord Community Schools Superintendent John Trout said was designed to “demonstrate the feel of government-sanctioned segregation that previously existed in portions of our country.”

“Concord Community Schools appreciates its educators attempting to be innovative in their teaching approach,” the statement read, according to The Elkhart Truth. “However, methods and tactics that can be viewed as harassing or discriminatory to students and teachers are not appropriate and are prohibited in our schools.”

Trout said the assignment, given to students in a first hour class last Friday, was not approved by the school or school district. School officials removed the signs as soon as they realized, he said, and talked to students about the incident afterwards.

“Concord High School’s stated mission is to both academically challenge and equip our students. To that end, many of our high school educators include in their instruction current and historical events that may contain controversial subjects and topics,” according to the statement. “Unfortunately, like all of us, sometimes a teacher makes a mistake when attempting to educate young teenagers. On December 4, 2015, one such mistake was made.”

The teacher remains on paid administrative leave as the district continues its investigation.

Parent Martise Evans, a black woman, is really mad about the signs.

“Anybody can get any kind of wrong idea about it,” Evans told ABC 57. “Don’t do that. Especially don’t demonstrate that to other children to make it seem like that’s ok.”

Yeah, leave for College Students and their “Safe Zones”. 🙂

Evans alleges he decided to pull her daughter London out of the district because of racially charged incidents school officials did nothing about.

Once you designate some spaces as safe, you imply that the rest are unsafe. It follows that they should be made safer.

“They were bullying because of her hair, because she’s African American, because she wasn’t up to their par of what they wanted her to be, or their definition of what a human being or person should be,” Evans said, “and they were teasing her to the (point) that she tried to commit suicide.”

Hey, I’m white. That happened to me in the late 1970s do you think she would care? 🙂

Evans told ABC 57 she’s glad to see the teacher was suspended, and thinks the district should “reflect” on the incident.

“People’s feelings were hurt in the process,” she said. “People probably felt like the school doesn’t even want them there now.”

But a safe-space mentality has begun infiltrating classrooms, he said, making both professors and students loath to say anything that might hurt someone’s feelings. “I don’t see how you can have a therapeutic space that’s also an intellectual space,” he said.

But in College it “racist” not to.

Got love the Doublethink. 🙂

Several parents who commented on Facebook clearly disagreed with Evans.

“I support everything that this teacher did, except not getting approval from those above,” Dakarai Breveard wrote. “I think the intended lesson was great.”

They will see it in College, only it will be Politically Correct then. 🙂

“I could see this being a valuable teaching lesson if taught in a constructive manner,” Donny Wolf added. “It sounded to me like that was going to be the case. Unfortunately for this teacher, teachers are not allowed to actually teach anymore. They are told how to teach and what to teach from a manual.”

At Northwestern recently, An organizer of the demonstration said, “we need to be setting aside spaces to talk” about “victim-blaming.”

At Oxford University’s Christ Church college in November, the college censors (a “censor” being more or less the Oxford equivalent of an undergraduate dean) canceled a debate on abortion after campus feminists threatened to disrupt it because both would-be debaters were men. “I’m relieved the censors have made this decision,” said the treasurer of Christ Church’s student union, who had pressed for the cancellation. “It clearly makes the most sense for the safety — both physical and mental — of the students who live and work in Christ Church.”

A year and a half ago, a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band that had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians; the vitriolic discussion had made students feel “unsafe.”

Last fall, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, apologized for causing students and faculty to be “hurt” when she failed to object to a racial epithet uttered by a fellow panel member at an alumnae event in New York. The offender was the free-speech advocate Wendy Kaminer, who had been arguing against the use of the euphemism “the n-word” when teaching American history or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In the uproar that followed, the Student Government Association wrote a letter declaring that “if Smith is unsafe for one student, it is unsafe for all students.”

“It’s amazing to me that they can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism,” Ms. Kaminer said in an email.

The confusion is telling, though. It shows that while keeping college-level discussions “safe” may feel good to the hypersensitive, it’s bad for them and for everyone else. People ought to go to college to sharpen their wits and broaden their field of vision. Shield them from unfamiliar ideas, and they’ll never learn the discipline of seeing the world as other people see it. They’ll be unprepared for the social and intellectual headwinds that will hit them as soon as they step off the campuses whose climates they have so carefully controlled. What will they do when they hear opinions they’ve learned to shrink from? If they want to change the world, how will they learn to persuade people to join them? (NYT)

They’ll crush them with Political Correctness and pass laws against them saying anything they don’t like, that’s how. 🙂

The power of Politics, not the power of persuasion.

They are more sensitive. More in touch with their inner enlightenment than you so it’s only right that they must rule over you Unenlightened barbarians, especially insensitive racist, bigoted, white people.

They must be crushed. For their own good.

So remember kiddies, Leave the Political Correctness to the Professional because otherwise you’re a “racist” and a “bigot”!!

And if you’re White, well, there’s no hope for you anyways. You’re destined for Liberal Hell no matter what.

Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Misconstrued

Why is that when Liberals are called out or exposed for their ridiculous Politically Correct BS they always say it was “misquoted” or “misinterpreted” or in the case of the BEWARE OF RADICAL CHRISTIANS at your HOLIDAY PARTY the University of Tennessee said “misconscued”?

(Full Disclosure: I’m an agnostic and a bit of Christmas Grinch in reality, but I hate PC crap more)

We understood you perfectly. You wanted to oppress people with Political Correctness, but in a “nice” way with “Best Practices” not commands. Well, honey, my job uses “best practices” all the time and they mean RULES NOT TO BE BROKEN because we want them don THIS WAY OR ELSE.

It’s Orwellian for “Do it this way or else”.

But naturally, the Liberal when called out has to get all doe-eyed and innocent and play the “victim” of mean old conservatives who just want to understand how they are just being “inclusive”.

They are innocent and only had the best of intentions. Why are we getting all hater on them?

University of Tennessee Knoxville’s official reply to the Best Practices for your Holiday Party:

As noted in the first line of the best practices web post, the university does not have an official policy regarding religious and cultural décor and celebrations in the workplace.

“Best Practices” means to dot it or else (see above).

We are fully committed to a diverse, welcoming, and inclusive environment. We recognize that our campus community and its members observe various religions and faiths.

It’s just Christians and Christmas you singled out. Did you do this for Ramadan?

Oh, according to your own literature it was “the students helped organized the first Ramadan Fast-a-thon to share their religion and culture” and the homeless. How noble.

But for Christmas, its a “Holiday Party” that you have to watch out for Christian Radicals….hmm…. 🙂

Our campus has numerous holiday parties and celebrations and we do not monitor these activities.

Sounds like you do.

230 colleges and universities celebrate the Ramadan Fast-a-Thon

as a national observance .

We honor Christmas as one of the celebrations of the season and the birth of Jesus, and the corresponding Christmas observance is one of the Christian holidays on our cultural and religious holidays calendar.

They just call it a “Holiday Party” during Christmas. 🙂

The suggested practices are a resource for our faculty and staff to use in creating a more inclusive holiday environment within their campus departments and administrative units.

Yeah, the:

‘Ensure Your Holiday Party Is Not a Christmas Party in Disguise,’

screams Diversity and “inclusion”. Orwell strikes again.

Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek addressed the issue today.

“First let me say that we honor Christmas as one of the celebrations of the season. We are in no way trying to dismiss this very important Christian holiday,” he said. “As a diverse campus, we do promote ways to be inclusive of all cultures and religions. I am disappointed that our efforts to be inclusive have been totally misconstrued.”

Easy, but you’re brain is not capable of seeing it. That would be a thoughtcrime, citizen.

 

The Chicken Little Hypocrisy Rebuke

Ragnarok will come someday, tomorrow, come someday,tomorrow,come someday. Ragnarok will come someday and we’ll all be killed.

Unless you give all your rights, freedoms, and your money and do exactly as we say when we say it because we say it!

DO as we Say, not as we Do and Do It Yesterday!

“This year, in Paris, has to be the year that the world finally reaches an agreement to protect the one planet that we’ve got while we still can,” said U.S. President Barack Obama on his recent trip to Alaska. Miguel Cañete, the EU’s chief negotiator, has warned there is “no Plan B — nothing to follow. This is not just ongoing UN discussions. Paris is final.”

The Apocalypse is here. Never Let a Crisis, even one you make up, go to waste.

The world is doomed if you don’t submit!

Conventional wisdom holds that negotiators are hashing out a fair allocation of the deep emissions cuts all countries would need to make to limit warming. That image bears little resemblance to reality.

In fact, emissions reductions are barely on the table at all. Instead, the talks are rigged to ensure an agreement is reached regardless of how little action countries plan to take. The developing world, projected to account for four-fifths of all carbon-dioxide emissions this century, will earn applause for what amounts to a promise to stay on their pre-existing trajectory of emissions-intensive growth.

Here’s how the game works: The negotiating framework established at a 2014 conference in Lima, Peru, requires each country to submit a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, called an “Intended Nationally Determined Contribution” (INDC). Each submission is at the discretion of the individual country; there is no objective standard it must meet or emissions reduction it must achieve.

Beyond that, it’s nearly impossible even to evaluate or compare them. Developing countries actually blocked a requirement that the plans use a common format and metrics, so an INDC need not even mention emissions levels. Or a country can propose to reduce emissions off a self-defined “business-as-usual” trajectory, essentially deciding how much it wants to emit and then declaring it an “improvement” from the alternative. To prevent such submissions from being challenged, a group of developing countries led by China and India has rejected “any obligatory review mechanism for increasing individual efforts of developing countries.” And lest pressure nevertheless build on the intransigent, no developing country except Mexico submitted an INDC by the initial deadline of March 31 — and most either submitted no plan or submitted one only as the final September 30 cut-off approached.

After all this, the final submissions are not enforceable, and carry no consequences beyond “shame” for noncompliance — a fact bizarrely taken for granted by all involved.

So it’s just The Agenda is The Agenda, and my don’t we look wonderful for “doing something” when in fact it’s all just a gigantic redistribution con.

But MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change calculates the improvement by century’s end to be only 0.2 degrees Celsius. Comparing projected emissions to the baseline established by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change back in 2000 shows no improvement at all.

And therein lies the sticking point on which negotiations actually center: “climate finance.” Climate finance is the term for wealth transferred from developed to developing nations based on a vague and shifting set of rationales including repayment of the “ecological debt” created by past emissions, “reparations” for natural disasters, and funding of renewable energy initiatives.

The issue will dominate the Paris talks. The INDCs covering actual emissions reductions are subjective, discretionary, and thus essentially unnegotiable. Not so the cash. Developing countries are expecting more than $100 billion in annual funds from this agreement or they will walk away. (For scale, that’s roughly equivalent to the entire OECD budget for foreign development assistance.)

Somehow, the international process for addressing climate change has become one where addressing climate change is optional and apparently beside the point. Rich countries are bidding against themselves to purchase the developing world’s signature on an agreement so they can declare victory — even though the agreement itself will be the only progress achieved. (Politico.eu)

The climate change summit in Paris that aims to tackle global warming will itself pump an estimated 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it was claimed today.

Around 50,000 people including world leaders, businesses and activists are expected to travel from across the globe for the two-week conference in Paris which started today.

Most will arrive by plane from as far afield as New Zealand, Sydney and Bermuda, while others will arrive by train and car.

According to calculations by Wired and Steven Stoft of climateParis.org, the average round trip per attendee will be around 9,000 miles.

Taking the fuel consumption of a Boeing 747 – around 16.5 miles per gallon – which the website describes as a ‘happy medium between private jets and bullet trains’, it is estimated around 27 million gallons of fuel will be used by travellers attending the conference. 

This figure was arrived at by multiplying the number of attendees by the average round-trip mileage to get 450million miles then multiplying that by 16.5miles per gallon.

With each gallon of fuel producing around 21 pounds of carbon dioxide, the total released by planes flying to and from Paris is thought to be about 575million pounds (290,000 tons), according to rough calculations.

But given that some planes will very likely carry more than one attendee, this figure is likely to be at the very highest end. 

The total still pales in comparison with the annual global output of 80 quadrillion pounds, meaning the Paris conference equates to around 22 seconds of the world’s production. 

In an opening speech at the summit, Prince Charles warned world leaders that ‘we are becoming the architects of our own destruction’ as he called for immediate action to halt global warming.

The heads of 151 nations have kicked off 12 days of talks in Paris in search of an elusive pact that would wean the world off fossil fuels, making it the largest gathering of global leaders in history.

The Prince of Wales urged them to ‘think of your grandchildren, as I think of mine’ as well as the billions of people without a voice and the youngest generation as they try to secure a new global deal. 

He said: ‘If the planet were a patient, we would have treated her long ago. 

‘You, ladies and gentlemen, have the power to put her on life support and you must surely start the emergency procedures without further procrastination.

‘Humanity faces many threats but none is greater than climate change. In damaging our climate we are becoming the architects of our own destruction. 

‘We have the knowledge, the tools and the money (to solve the crisis).’

Over the next fortnight negotiators from 195 countries will attempt to hammer out a deal that will put the world on a path to prevent temperatures rising by more than 2C above pre-industrial levels and avoid dangerous climate change. 

French President Francois Hollande later echoed his statement by telling leaders that ‘the hope of all of humanity’ rested on their shoulders.

And anyone who stands in their way is evil and wants to destroy mankind, naturally. 🙂 No hyperbole there.

In an opening speech at the conference centre in Paris, the French President said: ‘Never have the stakes of an international meeting been so high because it concerns the future of the planet, the future of life. The hope of all of humanity rests on all of your shoulders.’  

Barack Obama also painted a dire picture of the future without aggressive action to curb carbon emissions, describing submerged countries, abandoned cities and fields that won’t grow.

In a speech, he said: ‘As the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second largest (greenhouse gas) emitter… the United States of America not only recognises our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.’

The U.S. President also called the climate talks an ‘act of defiance’ by the world community following the Islamic State-linked attacks two weeks ago. 

The Islamic Radicals who want to kill you don’t care about your green defiance. Not one bit. As a matter of fact they are making an estimated $5 million dollars a day off of the profits from the oil fields you refuse to bomb because of your environmentalist radicalism. 🙂

Chinese President Xi Jinping said an eventual global climate deal must include aid for poor countries and acknowledge differences between developing and established economies. 

Xi, speaking at U.N.-led climate talks near Paris on Monday, said an agreement should also include transfer of climate technology to developing countries.

He said a deal should accommodate national interests, adding: ‘It’s imperative to respect differences’ among countries, especially developing ones.

‘Addressing climate change should not deny the legitimate needs of developing countries to reduce poverty and improve living standards,’ he said.

World leaders had earlier held a moment of silence in honor of people killed in recent attacks in Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, Tunisia and Mali.

The U.N. climate conference in Paris is most likely humanity’s last chance to thwart global environmental disaster, Pope Francis said on Monday, warning the world was “at the limits of suicide”.

The pope, who wrote a major document on the environment last June, made the comment in an hour-long news conference aboard the plane returning him to Rome at the end of a six-day trip to Africa.

The freewheeling conversations have become a trademark of his papacy and the few times he takes direct questions from journalists.

Francis, who visited Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic, also said the continent was “a martyr of exploitation” by wealthy countries who lust after its natural resources and try to impose Western values instead of concentrating on development.

The pope was asked if the U.N. climate summit in Paris would mark a turnaround in the fight against global warming.

“I am not sure, but I can say to you ‘now or never’,” he said. “Every year the problems are getting worse. We are at the limits. If I may use a strong word I would say that we are at the limits of suicide.”

He spoke of retreating glaciers in Greenland and low-lying countries at risk from rising sea levels.

“I am sure that the (Paris delegates) have goodwill to do something. I hope it turns out this way and I am praying that it will,” he said. (Daily Mail)

An echo chamber of activist groups and media outlets stands ready to rubber-stamp the final agreement as “historic,” validating the vast reservoirs of political capital spent on the exercise.

It’s a redistribution shell game to make Leftists and Socialists “feel good” about “doing something” thus validating their superiority.

And you get to pay for the privilege of being a serf under their rule.

Worry, they are happy. Don’t worry, they don’t care if you suffer.

It’s all about their power over you and their superiority in their own minds.

They are, after all, Homo Superior Liberalis, and you’re not, SERF.

Be a Kid Again

So let’s see…

You can get 99 Weeks of Unemployment. Free food from food stamps. An Obamaphone and Free Internet all from the government and there’s housing assistance…all if you’re “poor”.

Then there’s Disability, Social Security, Medicare, and more.

Then you tax the people who are actually working to “help” out the “poor”?

And you blame it all on “the rich”.

Why do I bother? Seriously… Why?

Because, I have pride and self-motivation and I’m not a lazy ass SOB. That’s why.

Just another reason why I’m not politically correct. 🙂

A Dinosaur in a Socialist age.

And the other gravy train…Public Sector employees.

Employees who are paid by the tax payers because government do not actually produce anything, but boy can they spend it and tell you how to spend your money (especially on them).

The public sector employee is paid by the taxpayers. So if you have more of them you need more tax money. If you have a dwindling of tax payers (since 50% of Americans pay no taxes) you have to get from “the rich”.

Again.

So what incentive is their to be successful and “rich” in America these days?

In the 1,420 days since he took the oath of office, the federal government has daily hired on average 101 new employees. Every day. Seven days a week. All 202 weeks. That makes 143,000 more federal workers than when Obama talked forever on that cold day in January of 2009.

Meanwhile, 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed and the “official” unemployment rate has largely not changed one bit in 4 years because millions have given up looking. Well, look to Uncle Sam, he’s hiring… 🙂

Under Obama the total federal workforce has surpassed two million for the first time since the first Clinton term, now sitting about the 2.2 ,million level.

Now comes a new poll revealing that Americans know what’s going on. A majority of Americans believes government workers make more money than private sector workers, according to the new Rasmussen Reports poll. Sixty-one percent of private sector workers believe that.

Surprisingly, Republicans, independents and Democrats are united in agreement that government employees have it better than private sector workers although, predictably, Dems are slightly less sure.

“The federal workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of average American workers competing in the global economy,” according to a report this year by the Cato Institute.

That report found the average civilian federal government worker collected just under $84,000 a year in taxpayer money, about $32,000 more than the average private sector worker. That’s a total federal worker package of about $236 billion a year.

The latest IRS report said, for instance, that 36 of Obama’s White House aides had $833,000 in unpaid back taxes. 

According to Rasmussen, two out of three Americans are sure that company employees work harder than their lazy lay-about government counterparts. Only five percent think it’s the other way around; they may belong to street repair crews (see photo above).

Even a plurality (48%) of government employees admit their private industry counterparts do work harder.

Another 67% believe that government workers have greater job security than those in the production- profit-driven private sector, job security being an acute issue in these last four Obama years so rife with economic uncertainty.

Sixteen percent don’t think there’s much difference in job security, while 9% say government workers have less job security. They may be state and local government employees, whose number has declined with the end of Obama’s ineffective $830 billion economic stimulus package, much of it devoted to protecting those union jobs.

That protection was only temporarily, as it turns out. But the borrowing to pay for it is now a permanent part of the nation’s $16.3 trillion debt. (IBD)

So work less, get paid more, and suck off the “rich” while running up the debt.

What could be better?

How about not working, sitting at home getting paid and surfing the internet and talking to your peeps on the phone all for Free!

Gee, it’s just like being a kid again!!!

No responsibilities.

No Cares.

And “rich” people to pay your bills.

What is not to like? 🙂

And just like Mom, when asked, “Who’s going to clean up this mess?”

You say, “Not Me…” “They Did it…” “Ah, Mom, do I have to…”

I don’t Wanna!  <stomp your foot!>

 

Rejoice! It’s All Good

The federal government ran a deficit of $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2013 – October and November 2012 – amounting to $4.8 billion of borrowed money each day.

“The federal budget deficit was $292 billion for the first two months of fiscal year 2013, $57 billion more than the shortfall recorded in October and November of last year,” CBO said in its Monthly Budget Review Friday.

This means that the government borrowed $4.8 billion for each calendar day so far in 2013. If the Treasury Department restricted its borrowing to only weekdays, its per day average would jump to $6.5 billion per day thus far in fiscal year 2013.

CBO reported that federal revenues rose by $30 billion – a 10 percent increase over last year, but spending increased more, going up by $87 billion or 16 percent.

Overall, the two-month deficit figure was $57 billion higher than the October-November 2012 deficit. (CNS)

But it’s more important that the Republicans cave on a non-existent “tax cut” and raise taxes on “rich” people.

Spending, ah who cares about that. 🙂

The non-existent “tax cut” is the Bush Tax cuts that the Democrats want on record as the reason why the economy is in the shithouse. Not their Spending.

Tax Cuts are evil and we should never have them again because they are bad for the economy. 🙂

Borrowing nearly $5 Billion dollars we don’t have has nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact we need to Spend Even More!

We can just tax “the rich” and everything will be Utopia.

Orwell could do better. Seriously, he couldn’t have done better.

540,000 people gave up looking for work and just decided to go on the dole. So the Unemployment rate goes down and the People cheer about how great a job Big Brother is doing.

They either dropped out, took early disability or retired. Since the start of 2009, 9.7 million Americans have fallen into this category.

And if the retired or took disability or food stamps guess who gets to pay for it?

YOU DO. But Rejoice, it’s all Good.

544,000 people have been hired in the last 5 months by the Government agencies. The Public Sector unemployment rate is 3%.

Rejoice. It’s all good. 🙂

IBD’s own research shows that small businesses account for nearly 80% of all new job creation in America. A small-business slump means no jobs. It’s that simple.

But since the unemployment rate (a measure ONLY of those seeking employment) dropped to 0.1% lower than it was in January 2008 when Obama took Office it’s heralded by the Ministry of Truth as a triumph of Obama.

The 540,000 in November alone that gave up looking don’t matter.

Manipulation of the masses and their collective stupidity does.

Since 2011, businesses have added about 151,000 jobs a month. But since June that’s slowed to just 139,000. We’re clearly going the wrong way.

And by the way, remember those big payroll gains in September and October, right before the election? Forget it. The Labor Department has revised down its job estimates for those two months by 49,000.

All told, more than 24 million Americans who want jobs don’t have them, driving the labor force participation rate to 63.6%, just above August’s 31-year low of 63.5%. This is the worst labor market in a recovery ever.

OK, but we still have private-sector job growth, right? Not really. In the last six months, 621,000 of the 847,000 new jobs created have been in government, not the private sector, according to CNSNews.com. That’s 73% of all jobs — not a healthy labor market. (IBD)

And who pays for Public sector jobs?

One Guess — YOU DO!!

Congrats, you’re it 🙂

Isn’t Obama just the greatest! He gives you a non-existent “tax cut”, he raises taxes on your boss and he hires more people that you have to pay for!

All Hail Obama The Great! 🙂  Isn’t he just the Greatest! 🙂

He’s much better than that other guy…whatshisname… 🙂

 

The Cost of Liberalism

The Obama administration’s new plan to grant temporary work permits to many young, illegal immigrants who otherwise could be deported may cost more than $585 million and require hiring hundreds of new federal employees to process more than 1 million anticipated requests, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The Homeland Security Department plans, marked “not for distribution,” describe steps that immigrants will need to take — including a $465 paperwork fee designed to offset the program’s cost — and how the government will manage it. Illegal immigrants can request permission to stay in the country under the plan by filing a document, “Request for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” and simultaneously apply for a work permit starting Aug. 15.

The plans estimated that the Homeland Security Department could need to hire more than 1,400 full-time employees, as well as contractors, to process the applications. (KFYI)

I guess that’s one way to create jobs. But they are GOVERNMENT public sector jobs paid for by taxpayers (the few we have left).

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, Peter Boogaard, said the plans were “preliminary documents” and the process is still being worked out. Mr. Boogaard said processing immigrant applications under the program “will not use taxpayer dollars” because of the fees that will be collected.

“We anticipate that this will be a fee-driven process,” Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano said.

REALLY! The Liberals are going to collect Fees from illegals! Who’s kidding who here. They are going to collect them from “poor” hispanics. That I want to see. 🙂

Fee waivers could dramatically affect the government’s share of the cost. The plans said that, depending on how many applicants don’t pay, the government could lose between $19 million and $121 million. Republican critics pounced on that.

“By lowering the fee or waiving it altogether for illegal immigrants, those who play by the rules will face delays and large backlogs as attention is diverted to illegal immigrants,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican. “American taxpayers should not be forced to bail out illegal immigrants and President Obama’s fiscally irresponsible policies.”

Business owners will pay $4 billion more in taxes under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) than the Congressional Budget Office had previously expected.

In short, CBO revised the Obamacare tax burden upward by $4 billion for businesses and $1 billion to $1.5 billion for individual workers.

The report dubs the individual mandate a “penalty tax” — that is, “a penalty paid to the Treasury by taxpayers when they file their tax returns and enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.”

But don’t worry, it’s not a tax. And that money won’t be passed down to the consumers.

🙂

Then there are the four deadliest words in the Obama Language… “Let Me Be Clear”. Bend over you’re about to get a telephone pole rammed up your ass!

2010: “Let me be clear: If you like your doctor or healthcare provider, you an keep them. If you like your health care plan, you can keep that too.”

About one in 10 employers plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now,

While small business don’t face fines for failing to offer coverage, companies with 50 or more full time employees face a penalty starting at $2,000 per worker.

Deloitte Consulting conducted the study between February and April — before the Supreme Court upheld most of the law — and surveyed corporate and human-resources executives from 560 companies currently offering benefits.

In contrast, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that around seven percent of workers could lose coverage under the law by 2019.

And what of the cost of those 1700+ waivers to Obama’s apparatchiks? Hmm…

When President Obama was selling health reform, he often talked about providing universal coverage. But a Congressional Budget Office report out this week finds that goal getting more elusive.

The report found that despite ObamaCare’s $1.2 trillion price tag, it would only cut the ranks of the uninsured in half, leaving 30 million without coverage. That’s seven million more uninsured than the CBO first projected in March 2010.

The latest downgrade comes in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, which gave states the freedom to reject ObamaCare’s massive expansion of Medicaid. Since then, governors in more than 25 states have said they will refuse to expand Medicaid or are leaning in that direction, despite the generous federal contributions.

But the uninsured problem under ObamaCare could be much worse than the CBO projects.

What the report doesn’t cover is the fact that the other legs of the ObamaCare stool designed to expand insurance coverage — the individual mandate, the employer mandate and the state insurance exchanges — are also buckling.

As a result, ObamaCare will likely cover far fewer uninsured than advertized. There’s even a chance that, if all goes wrong, it could actually make the uninsured problem worse.

The individual mandate, for example, is a cornerstone of ObamaCare’s effort to expand coverage. But tax experts who’ve studied how the IRS will enforce the mandate conclude that it’s likely to be ineffective, because the law makes it virtually impossible for the IRS to collect the tax penalty from those who don’t pay it.

Under normal circumstances, the IRS has broad powers to collect taxes from those who don’t pay what they owe. It can charge civil and criminal penalties, impose liens, and seize assets and bank accounts.

But ObamaCare specifically blocks the IRS from using these enforcement tools when it comes to collecting any unpaid ObamaCare tax penalties.

These restrictions “make it unlikely the IRS can effectively enforce the individual mandate,” according to a detailed analysis of the tax penalty by Jordan Barry and Bryan Camp, law professors at the University of San Diego and Texas Tech University, respectively.

“The individual mandate,” they conclude, “may not actually be mandatory after all.”

The problem is that if the mandate doesn’t work, ObamaCare could make the uninsured problem worse, at least in the individual insurance market.

That’s because ObamaCare’s insurance market reforms — called “guaranteed issue” and “community rating” — force insurers to cover anyone, regardless of their health status, while forbidding them from charging the sick more than the healthy. (IBD)

WNEW News reports that  (James “The Joker”) Holmes was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It gave the graduate student a $26,000 stipend and paid his tuition for the highly competitive neuroscience program at the University of Colorado in Denver. Holmes was one of six neuroscience students at the school to get the grant money.

List Of Failed Green Energy Jobs & Companies – By Obama

Update: 7/19/12: The Amonix Solar: FAIL – manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants given by Obama Administration, has closed its 214,000 square foot facility a year after it opened.

• Solar Trust of America: FAIL – Filed Bankruptcy in Oakland, CA, April 3, 2012 – On April 2, 2012
• Bright Source: FAIL – Bright Source warned Obama’s Energy Department officials in March 2011 that delays in approving a $1.6 billion U.S. loan guarantee would embarrass the White House and force the solar-energy company to close. Lost Billions of dollars but Getting More Money To Keep Trying. Can you say, “This isnt working?”
  
• Solyndra: FAIL – Obama gave Solyndra $500,000,000 in taxpayer money and Solyndra shut its doors and laid off 1100 workers in August 2011 After Billions in Losses due to failure to make a solar product that works!
  
• President Obama rubbed elbows Monday night with two men at the center of the Solyndra loan scandal at an exclusive fundraiser in California.

  Steve Westly, a financier whose money-raising prowess helped to snag him a post on the administration’s energy advisory board, and Matt Rogers, a former Energy Department senior adviser who helped to approve the Solyndra loan, were spotted by reporters at the $35,800-per-person fundraiser for the president’s re-election campaign.

• LSP Energy: FAIL – LSPEnergy LP filed bankruptcy protection and a sale of its assets in Feb 2012
• Energy Conversion Devices: FAIL – On February 14, 2012 Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. and its subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy
• Abound Solar: FAIL – Abound Solar received a $400 million loan guarantee from Barack Obama announced in June, 2012 that it would file for bankruptcy
• SunPower: FAIL – SunPower stopped producing solar cells last year at near bankruptcy restructured only with help of, get this, oil giant TOTAL who owns 60% stake. Irony! Still struggling…
  
• Beacon Power: FAIL – Beacon Power Corp filed for bankruptcy Oct 2011 just a year after Obama approved $43 million loan Government loan guarantee
  
• Ecotality: FAIL – ECOtality, a San Francisco green-tech company that never earned any money on the verge of bankruptcy after receiving roughly $115 million in two loan guarantees from Obama
• A123 Solar: FAIL-A123 received $279 million from taxpayers thanks to President Obama’s Department of Energy loan guarantees and after Solyndra bankruptcy is getting another $500M from Obama and it has lost $400M
  
• UniSolar: FAIL – Uni-Solar filed for Ch 11 bankruptcy in June 20 this year laid off hundreds got more Obama money still failing but still in business
• Azure Dynamics: FAIL – Azure Dynamics files for bankruptcy in June ter millions in Obama “Stimulus”
  
• Evergreen Solar: FAIL – Evergreen Solar received $527 Million in Taxpayer money from Obama filed bankruptcy
  
• Ener1: FAIL received more than $100 million in government funding from the Obama administration filed for bankruptcy January 2012

Update:  In May 2012 Obama visited a dusty, desert town 30 miles outside Las Vegas Wednesday to declare he’s doubling down on failed federal efforts to boost the solar industry which has NEVER proven to produce a single working product. Like Socialism, no evidence ot works, but they just keep doubling down on the failed ideals!.

Because they have “good” intentions and if they just try hard enough and spend enough money it will work…eventually… 🙂

So what if the record is 0 for $6 Trillion in taxpayer debt in less than 4 years. So what if less people are working now than 4 years ago. So what if more people more people than ever are dependent on the government dole (that is paid by less and less taxpayers).

They have the moral high ground, in their own minds, so they are just better than you grubby little capitalist bastards.

On March 22 Obama announced an offer of up to $35 million over three years to support research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and high-value biobased products. These types of fuels are 20 plus years away from practical use.  On that same day the White House announced a $14.2 million DOE effort to accelerate the development and deployment of stronger and lighter materials for advanced vehicles which will not be available for 20+ years.The initiatives, which are doomed to failure,  are aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil and limit carbon pollution.  But carbon pollution data is based on false data and the United States has more oil than Saudi Arabia and would make America energy independent for 200 years. But Democrats and Obama could care less about these facts.

Because it “feels” good. They have “good” intentions. So you’re just angry, mean old troll who’s in the pocket of evil rich oil people who want to rape and destroy the planet if you disagree.

Lip Reading: “all this for a flag?”

Perhaps Mrs. Obama thinks that all the pomp and circumstance she experiences in her daily life has something to do with her, rather than the unofficial office she holds.

Well, I guess it’s off on another $100,000 jaunt to an exotic location for her. And another round of golf and a fundraiser (AT $40,000 a plate) for Michelle “Marie Antoinette” Obama and her Husband The Emperor King.

NOVEMBER IS COMING

Fair & Balanced

“I’d like to see his house burn, one of his millions of houses burning down.”

During an interview with the liberal website Mediaite, Joy Behar added, “Who’s he going to call, the Mormon fire patrol?”

JOY BEHAR: I would ask him plenty of questions about, is he planning to endorse the Ryan budget? And I think that would be a terrible mistake. I don’t want to see people on the streets begging for food, thank you.

BEHAR: Oh, less government? That is an idiotic statement. Can I just say that?

Now substitute, conservative and black/minority/gay  and see what would happen. 🙂

And you there you have the “New Tone” of “Civility” folks.

Oh, and she just replaced Keith Olbermann on Al Gore’s Current TV.

Enjoy! 🙂

*********

The news that the House Oversight Committee will vote next week on whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents in the Fast and Furious investigation, was met with silence from the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) network news shows. There was no mention of the Holder hearings on Monday’s evening news shows or Tuesday’s morning shows.

The blackout of the Holder hearings continues a stunning trend. Since December 2010, when the Fast and Furious scandal first broke, there have been zero stories about the gunwalking scandal on NBC Nightly News and Today show. On ABC there was only one brief aired on Good Morning America. Only CBS has truly covered the story, mainly due to the work of one reporter, Sharyl Attkisson. Since Attkisson broke the gunwalking story, there have been a total of 30 full stories and 1 brief aired on CBS’s Evening News and This Morning programs.

Curiously, Attkisson’s stories on the gunwalking scandal have screeched to a halt.

From February 4 through this morning’s news there has been only one report (An Erica Hill brief on the May 3 This Morning) on the Fast and Furious controversy. It’s not as if Attkisson stopped paying attention, as she authored a story for CBSNews.com on Tuesday, but oddly her reporting did not make the air on that night’s CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.  

The following brief, aired on the May 3, 2012 CBS This Morning, represents the sum total of stories by the Big 3 on the Fast and Furious scandal in over a month:
ERICA HILL: There is new information this morning in the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation, first exposed last year by our own Sharyl Attkisson. Sources tell CBS News that today lawmakers will take the first formal step toward charging Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee accused Holder of obstructing their investigation. In Fast and Furious, U.S. officials allowed thousands of guns to flow from the U.S. into Mexico. Two of those guns were later found at the scene where a U.S. border patrol agent was murdered.

But don’t worry, they aren’t biased propagandists for the Liberal cause. They are “journalists” and they are “fair” and “balanced”. Just ask them…. 🙂

*******

‘Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda,” wrote Ryan Lizza in this week’s New Yorker. “The President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change,” supposedly to “improve the world.”

So forget about the abysmal jobless numbers above 8% for over three years, or the $15 trillion deficit that threatens to turn the U.S. into Greece. No, amid those very real calamities, climate change is more important.

If this isn’t a sign of a president out of touch with reality, what is? If climate change is Obama’s “most important” policy issue, then neither the Tea-Party-led victories around fiscal discipline — such as the Wisconsin vote, nor the West Virginia primary, here 40% of Democrats chose a jailbird to protest Obama’s anti-coal agenda, made a dent on him.

Like a madman doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, it can only mean Obama intends to double-down on his green agenda if re-elected.

It’s the Agenda Stupid! He’ll be more “flexible”. 🙂

Has Obama learned nothing? The economy topped the voters’ list of concerns in 2009, but Obama bulled ahead with health care reform anyway.

Poll after poll since 2009 shows the public considers climate change dead last in importance. In 2012, Pew Research Center reported that 86% of the public considered the economy a top priority, and 82% considered jobs in that slot. Global warming ranked dead last at 25% — and that represented a 13% decline from 2007.(IBD)

The Agenda is the The Agenda!

The Voters and the American People be Damned!

So why do you wanna vote for this twit again?

*******

contrary to claims by the nation’s top elected duffer, private sector jobs are down 4.6 million in the last 52 months.While the number of federal government employees increased nearly a quarter-million paychecks, 11.4%, in the same period. This despite the Democrat candidate’s vow four years ago to go through every budget line-by-line. You betcha.

Private-sector jobs are still down by 4.6 million, or 4%, from January 2008, when overall employment peaked. Meanwhile government jobs are down just 407,000, or 1.8%. Federal employment actually is 225,000 jobs above its January 2008 level, an 11.4% increase. That’s right, up 11.4%.

Private payrolls have been trending higher in the last couple of years while government has been shedding staff. But that’s because governments did not cut jobs right away. Overall government employment didn’t peak until April 2009, 16 months after the recession started. It didn’t fall below their January 2008 level until September 2010.

Fewer than three in 10 American teenagers now hold jobs such as running cash registers, mowing lawns or busing restaurant tables from June to August. The decline has been particularly sharp since 2000, with employment for 16-to-19-year olds falling to the lowest level since World War II. (Townhall)

One largely overlooked aspect of Obama’s Friday remarks was his plea that the nation needs to grow state and local governments to provide more jobs. Obama displayed his keen grasp of the Acme School of Economics by making his top stimulus spending idea increasing the size of governments. It isn’t working on the federal level, so maybe it will now in the states.

It’s easy to argue that Obama’s tunnel vision on government employment reflects his complete lack of experience in the business world. But it’s also mainstream Democratic thinking.

Just look at Joy Behar. 🙂

This increasingly desperate president’s election year economic policies are like deer-hunting with an AK-47 on automatic. Who knows? You might hit something.

After all,  Why does Obama think the private sector is “doing fine”? “We’ve seen record profits in the corporate sector.” And high corporate profits are good for tax revenues to pay for government programs and government jobs. That’s the main reason Obama cares about the private sector. (IBD)

And Democrats all want to tax (sorry “revenue”) you to death because after all, all we need to do is Spend Even More and Utopia awaits!

“People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system.”–Senator Marco Rubio.

But don’t worry, everything is “fine”. Just ask the Media and the President. 🙂

 

A Year In Review

Here’s a look at the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s year in review.

– Jan. 14: Kansas announces its intention to become the 26th state to file suit against the federal government to stop implementation of the health care overhaul.

– Jan. 19: The House of Representatives votes to repeal the health care law.

– Jan. 26: Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Abbott Labs cuts 1,900 jobs “in response to changes in the health-care industry, including U.S. health-care reform and the challenging regulatory environment.”

– Jan. 31: A second federal district judge rules that the law is unconstitutional.

– Feb. 2: All 47 Republican senators vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but the measure fails.

– Feb. 16: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before the Senate Finance Committee and admits that the CLASS Act, a key portion of the law that was touted as a $70 billion savings, is “totally unsustainable.” But not to worry: Sebelius says her department has the authority to rework the legislation to make CLASS tenable.

– Feb. 18: The House votes to block federal funding to implement the Affordable Care Act. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that repealing the law would add $210 billion to the combined federal deficits from 2012 to 2021.

– Feb. 22: A federal judge tosses a lawsuit claiming that the Affordable Care Act violates the liberties of those who choose to rely on God to protect and heal them instead of buying health insurance.

– March 3: The House votes to end an unpopular tax paperwork-filing requirement for businesses tucked into the health care law.

– March 23: The law turns one year old. On the same day, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce finds that the temporary Early Retirement Reinsurance Program will spend its allotted $5 billion far earlier than its Jan. 1, 2014 expiration date.

– March 30: The CBO estimates that health care reform will cost $1.1 trillion, an increase of $90 billion from its February estimate.

– May 17: The Daily Caller reports that 20 percent of new waivers from the law have gone to gourmet restaurants, nightclubs and fancy hotels in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district.

– June 8: A McKinsey & Company survey of over 1,300 private sector employers found that 30 percent of employers would definitely or probably stop offering insurance to their employees after the law is implemented in 2014.

– June 18: HHS announces that it is axing waivers from the law. After over 1700 of them, 24% of them are for Public and private sector UNIONS and “small” employers like McDonalds. And they only stopping kissing up because of too much bad press.

– June 21: A glitch in the law, discovered after Obama signed it, would allow middle-class Americans to get subsidized health care intended for poor people, the Associated Press reports. Medicare’s chief actuary says the policy “doesn’t make sense.”

– June 29: In the face of a constitutional challenge, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rules in favor of the law.

– July 18: An Employment Policies Institute report finds that the Affordable Care Act would incentivize employees to switch to a government-subsidized insurance exchange even if employers were to continue their health care coverage, costing taxpayers “significant[ly].”

– July 19: The bipartisan “gang of six” puts forward a debt-reduction plan that would repeal the CLASS Act.

– Aug. 1: HHS issues a regulation requiring all group health insurance plans to cover FDA-approved “contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.” Even if you are morally opposed to Planned Parenthood. 🙂

Now that’s “Pro-Choice” !!!!

– Aug. 12: The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the law’s individual health insurance mandate is unconstitutional.

– Sept. 8: The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects a pair of challenges to the law on procedural grounds. It does not rule on the law’s constitutionality.

– Sept. 15: A bicameral Republican report accuses Democratic supporters of the health care law of recklessness for promoting the CLASS Act despite knowing that the program would eventually blow up the budget.

– Oct. 5: The signatures of about 1.6 million petitioners pressing for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act are delivered to Capitol Hill at a press conference.

– Oct. 13: A federal inspector general finds that the IRS is having trouble collecting the 10-percent federal tanning tax established by the law.

– Oct. 14: HHS completes its 19-month review of the CLASS Act, determining that “we do not have a path to move forward,” Sebelius says. CLASS remains on the books, but the administration essentially gives up on it.

– Nov. 4: Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe and 23 Republican colleagues send a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman objecting to a new IRS rule authorizing subsidies for participants in the yet-to-be-created federal health care exchange program. They argue that the agency is seeking to rewrite legislation, something it is not allowed to do.
Conservative experts say the IRS rules are covering up a glitch in the original law that provides subsidies for people enrolled in state exchanges, but not federal exchanges. Shulman does not agree with their analysis.

– Nov. 9: The National Federation of Independent Business releases a report saying that in 2012 the law’s new health insurance tax will reduce private sector jobs by between 125,000 and 249,000.

– Nov. 10: The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty announces it is suing HHS on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic educational institution. The lawsuit claims the Aug. 1 regulation violates the college’s teaching on contraception, sterilization and abortion.

– Nov. 14: The Supreme Court agrees to hear arguments on the Affordable Care Act.

– Nov. 16: Forty-seven percent of Americans favor repeal of the law, Gallup finds.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the health care law passed by Congress in March 2010, while 35% at least somewhat oppose repeal. The intensity remains on the side of the law’s opponents since these findings include 42% who Strongly Favor repeal versus 26% who are Strongly Opposed.

– Nov. 29: Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank joins the effort to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a key portion of the law that would “recommend levels at which Medicare recipients, including seniors, can
be reimbursed for health care expenses.”

– Nov. 30: The House energy committee votes to repeal the CLASS Act.

– Dec. 15: The Obama administration announces that the number of young uninsured Americans has fallen by 2.5 million, attributing it to his law’s provision permitting young adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans
until age 26. (yeah and their parents are not underemployed) 🙂

– Dec 16: Seeking to defuse a potential showdown over a key part of the new healthcare law, the Obama administration moved Friday to let states, rather than the federal government, define which medical benefits insurance companies will have to offer consumers starting in 2014. That allows state leaders to retain more control of health insurance even as the law extends a new federal guarantee that all Americans can get coverage, even if they are sick.

But it’s just a “pre-rule”.

By giving states authority to define the scope of covered benefits, the Obama administration potentially sidestepped an ugly showdown between consumer and business groups in the run-up to the presidential election. Administration officials also may have undercut a charge from opponents of the law that the federal government is usurping state authority. (aka The 10th Amendment argument)

That’s tricky territory for the administration, which is trying to avoid the “big brother” label on health care.

“However, flexibility must yield to reliable, comprehensive coverage of benefits for consumers.… It is essential that HHS provide strong oversight and enforcement.”

The proposed rules, which will take months to finalize. What do you want to bet it will right up to the March arguments in the Supreme Court. 🙂

Gee, I’m not a little cynical. I’m nothing BUT cynical. 🙂

That means that some states may require insurers to cover services such as chiropractic therapy or in vitro fertilization, while others may not. The rules will not affect co-payments, cost sharing and deductibles, which play a major role in determining premiums.
– Dec. 18: Health care experts doubt that the federal insurance exchange program will be fully operational by the Jan. 1, 2014 deadline, since many states have refused to implement the state exchange program, the Washington Post  reports.

– Dec. 19: The Supreme Court announces it will hear an unprecedented week’s worth of arguments in March 2012 to determine whether the health care overhaul law is constitutional.

So it’s all politics and chaos. They passed the buck so that them not sawing off the finger on your right hand would also you to not notice they want to or have sawed over your legs.

But don’t worry, when the IRS comes knocking on your wallet, it’s only a “penalty” nothing to be concerned about. 🙂

 

Greece-ing the Skids Too

“We all have a set of mutual obligations towards each other — we are our brother’s keeper, we are our sister’s keeper — and that those mutual obligations have to express themselves through government policies,” – US Senate Candidate Barack Obama in 2004

Although many hope members of the super committee will reach an 11^th hour deal on spending cuts before the November 23 deadline, New York Times columnist David Brooks doubts that any deal will ever be reached, now or in the future. Brooks suspects that the United States is headed toward a fiscal crisis much like that of Greece.

On Friday night’s broadcast of PBS’s “NewsHour,” Brooks said that despite the best possible groundwork being laid to reach a deal, a deal still couldn’t be made.

“Yes, I mean, I’m hearing the exact same thing,” Brooks said. “I think the tragedy of it is, if it was ever going to work, it was going to work under these circumstances. The rules were rigged to make a deal as possible as possible as possible, which is to say there was going to be a clean vote on the House. They were going to meet in private. They had this sword of Damocles hanging over them. And they still couldn’t reach a deal.”

According to Brooks, with this missed opportunity and other missed opportunities over the years – it doesn’t bode well for any deal in the future. And that he says means the United States will eventually face a Greek-like situation.

“And still – and so it’s a history of really 10 or 15 years of potential moments where we could have – somebody could have made a deal with doing some spending cuts, some tax increases, jam it all together in whatever form you want to do,” he continued. “And every think tank has their own version. But the two sides are just too far apart. And as Mark [Shields] says, there is no center. And so, you know, they hope the election will solve it. That is what everybody is saying on the Hill. I’m a little dubious the election – why should this election solve it, when all the other elections haven’t solved hit. So the short answer is, welcome, Greece. We’re going to be Greece.”

And we all know the punchline here: “It’s the Republican’s Fault!!”

Not both of them. Entrenched in their ideological warfare. Democrats unable to cut spending and wanting to raise taxes on “the rich”. The Republicans not wanting to raise taxes and wanting to cut spending (but not nearly enough).

So we have fire and water and all we get is a lot of heated steam.

Neither will give an inch because of the 2012 campaign. Compromise is what the other guy does to let you do whatever YOU WANT to do.

Rock Meet Hard Place.

It’s not like it wasn’t predictable.

From a blog I wrote May 10, 2010: https://indyfromaz.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/greece-ing-the-skids/

In Greece:

They are angry because for years they have been encouraged to live beyond their means, taking advantage of the cheap credit on offer since Greece joined the euro in 2001. Now, the rug is being pulled from under their feet. People who have taken out mortgages to buy homes, loans to purchase cars and credit cards to pay for overpriced basic goods are being asked to meet all these commitments with a much lower income than they had budgeted for.

Fannie and Freddie anyone??

UK Guardian: Saddled with burgeoning public sectors (which help sustain muscular trade unions)– SEIU, UAW, NEA anyone?

This is not what angers Greeks most, though. What you will hear time after time, both at the protests and at workplaces and cafes, is that this crisis confirms the failure of the country’s political system. In other words, that for years politicians have been bleeding the country dry, looking after themselves and their friends and failing to build a robust economy and a country equipped to deal with the challenges of the 21st century.

There is anger at the pervasive, high-level corruption for which no politician is ever punished. People are also furious that no government has ever tackled influence-peddling in the public sector. The Greek branch of Transparency International estimated that Greeks paid almost euro800 million ($1 billion) in bribes last year. This is another drain on household budgets but more importantly it creates a sense of injustice, a sense that to get anything done you have to play by the system’s warped rules.

Sound familiar??

This feeling of unfairness is compounded when tax evasion also goes unpunished.

“Turbo Tax” Geithner anyone? Barney Frank? Charlie Rangel?? Jeffrey Imhelt?

Salaried professionals and civil servants have their wages taxed at source but many Greeks do not. And, what they declare often bears no resemblance to what they actually earn. The government believes that tax evasion could be worth up to euro30 billion ($38 billion) a year, or 12 percent of the country’s GDP. Allowing one part of the population to consistently get away without paying while Greece’s public finances are propped up by the same people all the time creates incredible resentment. That’s why you hear many Greeks say they will put up with the austerity measures if the government ensures that everybody pays their fair share. If people believe that the usual suspects, who in many cases are wealthy businessmen, doctors and lawyers, are allowed to get away with it, then the level of anger will go up several notches.

47% of all Americans pay NO TAXES whatsover!

Union workers and civil servant can make more in retirement than on the job.

But we aren’t going down that road…oh no…the Nazi, Racist, Violent Tea Baggers are just wrong.

Some of the measures imposed on Greece by the EU in order to bail them out (BBC):

The plans hope to achieve budget cuts of 30bn euros over three years – with the goal of cutting Greece’s public deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2014. It currently stands at 13.6%. (in 2010)

PAY CUTS

The government is planning a freeze pay for all public sector workers.

Some pay cuts will also be implemented, and public sector contract workers are set to lose their jobs.

This follows several years of continuous increases in pay, with salaries rising by an average of 30% since 2006.

Annual bonus payments – paid as 13th and 14th month salaries – will also be scrapped for high earners and capped for lower earners.

Other bonuses will be scrapped.

In the private sector, the legal maximum number of people companies can lay off each month will be doubled from 2% of personnel to 4%.

PENSIONS

The reforms seek to prevent early retirement. Currently the average age of retirement in Greece is 61, though it is not uncommon for public sector workers to retire in their 50s.

Under the planned changes, the retirement age, which is currently 65 years for men and 60 years for women, will be linked to average life expectancy.

In addition, the minimum number of years someone will have had to have worked to qualify for a full pension will rise to 40 years from 37.

Pensions will also be reduced so that they reflect a worker’s average working pay rather than their final salary.
TAX REFORM

VAT will be increased to 23% from 21% – just the latest in a series of recent increases.

Indirect taxes – including those on alcohol, fuel and cigarettes – will see a 10% rise.

There will also be a clamp-down on tax evasion – widely regarded as a big problem in Greece – and on untaxed illegal construction.

Tax-evasion alone is estimated to cost the Greek government at least 20bn euros a year.
PRIVATISATION

In the longer-term, the government will look to reduce the reliance of the Greek economy on the public sector, reducing the number of people on the public payroll.

This will require growth in the private sector, and possible privatisation of some industries.

Getting eerily uncomfortable I hope.

See our future if  Obama and The Democrats (and Republicans too) are not stopped.

According to a December report from the BLS, state and local government employers spent an average of $39.83 per hour worked ($26.24 for wages and $13.60 for benefits) for total employee compensation in September 2009. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour ($19.45 for wages and $8.05 for benefits), see chart above. In other words, government employees make 45% more on average than private sector employees.

According to an analysis by USAToday (thanks to Michael Jahr for the pointer), “The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to an analysis of federal salary data.” For example, the number of federal employees making $100,000 or more has increased by 120,595, from 262,163 employees in December 2007 to 382,758 in June 2009, for a 46% increase. The number of federal workers making $150,000 or more has more than doubled since the recession started, from about 30,000 to more than 66,000 (see chart above).

The fire rate for government employees is .0055%. Their unemployment rate is 3%.

And do the Democrats look concerned?

Do the Republicans?

Do they?

Now: And if want a perfect Greece model look at California sometime. It’s Greece, trust me.

Josh Barro writes for the Manhattan Institute about the “Two Americas” and the “sharp difference between two classes of employees: those who work in the private sector and those who work for the government. Workers in the public sector have experienced a very different recession from those in the private sector.”

So is this Greece-ing the skids for what the government knows is coming if things don’t change?

I think so.

“I firmly believe that. I think, in 10 years – I don’t know when it will happen, but I’m very pessimistic that we will actually have the sort of deal we need,” Brooks said. “And at some point, what is happening in the Europe will happen here.”(DC)

It’s Party Politics over the good of the country. On BOTH SIDES.

“It’s less than a week until the deadline, and no language has been made public, and the American people should be able to make their voice heard before the committee votes. Because the truth is, once that vote happens, there’ll be no opportunity to change their product,” <Senator> Sessions said.

“People will make many promises about what this deal will be about if it passes … hopefully they’ll reach an agreement that’s one that can be honestly defended and that we’ll all be happy to vote for,” he added.

“But what we’ve seen so far indicates that secret deals, while they remain secret, are promoted to be far better than they are when you begin to see what’s really in them. The devil will always be in the details,” Sessions said.

He pointed, for instance, to the budget plan proposed by President Barack Obama, which was advertised as not adding to the national debt, but, he said, would in fact double the debt over the next decase.

He picked out several gimmicks in particular for which congressmen should be on the look out.

For instance, he said, the super committee could set a cap on war spending that was less than the baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office, and in that way claim they were making spending cuts. But since it would be less than the CBO baseline, that money would never have been spent in the first place.

Another possible gimmick by which the super committee could claim money was saved, he said, would be a proposal of tax increases now, to be balanced by spending cuts in future years.

“The pattern around here is, that once a tax increase is passed, it’s there,” Sessions said. “But a promise of a spending cut in the future very often does not become a reality.”

He warned that the super committee could direct standing committees to make cuts in future years, for instance, reduce entitlement spending or find a way to raise revenue.

“These committees have not followed through on that in the past,” Sessions warned, “and the super committee’s directions to them, we have to know, are not likely to occur based on history around here.”

At times, Sessions cautioned, cuts to programs have been proposed that are “unrealistic” because they do not come along with the reform necessary to actually cut costs for that program. For instance, cuts to health care providers’ reimbursements are supposed to made each year, but that fact is consistently ignored, Sessions said.

Another possible gimmick would be to claim spending cuts based on assumptions that the CBO baseline will change in a way that is “unrealistic,” for instance, by being “overly optimistic” about future economic growth.

“More and more, we’re hearing that coming out of this recession is going to be a long, tough, slow slog,” Sessions said. To claim cuts based on an alternative vision, Sessions said, would be “phony accounting.”

Lastly, he warned of calling savings on interest, as a result of a debt lessened by tax increases, a spending cut, as no money would actually be saved — money would still be paid out, just less than the year before. (DC)

As if 1.5 Trillion over 10 years wasn’t a gimmick to begin with… Because it was.

Be Prepared to be GREECE-d.

But be comforted in the knowledge that when you are paying $400 hyper-inflated dollars for that loaf of bread and you can’t afford to drive your car, heat your home or watch “America’s Got Talent” because you can’t afford it…. it was  the other guy’s fault! 

Doing it The Left Way

More Government Wonderfulness:

With a record number of Americans out of work, the government agency responsible for advancing employment in the United States just doled out $1.5 million http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/ilab/ILAB20111490.htm to promote collective bargaining and improve labor relations in Vietnam.

The senseless allocation comes after a series of equally questionable moves by the Department of Labor (DOL) on behalf of illegal immigrants, juvenile delinquents and “high-risk” adults. Last year the agency launched a nationwide initiative to protect illegal immigrant workers in the U.S. and a few months ago it entered formal agreements with Guatemala and Nicaragua <http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/jun/labor-dept-protects-central-american-migrants>vowing to preserve the rights of their migrants.

It’s a worthy investment, according to the DOL, because it’s designed to improve Vietnam’s labor relations policies and initiatives by strengthening labor law enforcement and labor inspection and increasing the capacity for a more effective dispute resolution system for workers and employers. Here is the kicker; it will also improve “worker organizations’ (can you say unions?) ability to represent employees and engage in collective bargaining. (KFYI)

Well, you have to have your priorities. 🙂

Speaking of Priorities:

Lady Gaga, a “persona derived from her unique, androgynous, vintage-themed fashion sense”; “celebrated” cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who is famous for “Dykes To Watch Out For”; and Rita Mae Brown, author of the “lesbian-themed novel “Rubyfruit Jungle,” soon could become role models in California schools.

That means SB48 will take effect on Jan. 1, 2012, as was scheduled by the Democrats who approved it in the state Legislature. The law requires that schools uphold people with alternative sexual lifestyles as positive role models.

The law requires schools to teach “gay” and “lesbian” involvement in history but only from a positive perspective. It bans any statement, fact or information that would reflect “adversely” on those who choose an alternative sexual lifestyle. (There’s that Liberal Freedom of speech and need to teach objective history without their own agenda!) 🙂

But you can run down White Christians over and over again, then backup and do it again. But saying bad about the LGBT crowd you’re in deep crapola!

No bias or social enginerring (or agenda) here. Move along….

An unofficial gauge of human misery in the United States rose last month to a 28-year high as Americans struggled with rising inflation and high unemployment.

The misery index — which is simply the sum of the country’s inflation and unemployment rates — rose to 13.0, pushed up by higher price data the government reported on Wednesday.

The data underscores the extent that Americans continue to suffer even two years after a deep recession ended.

Consumer prices rose 3.9 percent in the 12 months through September, the fastest pace in three years.

 But what’s really important is union and public sector jobs. Private sector jobs are doing fine (according too VP Biden).

And we all know this Bush’s Fault. The Republicans. The “rich”. And the Tea Party. 🙂

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama this week will announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, according to a White House official.

Damn those Republicans. I guess I will just have to everything I want by Fiat. But that doesn’t make me a dictator.

And when it fails miserably, it will still be the Republicans fault because they forced him to go around them. If they had only passed the bill like I demanded…

Think about that for a moment… 🙂

He will discuss the changes in mortgage rules at a stop in Nevada, which has one of the hardest-hit housing markets in the country. (and the home of Harry “The private sector is fine” Reid).

The FHFA intends to loosen the terms of the two-year-old Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), which helps borrowers who have been making mortgage payments on time but who have not been able to refinance as their home values have dropped.

This would be the program that has so much bureaucracy that your chance of getting the modification was 7%.

And, didn’t the government monkeying with the housing market in the 1990s when they wanted to make home ownership easier and that caused it to crashed the entire economy — YES!

So in typical Liberal fashion, if at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail again! 🙂

But don’t worry, it won’t be their fault.

“The only way we can truly attack our economic challenges is with bold, bipartisan action in Congress,” White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told The New York Times.

That’s why I’m going around them!!

Remember, bi-partisan to a liberal is “You agree with everything I want and sit down and shut up”.

Speaking of Zombies

Occupy Wall Street protesters are undergoing collectivist zombie training in Atlanta, where a large group was caught on film engaging in a weird sort of “one voice” hypnotic chanting ritual that characterizes the key principles of both Communism and Socialism.

Watch the video at:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=8B371…

Having an extensive background in studying linguistics and human psychology, I recognize mass hypnosis when I see it.

The mind-numbing call-and-return vocalizations captured in this video reflect the same kind of mind control techniques used in cults, sporting events and even some church revival events.

The whole point of this experience is to eliminate the individual mind and train everyone to think, and say, and do exactly what they are told to do by a “leaderless leader” who is really a mind control manipulator.

Free-thinking individuals do not engage in this kind of behavior! If I had witnessed this in person, I would have shouted out, “You are all zombies!” at which point I’m sure I would probably need my zombie defender flamethrower to roast the mindless masses as they tried to swarm over me with their “one mind” attack.

The only path to true freedom is found in protecting individual liberty which necessarily involves protecting the individual right to speak your mind without seeking permission from some kind of weird collectivist groupthink.

If you thought George Bush and his secret prisons were bad, just imagine Nancy Pelosi leading a national zombie chant, declaring that anyone earning over $125,000 a year should have their wealth confiscated; that Free Speech is now subject to government approval; that everyone except the government should be completely disarmed; and that individual liberty must be sacrificed for the “common good of the People.”

These are all code words for outright government tyranny.

Remember: Just because our current system is headed for collapse doesn’t mean we’re automatically going to get something better in its place. If we want a truly free and just society, we will have to fight for it.

If you thought George Bush and his secret prisons were bad, just imagine Nancy Pelosi leading a national zombie chant, declaring that anyone earning over $125,000 a year should have their wealth confiscated; that Free Speech is now subject to government approval; that everyone except the government should be completely disarmed; and that individual liberty must be sacrificed for the “common good of the People.”

These are all code words for outright government tyranny.

Remember: Just because our current system is headed for collapse doesn’t mean we’re automatically going to get something better in its place. If we want a truly free and just society, we will have to fight for it. (intelhub)

But then you’ll be branded as a heartless racist who wants to protect “the rich”. 🙂

Enjoy.

The Frightful Left

From my Sept 10th, 2010 blog: The 4th Precept

We all should be familiar with Orwell’s 3 main Thought control precepts as put forward in in his book, 1984.

If you have never read it. Do so. Immediately.

It can change your life. I know it did mine.

But those precepts used by the Ministry of Truth were:

“”War is Peace”

“Freedom is Slavery”

“Ignorance is Strength”

And I think the Democrats and especially Obama have come up with a new one.

FEAR IS HOPE

Because they are constantly talking about hope. But all they do is spread fear.

So Fear must therefore be Hope.

“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”-Orwell.

And since the liberals view of the past decade is one of total evil and you should fear that evil coming back, and you should have hope for a brighter, more vibrant America than letting that evil back in, Fear is Hope.

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”-Orwell

And there can’t be more deceit going on now than in recent memory.

“It’s still fear versus hope; the past versus the future,” Obama said from Cleveland, Ohio Sept 8th 2010, “It’s still a choice between sliding backward and moving forward.  That’s what this election is about.  That’s the choice you’ll face in November.”

“There were no new ideas.  There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade – the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place.”

Sound familiar?

NOW: “The Republican plan says that what’s been standing in the way between us and full employment are laws that keep companies from polluting as much as they want,” Obama said in a speech at the regional airport in Asheville, N.C., on Monday. “On the other hand, our plan [Obama’s plan] puts teachers, construction workers, firefighters and police officers back on the job.” (you non-union type- 88% of the populace, especially can go f*ck yourself)

“My plan says we’re going to put teachers back in the classroom, construction workers back to work rebuilding America, rebuilding our schools, tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your worker a raise,” said Obama. “That’s my plan. Then you’ve got their plan, which is, let’s have dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance. So far at least, I feel better about my plan.”

VP Biden in his infinite capacity for sageness said that if you don’t pass the Jobs Bill (that the Senate Democrats have voted down twice by the way) you’ll increase rapes and murders!

“Do you regret using the rape reference to describe Senate opposition” to the bill, Jason Mattera asked Biden as he left a rally with police unions and others who have faced the budget ax in recent months.

“I didn’t use … no, no, no,” Biden responded. “Let’s get it straight, guy. Don’t screw around with me. Let’s get it straight.”

“You didn’t use a rape reference,” said Mattera, of the conservative news organization Human Events.
“No, let me explain,” Biden said, pointing toward Mattera. “I said rape was up three times in Flint. Those are the numbers. Go look at the numbers. Murder is up; rape is up; burglary is up. That’s what I said.”

“And if the Republicans don’t pass this bill, then rape will continue to rise?” the reporter asked.
“Murder will continue to rise; rape will continue to rise; all crime will continue to rise,” Biden said.
Asked by Mattera whether it was appropriate to use such language, Biden scoffed and walked away (actually you can hear one of his handlers say “that’s enough” and obviously pull him away).

Beside the grossness of the comments the facts are HE’S LYING! Flat out. Bold-Faced 100% LYING.

But does he care? Does the Liberal Media Care?  Nope.

Because if you don’t vote for them, you’re a racist and now you want women raped and people murdered.

But they aren’t fearmongering.

Biden: “In 2008, when Flint had 265 sworn officers on their police force, there were 35 murders and 91 rapes in this city. In 2010, when Flint had only 144 police officers, the murder rate climbed to 65 and rapes – just to pick two categories – climbed to 229. In 2011, you now only have 125 shields. God only knows what the numbers will be this year for Flint if we don’t rectify it…And God only knows what that number would have been had we not been able to get a little bit of help.”

Actually, FBI data reports there were just 201 officers in Flint in 2008, not 265. But that aside, if Biden’s hypothesis that more police = less crime is accurate, then the years Flint had more cops on the street should also be the years it had lower crime rates.

But the statistics show it’s not that simple. FBI data shows Flint had 258 police officers in 2006, and 261 in 2007. But according to CityData.com, which compiles crime rate data from across the country, the city of Flint had a higher “crime index” in 2006 and 2007 than it did in 2008 –despite the fact the number of police officers dropped significantly in 2008.

When you compare 2006 to 2008, you find the city had more murders (54 compared to 32), more rapes (143 compared to 103), more assaults (2,246 compared to 1,476) and more auto thefts (1,521 to 909). In other words, the crime rate in Flint isn’t necessarily linked to the number of police in the city. Based on the numbers, Biden’s argument falls flat. (commentary)

I also grew up there in the 1970’s when the population was twice as large as it is now. So Joe, you’re full of fearmongering crap as usual.

Facts never matter to Liberals if they can scare you into doing what they want you to do, which let them run your life for you.

Oh, and Harry, what kind of Jobs were we talking about anyhow?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

“It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine (yeah, 8% unemployment or higher for nearly 3 years is “fine”); it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Reid said on the Senate floor.

Because those are union loyalists and apparatchiks they need more of so that they can vote for them. More Government bureaucrats is good. After all, Washington DC is the richest metropolitan area in America now and crony capitalism/socialism is “fine” as long as it’s the right people, government union people. 🙂

CNBC’s John Harwood: “Yesterday at a press conference one of my colleagues asked the president to respond to something Mitt Romney said. The president said, ‘I didn’t realize you were a spokesman for Mitt Romney.’ Is the White House — you feeling — the president feeling under siege from events right now?”

Daley didn’t deal with the question, so Harwood pressed him a bit. “Why would the president respond that way to a reporter, though?” Harwood asked.

“I don’t think it was a colleague from your network,”  (it was Satan itself- FOX) Daley said, “but a colleague from another network.” (they who shall not be named!) And then Daley added this: “And — sometimes  as you — I know it may surprise people, some people that there are certain people in the media who do seem at times to carry the water for certain — piece of the political spectrum.” (Other than Liberals, imagine that! How evil! :))

Obama, it seems, is under the impression he deserves veneration and reverence from all quarters and all institutions. He hasn’t received that, including from professionals like ABC’s Jake Tapper, and Obama seems to delight in critiquing the press, perhaps secretly wishing he was Howard Kurtz instead of the commander-in-chief. But it is Fox News for whom Obama and his team have special contempt. For them, Fox is clearly “the enemy,” to be hated and beaten. For those who doubt this verdict, it’s worth recalling the extraordinary campaign against Fox News carried about by Obama’s then communications director, Anita Dunn, which even Sam Stein of the Huffington Post characterized as a “brutal denunciation.” One can only imagine the howls of protest we would have heard from the fourth estate if, say, Karen Hughes had so explicitly and publicly targeted a news network during the Bush presidency. But in this instance, Dunn’s “War on Fox” was met mostly by silence and a shrug of the shoulders.

What we have seen exposed in the Obama White House is a vein of vengeance antithetical to the image put forward by Obama in 2008 – but fully consistent with what one would expect from a man well-versed in the Chicago Way. (commentary)

And after all, it’s Not his Fault! :0

And giving into FEAR is your ONLY HOPE.

Fear is THEIR ONLY HOPE.

So Be prepared for Fright Night 2012 to get much, much scarier.

Harry Reid said Republicans are calling the bill a “failure” because they are “using a different benchmark for success than we are.”

Yeah, they’re using the private sector where jobs generate revenue for taxes to pay for all the nonsense Reid spouts. 

Government workers are not producers in the sense of the production we need to get the economy going.   But they are voters.   This is an attempt to keep them in the Democratic corral long enough to get Democrats re-elected.  Then Harry probably won’t care very much again.

Remember, when Obama was calling for his jobs bill to be given priority, Harry Reid was on the Senate floor expounding on the virtue of  … bike paths (and, naturally, calling for government to pay for them).

Ever get the idea that we’re all now serfs on a huge plantation paying for the whims of our “leaders”. (Bruce McQuain)

The Democrats sure think so, and they want 4 more years or else!

The Secret Pork

Then Speaker of The House Pelosi: “[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Now that someone is opening this can of compressed worms, the stink bugs are escaping too.

Investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee have discovered that a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees.  At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire.

It’s a waiver slush fund BUILT INTO the Law. Gee, now that’s confidence in your legislation.

Unless, of course, the ultimate goal was not “to insure everyone”. 🙂

The discovery came on the eve of an oversight hearing focused on the workings of an obscure agency known as CCIO — the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.  CCIO, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the implementation of Section 1102 of the Affordable Care Act, which created something called the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program.  The legislation called for the program to spend a total of $5 billion, beginning in June 2010 — shortly after Obamacare was passed — and ending on January 1, 2014, as the system of national health care exchanges was scheduled to go into effect.

The idea was to subsidize unions, states, and companies that had made commitments to provide health insurance for workers who retired early —  between the ages of 55 and 64, before they were eligible for Medicare. According to a new report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, “People in the early retiree age group…often face difficulties obtaining insurance in the individual market because of age or chronic conditions that make coverage unaffordable or inaccessible.”  As a result, fewer and fewer organizations have been offering coverage to early retirees; the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program was designed to subsidize such coverage until the creation of Obamacare’s health-care exchanges.

The program began making payouts on June 1, 2010.  Between that date and the end of 2010, it paid out about $535 million dollars.  But according to the new report, the rate of spending has since increased dramatically, to about $1.3 billion just for the first two and a half months of this year. At that rate, it could burn through the entire $5 billion appropriation as early as 2012.

Where is the money going?  According to the new report, the biggest single recipient of an early-retiree bailout is the United Auto Workers, which has so far received $206,798,086.  Other big recipients include AT&T, which received $140,022,949, and Verizon, which received $91,702,538.  General Electric, in the news recently for not paying any U.S. taxes last year, received $36,607,818.  General Motors, recipient of a massive government bailout, received $19,002,669.

The program also paid large sums of money to state governments.  The Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio received $70,557,764; the Teacher Retirement System of Texas received $68,074,118; the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, received $57,834,267; the Georgia Department of Community Health received $57,936,127; and the state of New York received $47,869,044.  Other states received lesser but still substantial sums.

But payments to individual states were dwarfed by the payout to the auto workers union, which received more than the states of New York, California, and Texas combined.  Other unions also received government funds, including the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Mine Workers, and the Teamsters.

And Unions make the the majority of people getting the over 1,000 waivers from ObamaCare.

The UAW, which ended up with a majority share of Chrysler (and much of GM) stock after it went bankrupt – they were paid before bond and shareholders – made out like bandits but The Democrats felt the need to pork them anyhow.

But don’t worry, there’s nothing corrupt going on, that dead fish smell is just your imagination. 😦

Republican investigators count the early-retiree program among those that would never have become law had Democrats allowed more scrutiny of Obamacare at the time it was pushed through the House and Senate.  Since then, Republicans have kept an eye on the program but were not able to pry any information out of the administration until after the GOP won control of the House last November.  Now, finally, they are learning what’s going on.

It comes back to the question: If this law was so fantastic, why all the waivers, cons,pork, and Machiavellian maneuvers to avoid it for your political apparatchiks??

Hmm…. Maybe they they knew that Obamacare, the epitome of socialism, and the redistribution of wealth, does not and cannot work.  It never has and it never will.  This is why they cheat the system.

But since they already have a sense of “entitlement” to everyone else’s money and craving for power that is insatiable I suppose we should expect nothing less.

Now that’s “Winning the Future”. 🙂

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”–George Orwell