Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Hump-day's Heaping Helping

Fourth of July
Must Watch! ~Bob

Must Read: You Also Can't Keep Your Doctor: I had great cancer doctors and health insurance. My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I'll live. By Edie Littlefield Sundby
Excerpt: My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31. My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.

Excerpt: Consider the editorial in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. If you are inclined to believe Barack Obama’s claim that people losing their insurance are giving up skimpy coverage for much better benefits, read the editorial again, and again, and again. ... Here is my prediction: the kind of coverage this woman had will never again be seen in the individual market in this country.

Medicare Chief Marilyn Tavenner testifies before Senate on HealthCare.gov troubles
Excerpt: An administration official overseeing the federal online health insurance marketplace encouraged Americans to log on to the Web site despite its well-publicized technical problems and try to shop for coverage. Testifying Tuesday on Capitol Hill, Marilyn Tavenner said her agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), plans to release information next week about who enrolled through the state and federal exchanges. She said the target for the end of November is 800,000 enrollments.

HHS: Expect outages at HealthCare.gov
Excerpt: Federal health officials said that consumers can expect further outages at ObamaCare's troubled enrollment portal as the site undergoes repairs in the next four weeks. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) downplayed the site's semi-regular breakdowns, widely interpreted as a sign of the deep technical problems facing repair teams. 

The Chicago Way: The Connected Company behind Healthcare.gov. Democratic powerbrokers lobbied for QSSI’s big award. By Jillian Kay Melchior
Excerpt: Quality Software Services Inc., the company that built the data hub for Healthcare.gov, won its huge contract after its parent, UnitedHealth Group, enlisted two so-called super-lobbyists. These men are Democratic power-brokers: They have raised significant amounts of funds for Democratic causes and campaigns, and they maintain lots of friends in high places.

The Next Big Obamacare Scandal. By Joseph Klein 
Excerpt: President Barack Obama is doubling down on his Obamacare lies. He is now trying to erase retroactively his point-blank assurance to the American people that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.” Drawing on his golfing experience, he is insisting on a mulligan as millions of Americans are losing the health insurance policies they have chosen because of Obamacare mandates.

The White House Fable Factory. By Michelle Malkin 
Excerpt: Now that true horror stories of Obamacare’s wrecking ball are finally reaching the public, the White House doesn’t like “anecdotes.” Live by tale-telling; die by tale-telling.

ObamaCare Cancelled Your Health Insurance. Now, Send Us Your Letter.

Bill Maher shuts down Wasserman Schultz: ‘Come on. . . that is a lie’
Excerpt: “It was a bad week for the president, let’s be honest here,” Maher said on HBO’s “Real Time Friday. “We’re not like them, we don’t live in the bubble. It was a bad week. It looks like he [the president] told a lie. I think he kinda did,” he said before throwing out his question. “Is a lie justified if it’s for something good?” he asked. “And if he hadn’t told that lie, could Obamacare have been passed?”

Excerpt: Six days ago, a North Carolina man named Justin Hadley logged on to HealthCare.gov to evaluate his insurance options after his current provider canceled his plan -- one of an estimated 16 million Americans who could face such a predicament thanks to Obamacare. Once on the website, Hadley discovered a security breach that exposed the personal information of a total stranger. That man, Tom Dougall of South Carolina, had visited the problem-plagued website in early October to shop for insurance. Even though he opted not to sign up, Hadley was presented with Dougall's private eligibility letter.

Strategic Move Exempts Health Law From Broader U.S. Statute
Excerpt: The Affordable Care Act is the biggest new health care program in decades, but the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are “federal health care programs.” The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.

President Obama's ACA message evolves again. By Reid J. Epstein, Politico
Excerpt: For years since the Affordable Care Act’s passage, President Barack Obama’s mantra has been that if people like their health insurance plans, they can keep them. That line now includes a significant asterisk.

Our future: Venezuelan health care system collapsing
Excerpt: The Associated Press ran a surprisingly scathing look at the current state of health care in Venezuela, In a word, the whole system, and especially the parts run by the government as part of a 1999 constitutional mandate to provide “free” universal health care, is collapsing:

Top Hospitals Opt Out of Obamacare
Excerpt: The Obama Administration has been claiming that insurance companies will be competing for your dollars under the Affordable Care Act, but apparently they haven't surveyed the nation's top hospitals. Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare.

If websites' the ONLY thing wrong with Obamacare, then the only thing wrong with selling BAD-FOOD is a delivery truck that's too small!

Barack Obama says that what he'd said was you could keep your plan 'if it hasn’t changed since the law passed'
Even leftist apologist PolitiFact calls it a lie. ~Bob. Excerpt: According to Obama, "What we said was you can keep (your plan) if it hasn’t changed since the law passed." But we found at least 37 times since Obama’s inauguration where he or a top administration official made a variation of the pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it, and we never found an instance in which he offered the caveat that it only applies to plans that hadn’t changed after the law’s passage. And seven of those 37 cases came after the release of the HHS regulations that defined the "grandfathering" process, when the impact would be clear. ... Obama is ignoring the overwhelming majority of times he addressed the issue, where most people would have heard it. We rate his claim Pants on Fire.

They fixed the website!

Excerpt: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional panel on Wednesday that it was “possible” for an ObamaCare navigator to have been convicted of a felony….“Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for a navigator to undergo a criminal background check, even though they will receive sensitive personal information for people they help sign up for the Affordable Care Act?” “That is true,” Sebelius responded. (Gotta support the Obama base. ~Bob)

Obamacare Definition going around the net
Remember when Nancy Pelosi said about Obamacare: “We have to pass it, to find out what’s in it.” A physician called into the radio show and said: "That's the definition of a stool sample." That pretty well sums up Obamacare.

Winners and losers from Election Night 2013. By Chris Cillizza
Excerpt: The election is over. But the spin over what it all means and the sifting of election data have only just begun!

Suspected Bomb Blasts Hit Northern Chinese City
Excerpt: Around half a dozen small “suspected homemade bombs” detonated near a Communist Party office in the coal-dusted Chinese city of Taiyuan early on Wednesday, Nov. 6, according to state newswire Xinhua. The official news agency said that one person had been killed and eight others injured, one seriously. (Muslims attacking Communists. Pass the popcorn. ~Bob)

The Rise and Fall of New York. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Twenty years ago, New York’s long nightmare ended with a Giuliani victory over Mayor Dinkins. Now the nightmare returns as former Dinkins staffer and terrorist supporter Bill de Blasio will begin wrecking the city where Dinkins and his Democratic predecessors left off. (We better start now: "No bailout for NY!" ~Bob)

The Big Apple's Turn Left. By Jonah Goldberg
Excerpt: But if De Blasio's remarkable rise proves anything, it's that the rules can change. A liberal's crazy liberal, De Blasio still waxes nostalgic about the noble struggle of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, for whom he raised money in the 1980s. He violated the ban on travel to Cuba for his honeymoon with his formerly gay wife, and he often talks as if he's handing out literature in Union Square for the former left-wing New Party, for which he used to work. For conservative pundits, he's the Austin Powers of pre-Rudolph Giuliani urban liberalism, a near perfect throwback thawed out for our amusement. Social justice is his bag, baby.

John Kerry and Saudi Women Driving. By Jamie Glazov 
Excerpt: For the Left, all cultures are equal, but some cultures are more equal than others. For instance, in the world of the Left, the West never has a right to say what is right or wrong — when dealing with an adversary culture and regime, that is. If it’s Israel, you can start shooting right away.


Excerpt: AFTER overwhelmingly agreeing by a show of hands that they were “normal” Sunni Muslims and not radicals or extremists, delegates to a “peace conference” in Norway earlier this year indicated their full support for the death penalty for adulterers and gays. This vote, says the Chairman of a Norwegian organisation Islam Net, Fahad Ullah Qureshi, is indicative of the fact that ALL Muslims hold the view that the Koran is correct when it prescribes stoning, not just radical preachers.

South Africa: Where Corruption, Rape and Murder Are Normal
http://girlsjustwannahaveguns.com/2013/11/south-africa-corruption-rape-murder-normal/
Excerpt: “Not long ago, I thought I was going to get raped and murdered by the police.” What? She was on her way home to her acreage in a farming community outside Johannesburg when she approached a four-way stop. “This intersection is known for carjackings,” she said. “No one stops. You just slow down enough to make sure you are not going to hit anyone, and keep going. “You know what happens to people who get carjacked?” she asked.

Excerpt: For all the disagreements I had with Clinton, Carter and Bush there were always limits… there was that line you just didn’t cross… We cross it seemingly every day. We’re lost in the scandals…The Jamie Dimon shakedown at Chase… the HHS scandal.. Kathleen Sebelius shaking down the health care industry for money… the IRS… it’s to the point where these scandals in and of themselves would be huge back-breaking scandals [but] are just lost in the scandal fog of this administration…

Racial justice at the Justice Department? Not on this watch. By Colin Flaherty 
Excerpt: It would be so easy for Attorney General Holder to make the ornery Christian Adams eat crow. Instead, Holder seems determined to prove him right.
Adams is the former Justice Department lawyer who told Congress that his colleagues treated cases of racial bias against white people with “open contempt.”

Surprising support for the NRA

VOTER FRAUD (Virtual State of the Union 2013)

Pentagon’s Must-Read News Compilation Fades Away
Excerpt: The Defense Department’s Early Bird news service — which drove debates at the Pentagon, and its senior leaders to frustration, with its compilation of articles on military operations, budget politics and weapons programs — was declared dead on Friday.

Routine traffic stop results in nightmare 14-hour anal cavity search at hospital for male driver who 'failed to halt at stop sign'
Excerpt: A New Mexico man stopped for rolling through a stop sign earlier this year was subjected to a nightmarish 14-hour anal cavity search after police became suspicious that he was hiding drugs. David Eckert says he was subjected to three enemas, two rectal searches, two x-rays and even a colonoscopy - all in pursuit of non-existent narcotics. (OK, I am a Law & Order guy, generally very supportive of law enforcement. This story makes me hope that a jury bankrupts the city of Deming and maybe the officers and doctors personally as well. It doesn't get any crazier than this. When you read the sequence of events, what you are seeing is the cops getting progressively more anxious to prove this man must have drugs. When the simple check doesn't reveal any, you go up a step to the X-ray. When that doesn't show anything (which should have been enough for them to back off right then), you go to repeated enemas. Even though by that time you should know you are really wrong and really doing the wrong thing, then you just keep going all the way into the colonoscopy. That's idiocy in action, and it should be recognized and appropriately rewarded. I can't imagine the utter, total, prolonged humiliation that the man went through. I can only hope he becomes independently wealthy out of this, and has the satisfaction of getting multiple humbling apologies from the mayor down to the nurses in the OR. --Del)

Excerpt: Of all the miracles our creator gifted us it is love that is the most wondrous. Love is like spun gold that mutually binds us to the hearts of our loved ones. A single strand has no value, but collectively, their value is beyond measure. And how precious and how gracious do these golden threads tie us together without ever strangling us, allowing our hearts to soar to great heights, limited only by our own hopes and dreams. Think of a tiny and fragile bird. Once God immortalizes them with the yet unborn, with the first stirrings of the embryo, the mother bird will fly about selecting and collecting a single bit of straw to build a nest. They will toil all of their daylight hours building a strong nest for the birth and nurturing of their coming young. When finally completed they will have built a nest, a warm sanctuary for the blossoming of the new life. And all the while both parent and young will have weaved a wondrous strand of gold, of love, around each of their tiny hearts.

Good Column: Congressionally Duped Americans. By Walter E. Williams 
Excerpt: Last week's column, “Is There a Way Out?”, generated quite a few responses, some a bit angry. Some people were offended by my reference to Social Security and Medicare as entitlements or handouts. They said that they worked for 45 years and paid into Social Security and Medicare and how dare I refer to the money they now receive as an entitlement. These people have been duped by Congress and shouldn't be held totally accountable for such a belief. Let's examine the plethora of congressional Social Security lies.

Fracking poses 'low' risk to public health, says UK government
Excerpt: More bad news for anti-fracking activists. Experts at Public Health England are seeking public comment on a draft report that shows a “low” risk of adverse health problems due to the extraction of shale gas - natural gas found within shale formations.

Pictured with the man who shot him dead moments later: RAF policeman grins alongside rogue Afghan policeman who opened fire on him and comrade
Excerpt: An unwitting British soldier who posed for a photograph with a rogue Afghan policeman was shot dead by him seconds later. Corporal Brent McCarthy, 25, is pictured with a member of the Afghan Uniformed Police just moments before the shooting.

Islamic University Dean Supports Stoning
Excerpt: The rector of the Islamic University of Rotterdam (IUR) values stoning as an appropriate punishment, NRC Handelsblad newspaper reported Thursday. The Lower House is demanding clarification from Integration Minister Lodewijk Asscher. The rector, Ahmet Akgündüz, has written a pamphlet on the demonstrations this summer in Turkey. He calls opponents of Turkish Premier Erdogan “enemies of Islam.” The demonstrations were the work of “people with a Western lifestyle.” In addition, he is said to characterise stoning as “one of the prescribed punishments within Islam.”

Syria: Bodies of massacred Christians found in mass grave
Excerpt: The bodies of 30 Christian civilians, including women and children, killed by Islamist militias, have been found in two separate mass graves, in the city of Sadad. The number of Christian civilians confirmed dead in this small town halfway between Homs and Damascus has reached 45. Many are injured and several are missing.

The GPU Festival should make all progressives uncomfortable. So why are our MPs sharing its platform?
Excerpt: al-Razi works for the Council of Ex-Muslims. Imagine that in the year 2013 a conference in London featured speakers that had in the past said that a certain group of people deserve to be killed. Imagine that other speakers had proudly stated their supremacist, extremist and bigoted views that were entirely at odds with every value of a liberal secular society which aspires to equality and seeks to overcome prejudice and hatefulness.

Black Tea Party Group Pushes Grayson Sponsors To Cut Support
Excerpt: Fighting back against the crude stereotype of Tea Partiers drawn by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), a black Tea Party group based in South Central Los Angeles has launched a campaign against Grayson’s corporate sponsors. The South Central Los Angeles Tea Party called on donors to Grayson on Monday to cut support after Grayson compared the Tea Party to the Ku Klux Klan in a mailer.

Impeachment Gaining Attention In Congress

Excerpt: Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, recently handed out copies of a book that has been described by its authors as the “articles of impeachment” for Barack Obama, and suggested that special investigations, and possibly prosecutions, are needed over Fast and Furious, Benghazi and other Obama scandals. But Stockman is not the only member of Congress to discuss impeachment in response to the actions of Obama and his administration. A total of 15 members have discussed this idea recently. (Article notes per Sen. Cruz, “…Have to have the votes in the Senate.” (They will never have the votes in the senate, as impeachment would create riots. A failed effort would help Obama as it did Clinton. ~Bob)

Environmental Scientist Steward: EPA Ruling May Kill Coal Business
A controversial Supreme Court decision on the EPA regulation of greenhouse gases could help kill the coal business, says scientist Leighton Steward, chairman of the non-profit environmental group Plants Need C02.

Shades of Solyndra: Team Obama mum as another green energy firm went bust
Excerpt: Failing to heed the lessons of the Solyndra debacle, Energy Department officials kept quiet about their knowledge that a government-backed electric car charger company was sliding toward bankruptcy and putting taxpayer money at risk, the agency’s chief watchdog has found. Inspector General Greg Friedman admonished department officials for failing to disclose during an audit this summer what they knew about San Francisco-based Ecotality’s financials troubles and the possibility that the firm might not meet the terms of its taxpayer funding. The company received $100 million in aid from the 2009 stimulus.

Health Staffs Get Flu Shots to Avoid Penalty
Excerpt: For the first time this year, hospitals are being asked to report health-care personnel vaccination rates to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And under a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quality-reporting program, those that don't comply face penalties that could reduce their payments starting next fall.

Personal Preparation for Grid Ex II

Excerpt: Isn’t it interesting that the TV series,Revolution, has so accurately depicted the bedlam that would follow a catastrophic loss of power. The biggest threats to survival will be a lack of food and water, roving gangsters in search of resources, disease resulting from a lack of sanitation, trying to escape the war zones of America’s inner cities, having enough life-saving medication, surviving disease resulting from a lack of sanitation and on and on and on. (”Revolution” on NBC, the Regime mouthpiece. --Barb. I'm on oxygen, meds an not mobile--I'd die. ~Bob)

Iowa utilities joining drill simulating knockout blow to nation’s power grid
Excerpt: Officials with MidAmerican Energy and Alliant Energy confirmed to the Des Moines Register they will be involved in GridEx II on Nov. 12 and 13. …The scenario calls for a “prolonged blackout,” that will highlight timely vulnerabilities and issues facing the electrical utility industry. The exercise will reportedly involve thousands of utility workers, business executives, anti-terrorism experts and government officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico

Obama-tied firm won plum $100K ‘Let’s Move’ logo gig, bid-free
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/6/obama-tied-firm-won-plum-100k-lets-move-logo-gig/#ixzz2jtgKdeYz
Excerpt: A marketing firm with close ties to President Obama and his political campaigns was given the lucrative job of designing Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” anti-obesity logo without having to go through the government contract bidding route. Judicial Watch reported the firm, Shepardson, Stern & Kaminsky, was awarded the $100,000 job, in violation of federal contracting rules. (Per article, FLOTUS’ pet project “too important” to delay to observe law and competitive bidding. -Barb)

The media’s Hillary bandwagon loses a wheel
Excerpt: Now comes liberal New York Times columnist Frank Bruni to say that, gadzooks, she’s slipping in the polls. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that Clinton’s favorability rating had slipped from 56 to 46 percent, while her unfavorable rose from 29 to 33 percent. 

7 first-class passengers give up seats to Marines returning from Afghanistan
Excerpt: Fourteen Marines on their way home from serving in Afghanistan were upgraded to first class on their flight from Chicago to San Diego. The Marines learned that American Airlines - which has a policy to upgrade servicemen and women in uniform whenever possible - had six empty seats in first class for the group. That gesture was followed by seven first-class passengers who jumped out of their seats for the other Marines so they could sit together.

Broke, Fed-Up Detroit Elects 'Turnaround Expert' Mayor. Tough fight ahead for Mike Duggan. By Rob Quinn

Excerpt: "What we have in common is much more powerful than what divides us," Mike Duggan said last night after being elected as Detroit's new mayor. Duggan—a former hospital chief who will be the predominately black city's first white mayor in 40 years—beat Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon to take charge of a broke city suffering from high rates of crime and unemployment, as well as poor public services, USA Today reports. The city is $18 billion in debt and awaiting the outcome of a historic bankruptcy filing. (First White mayor in 40 years, elected as a "Fix It" guy. Amazing, but it shows people can get so fed up that they start really thinking about how to vote instead of doing the automatic vote thing. Good for them, and best wishes/good luck to the new Mayor. --Del)

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