Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Tuesday's News Load


The Obamacare Train Wreck

Obamacare ‘navigator’ in Kansas has outstanding arrest warrant
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/14/obamacare-navigator-in-kansas-has-outstanding-arrest-warrant/
Excerpt: A woman with an outstanding warrant for her arrest is currently serving as an Obamacare “navigator” in Lawrence, Kansas. Rosilyn Wells — the Director of Outreach and Enrollment for the Heartland Community Health-care Center (HCHC) – is “the only full-time Affordable Care Act navigator in Lawrence,” according to the Lawrence Journal-World. (Now don't go all Teabagger on me--just give her your SS and credit card numbers, You'll be fine. ~Bob)

New Survey Shows Manufacturers Struggling Under the Affordable Care Act
Excerpt: More than 77 percent of manufacturers identified rising health care and insurance costs as their most important challenge. More than 90 percent of manufacturers stated their health insurance premiums had increased, and a significant portion have had to increase employee copays (58.6 percent), reduce coverage (27.7 percent) and/or change insurance providers (17.6 percent) to lower their costs. According to the survey, the ACA and the accompanying uncertainties have had effects that extend well beyond premium payments and have placed a roadblock in manufacturers’ efforts to invest and grow. 

On Health Exchanges, Premiums May Be Low, but Other Costs Can Be High
Excerpt: A study by Jon R. Gabel and colleagues at NORC, a research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago, found that 65 percent of employees in group health plans had higher-value coverage that would be classified as gold or platinum under the Affordable Care Act. At the same time, most policies in the exchanges are more generous than what people have been buying for themselves in the individual insurance market. Mr. Gabel found that 84 percent of policyholders in the individual market had coverage that was less than or equivalent to the bronze level.

They think gun-free zones make people safer. Now they're working on doctor-free zones to make patients healthier. #ObamacareFail

In the Trenches With the ObamaCare Army: One group of navigators planned to sign up 5,800 people by March. So far: zero. By Eliana Johnson
Excerpt: Mr. Myint is prohibited from steering her toward one plan or another, and Ms. Munier, saying it's all too confusing, wants more time to look over her options. For today, she doesn't enroll on the exchange. It's a familiar experience for Mr. Myint. After starting Oct. 1, when the exchanges went live, his organization was aiming to sign up 5,800 people by the end of March 2014. It has a long way to go. "We have yet to see an application from start to finish," he says.

Obamacare: A Bad Deal for Young Adults
Excerpt: But despite the arguments made by the Administration, young adults don’t seem to be buying in. A new Harvard poll shows that 57 percent of young adults polled disapprove of the health care law. And with good reason: The law will impact young adults’ wallets far more negatively than older adults in two big ways.

Excerpt: As HealthCare.gov, the federal insurance exchange being used in 36 states, continues to face problems, things aren’t going as smoothly as we think in the states running their own marketplaces. First, the state of Massachusetts is starting to worry about its system. The Boston Globe reports: With three weeks left in the year, not one of the thousands of Massachusetts residents who need to enroll in new health insurance plans by Jan. 1 has been able to do so through the state insurance marketplace that was revamped to comply with the national Affordable Care Act.

I'm a cancer survivor who thinks #ObamacareSucks. I want to keep my ins, my doctor, & my hospital.

Excerpt: Maybe an even bigger wreck is the ultimate answer. The Obama administration can’t even back the “pass it to find out what’s in it” mini-van out of its parking spot without running people over, but in spite of that, Colin Powell thinks it’s time they took the wheel of a double-decker health care bus.

Excerpt: How do you get your arms around the catastrophe known as Obamacare? Is it even possible? At this point, I’m not sure it is. The list of individual disasters which threaten to ruin one-sixth of the U.S. economy and what has been, up until now, the best healthcare system in the world is exhaustive, and exhausting. The examples I will identify here barely scratch the surface. (Could this writer be correct, they just CAN'T be this stupid and incompetent? If we believe that, then we have to figure out what the real game is. Some say it's to make the system collapse so we have to go to the full boat government controlled "single payer" system. Personally, I still have faith that yes, when you are arrogant and ignorant enough, you can be this happily stupid and merrily incompetent. And barely upset that things are going so badly and all the late night comics are spitting out jokes about you night after night. All it requires is that you live in a nice, insulated dream world, surrounded by sycophants and still generally treated well by the media. I wonder.... who could that describe? --Del)

The rest of the news

Great documentary on the Marines
Decent length and detailing, overall a really good job. S/F --Del

How Presidents Lie: It’s nothing new for a president to lie to us, but Obama’s style is unique. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: In the past there have been all sorts of presidential fibbing. Some chief executives make promises that they know they probably cannot or will not keep. Before his reelection for his third term in the midst of a world war, Franklin Roosevelt swore that he would never send American boys to fight in a foreign war. In just a little over a year, he did just that. Lyndon Johnson likewise before the 1964 election said he would not send troops to Vietnam. But once reelected, he sent nearly 200,000 troops to fight the North Vietnamese; by the time he left office, over a half-million Americans were deployed in Vietnam.

Schools safe as ever despite spate of shootings, scares
Excerpt: It'd be easy to conclude that school has never been a more dangerous place, but for the USA's 55 million K-12 students and 3.7 million teachers, statistics tell another story: Despite two decades of high-profile shootings, school increasingly has become a safer place. ... Since 1992, the rate of "victimization," which includes violent crimes such as assault and rape as well as non-violent crimes such as robbery, purse-snatching and pickpocketing, has plummeted, from 181.5 incidents per 1,000 students to 49.2 per 1,000 in 2011, the latest complete year for which statistics are available. (Gee, what will the left do if it continues to drop? ~Bob)

Excerpt: The death of Nelson Mandela this week caused me to reflect on a man who encapsulated the very essence of freedom. Flawed for his initial use of violence and embrace of communism, Mandela metamorphosed into a healer of the quite disgusting apartheid rule in South Africa. We should also not forget the hand bagging that Baroness Thatcher gave PW Botha, and gentle persuasion of the very decent FW De Klerk, in her attempts to help end apartheid. Mandela said in July 1990 “She is an enemy of apartheid… We have much to thank her for.”

Increasing Class Sizes Can Actually Improve Student Learning
Excerpt: Increasing class sizes by reallocating students to the best teachers can improve student learning, says Michael Hansen, senior researcher at the American Institutes for Research.
Hansen identified three problems in public schooling: The best teachers are not paid enough. Not enough children benefit from good teachers. Too many children have poor teachers. One policy change, he wrote, could solve all three of the problems -- without requiring additional funds from taxpayers: enlarging the classes taught by the best teachers (and increasing their compensation). (But you'd have to get rid of the poor teachers, and the unions and their liberal allies would go nuts. ~Bob)

What Are the 15 Worst Fast Food Items?

Nelson Mandela in his own words
Excerpt: I noticed over the weekend that lists of quotes from Nelson Mandela had gone viral on the Internet. None of the lists I saw included any of these – which say more about the man and the myth than you could have learned by reading all the reports in the international establishment press. (does not give sources. I approach WND with skepticism. They always spin and I think over reach, but doesn't mean they are always wrong. ~Bob)

Nelson Mandela: Israel Is Terrorist and Islamic Arabs Are Innocent By Julio Severo
Excerpt: If you believe the leftist Christian press, Nelson Mandela was… a Christian! Sheer indoctrination by the mainstream secular media? No doubt. The secular press has portrayed Mandela as a hero.

Nelson Mandela and Ronald Reagan. By Arnold Steinberg 
Excerpt: With the death of Nelson Mandela, the mythology continues that, under Ronald Reagan, the 1980s was the lost decade in dealing with South Africa. It’s the same old line — Reagan was insensitive to AIDS because he wasn’t gay. He was insensitive to racism because he wasn’t black. And he was not involved in policy, because he wasn’t very deep. All of that is just not true.

Western leaders wearing Winnie’s Necklace to Mandela Memorial
Excerpt: …Time and the politically correct era can never wash away the Crime of Humanity foisted on the blacks of South Africa when Communist African National Congress (ANC) ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘liberators’ sent hundreds to their death via the burning tire necklace. The crime of the so many black brothers and sisters chosen for Death by Necklace? Suspicion of being “too friendly to whites”.
Excerpt: There is a quiet anger boiling in America. It is the anger of millions of hard-working citizens who pay their bills, send in their income taxes, maintain their homes and repay their mortgage loans -- and see their government reward those who do not. It is the anger of small town and Middle American folks who have never been to Manhattan, who put their savings in a community bank and borrow from a local credit union, who watch Washington lawmakers and presidents of both parties hand billions in taxpayer bailouts to the reckless Wall Street titans who brought down the economy in 2008. (Alas, I've heard this before. ~Bob)

Arlington National Cemetery Falling Short On Wreath Donations
Excerpt: Volunteers are planning to lay the wreaths on December 14, but Hanson said there's still time to donate and there will be empty trucks waiting for last-minute donations, right up until the day before. (Doesn't hurt to get the word out to as many people as possible. --MasterGuns)

60% Think U.S. Not Aggressive Enough In Deporting Illegal Immigrants
Excerpt: More than 20 House Democrats last week urged President Obama to halt the deportation of illegal immigrants until Congress passes a comprehensive immigration reform plan, but voters by a two-to-one margin oppose that idea. Most already think the federal government is not vigilant enough in deporting those who are in this country illegally. (Not PC to say "illegal immigrants." PC is "future Democrats." ~Bob)

Two dozen arrests not a problem for Illinois prison official
Excerpt: Xadrian R. McCraven has a criminal history that includes “at least” 24 arrests on charges including arson, illegal gun possession, attempted robbery, drug possession and aggravated assault, according to federal court records. He’s also an Illinois state prison official. (They advertised for someone familiar with the prison system. it's the Chicago Way. ~Bob)

Crony Capitalism By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Excerpt: Ironically, the two sides agree in their denunciation of crony capitalism, but
what they usually mean is that they're opposed to the other guy's crony capitalism. Obama voted for TARP and then exploited its discontent, shrugged at the taxpayers getting stuck for the bill of Solyndra and other green energy boondoggles, then did his part to help walking conflict of interest Terry McAuliffe become governor of Virginia. The flip side of the coin too many Republicans are all too comfortable with their own versions of crony capitalism -- loans and loan guarantees subsidizing U.S. exportersstate economic development boards, and Bob McDonnell's cozy financial arrangements with donors, among other examples. While crony capitalism isn't really a driving force behind our national sense of diminishing economic opportunities, it certainly doesn't help anyone except the cronies, and enhances the sense that wealth is built through cheating and secret deals, not hard work or innovation. (Notice that this expression of economic discontent is so generic that everybody's got a grievance, and nobody thinks they're the beneficiaries. 

France begins to disarm Central African Republic militias
Excerpt: French soldiers have started to remove weapons from fighters in the Central African Republic (CAR). There was a brief exchange of gunfire between armed men and French soldiers near the airport in the capital, Bangui, as the disarmament began. (The French are helping rid the Central African Republic of MUSLIM fighters (Selek rebels). In the past, France had helped a Muslim regime in Africa hold power against a Christian candidates. This is a welcome change. Is Europe going it alone now that it is clear that Obama supports Muslim terrorists? Charles Martel, the 'Hammer,' who swept the Moors out of Europe, was French. Perhaps history is repeating itself. --Don Hank)

The UK Confronts Islamism. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: A century ago the murder of a British soldier in broad daylight in London would have been an act of war. In this post-imperial and post-everything age, an atrocity leads to a task force which produces a report which is then filed in a desk drawer by the undersecretary for something or other.

Excerpt: McDonald's Europe has now converted 7,000 of their franchises into "service kiosks". Like many American youth, European kids have found working at McDonalds beneath them. Accordingly, McDonalds has cut their franchise work force in half simply by employing "dumb terminals" in place of "dumb juveniles". Customers no longer have to wait for a teen counter worker to cease picking his nose or one involved in a fit of giggles with a fellow teen. They simply walk up to the order terminal, push the same buttons found on the McDonalds register and send their order to the kitchen.

Christmas Books. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: One gift for which that is unnecessary is a book. Books are ideal Christmas presents from the standpoint of saving wear and tear on the buyer. ... One of these latter kinds of books is the recently published "Why We Won't Talk Honestly About Race" by Harry Stein. It is a bracing dose of truth, on a subject where sugarcoated lies have become the norm. (Any book by Dr. Sowell is a great gift. ~Bob)

Government sells last of its GM shares
Excerpt: The taxpayer loss on the GM bailout is $10.5 billion. The Treasury department said it recovered $39 billion from selling its GM stake, and had put $49.5 billion of taxpayer money directly into the GM bailout. (Bought a lot of union votes. ~Bob)

Executive-Order Overkill: With increasing frequency, the president treats the legislative branch as an unnecessary hindrance.
Excerpt: President Obama’s progressive base has been growing impatient. Representative democracy has proved an inefficient vehicle through which to enact leftists’ desired agenda; as a result, they are increasingly demanding that their chief executive act as if the legislative branch did not exist. Last week, the chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Representatives Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), wrote a letter urging Obama to sign an executive order raising the minimum wage for workers employed under federal contracts. 

Hospital made patient wait in an ambulance for SIX HOURS because doctors were too busy to see him as scale of A&E crisis is revealed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520604/Welsh-hospital-patient-wait-ambulance-6-HOURS.html#ixzz2n35s7VFJ 
Excerpt: Patients are having to wait longer than six hours in ambulances parked outside A&E departments. Last week alone nearly 4,500 patients were kept in the vehicles for at least half an hour because staff were too busy to look after them. Figures obtained by BBC News under the Freedom of Information Act covered the three months until the end of October, and revealed that a patient in Wales was forced to wait six hours and 22 minutes, while another in East England was held for five hours and 51 minutes. (Hope they didn’t have a ruptured aorta…Barb. The single-payer system liberal want for you. ~Bob)

Nine in ten doctors are untrained in using a drip: Thousands of patients at risk because of lack of basic knowledge
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521093/Nine-doctors-untrained-using-drip.html#ixzz2n351XOyo 
Excerpt: Tens of thousands of hospital patients each year are harmed by basic blunders in the use of drips, warn experts. An unknown number are killed by such errors, which can lead to pneumonia, heart failure and kidney damage. As many as one in five patients suffer because they get too little fluid from intravenous (IV) drips - or too much, according to estimates from an expert group at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

Food prices to rise faster than salaries until 2018: Fresh produce could become a rare treat for poorer families
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521041/Food-prices-rise-faster-salaries-2018-Fresh-produce-rare-treat-poorer-families.html#ixzz2n34e1FfE
excerpt: Food prices are predicted to rise faster than incomes every year until 2018, with meat and fresh fruit and vegetables becoming only an occasional treat for some. The cost of putting food on the table is forecast to rise by 3.8 per cent next year and still further in 2015, according to industry experts. They also say the cost of eating out in restaurants and pubs has increased by seven per cent in the past six months.

Veteran dies after dementia patient attacks him with a bottle on NHS ward: Distraught family brand his death 'a national disgrace'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521062/Veteran-dies-dementia-patient-attacks-bottle-NHS-ward.html#ixzz2n343VDHK
Excerpt: The distraught family of a war veteran who died after being beaten by a dementia patient on an NHS hospital ward last night branded his death a ‘national disgrace’. Nurses found Richard Bowman in a pool of blood in the foetal position in bed with massive head, leg and arm injuries. Despite emergency surgery the 86-year-old died 12 days later.

More than 500 of the world's most famous writers sign petition calling for end to 'mass surveillance' of NSA spying program
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2521155/More-500-worlds-famous-writers-sign-petition-calling-end-mass-surveillance-NSA-spying-program.html#ixzz2n326d9ce
Excerpt: The appeal - A Stand For Democracy In The Digital Age - is against all widespread ‘mass surveillance’ by governments and corporations and comes hot on the heels of eight of the world’s largest technology companies, including Facebook and Google, urging Barack Obama and other leaders to rein in internet surveillance. The NSA surveillance is a systematic abuse of power, claim the writers, and an attack on ‘a basic pillar of democracy... the inviolable integrity of the individual’.

Hurricane Strength Storm Xaver Slams UK, Northern Europe: AIR Analysis

Excerpt: A report from catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide notes that Winter Storm Xaver hit the north of Scotland last night, Thursday the 5th of December, with wind gusts of more than 140 mph (225 km/h), recorded in the Scottish Highlands…..Across the northern UK there have been gusts of between 60 and 80 mph (96 and 128 km/h), with 100 mph (160 km/h) gusts recorded in mountain areas. …According to AIR, the flood gates protecting Rotterdam have closed for the first time since they were built in the 1990s, and the Oosterscheldekering in southwest Netherlands is closed for the first time since 2007. 

Op-Ed: Obama's America, Going the Way of Rome
Excerpt: Barack Obama is a creature of relativism, even though, without logical consistency, this “post-American” president exalts Islam. The longest chapter in Machiavelli's "Prince" is devoted to conspiracy. No conspiracy—if it may be called that—is more significant than the one enfolding in the United States under its “post-American” president, Barack Hussein Obama.

Warren Buffett: During The Financial Crisis, George W. Bush Made The Greatest Economic Statement Of All Time. By Joe Weisenthal
http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-george-w-bush-2013-12#ixzz2n6rmt8vV
Excerpt: George Bush said, “If money doesn’t loosen up, this sucker will go down” – I believe this was the greatest economic statement of all time. This is why he backed up Paulson and Bernanke. Companies were counting on the commercial paper market. In September 2008, we came right to the abyss.



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