Monday, December 23, 2013

"Enemy on island, issue in doubt." The lung call came.

Extra credit if you can ID the quote without Google.

The VA called and they think they have a lung for me, so we are headed to the UW Hospital. If it's a false alarm, I'll update you in a couple of days. (Some folks get called in a couple of times and the lung turns out to be bad.)  If the transplant happens, Bonnie will update my blog when she can.

Note that I cannot have flowers or food, so you can get credit for planning to send them, without the expense. And I sold my Hallmark stock, so no need for cards either. Plus I doubt they will let you visit me, due to infection risk. So good thoughts and prayers from believers are about all you can do.

Please do not reply or send me email until you hear from me, as I'll be tied up and will not see them.

Thanks for all your friendship, support, prayers and love--they mean a lot. If things go south, well, as the Good Book says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Land the landing force! ~Bob


Sunday, December 22, 2013

Sunday's News--the Train Wreck Gose On

My Christmas Poems and Short Story
Included in my book Eddie Grabowski's Gift. http://tinyurl.com/kbnl243

The Obamacare Train Wreck

Must Read: 12 questions the White House press corps could have asked Obama about Obamacare. By Mary Katharine Ham
Excerpt: Let’s start with the newsiest based on giant news that broke just hours before the press conference and move on from there. (But they'd have to be journalists...~Bob)

Heroin Found in Massachusetts Labeled 'Obamacare.' By Heather Ginsberg
Excerpt: Earlier today, Massachusetts State troopers found 1,250 bags of heroin labeled with “Obamacare” during a traffic stop in Hatfield, MA. I guess this isn’t exactly what the White House was looking for when they wanted to increase Obamacare recognition! (Wear Pajamas. Shoot up. Talk about Obamacare. ~Bob)

Excerpt: More people believe the moon landing was a hoax than believe Obamacare will lower healthcare costs, according to a recent survey. In fact, a Public Policy Pollfrom earlier this year that found that Americans are more likely to buy into a number of conspiracy theories and folklore than to believe many of the benefits touted by Obamacare supporters.

Oregon Exchange Robocalls Applicants, Warns Them To Seek Coverage Elsewhere
Excerpt: On Friday, Cover Oregon, the troubled ObamaCare health exchange, began robocalls to applicants, warning them, that if they haven't heard from the exchange by Monday, they should seek health insurance elsewhere. With less than two weeks until the mandated January 1st deadline for individuals to have health insurance, the exchange's late warning may cause gaps in coverage.

ObamaCare may make finding treatment harder for mentally ill
Excerpt: Even in well-served areas, such as Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts, demand is so high practitioners frequently decline to take new patients or private insurance, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. Such shortages are expected to only grow now, as the federal health-care law goes into effect and allows more people to seek help

Good Article: With gift to hospitals, Democrats continue to scrap Obamacare deficit-reduction. By Timothy P. Carney 
Excerpt: You’ve heard of “buy now, pay later.” Obamacare is “buy now, defund later.”
Since Democrats haphazardly pieced together the Affordable Care Act in early 2010 (declaring proudly that the bill would reduce the deficit) the Obama administration and Congress have steadily stripped out the provisions that were supposed to pay for the law’s subsidies to high-risk patients and well-connected industries. (Hard to get upset. Anyone with a brain made of something besides fairy dust knew when it passed that "deficit reduction" was as big an Obamacare lie as "premium reduction," "keep your plan" "keep your doctors" and all the rest of Obama's lies. ~Bob)

Flashback: Paul Krugman Gets Owned on Canadian Healthcare. By Christine Rousselle
Excerpt: This video is old, but is beginning to make the rounds again. In it, economist Paul Krugman attempted to show how amazing the Canadian healthcare system was. As it turns out, actual Canadians are not so fond of it. Enjoy!

Minnesota Mulls Obamacare Deadline Postponement: "Zero Policy Cards Have Been Issued." By Cortney O'Brien
Excerpt: The Obamacare deadline is coming. One state well aware of the date is Minnesota, where computer problems have surfaced since the Oct. 1 launch of its health insurance marketplace MNsure, leaving many frustrated and without insurance. As Guy reported, in the midst of this crisis executive director April Todd-Malmlov did what any overseer would do: She went to Costa Rica.

We Are Not SUBJECTS (and Other Observations About Obamacare.) ByLaura Hollis 
Excerpt: The unveiling of the dictatorial debacle that is Obamacare absolutely flabbergasts me. It is stunning on so many levels, but the most shocking aspect of it for me is watching millions of free Americans stand idly by while this man, his minions in Congress and his cheerleaders in the press systematically dismantle our Constitution, steal our money, and crush our freedoms. The President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (with no small help from Justice John Roberts) take away our health care, and we allow it. They take away our insurance, and we allow it. They take away our doctors, and we allow it. (A great declaration of war on Progressivism. Like the Declaration of Independence, it tells you what has been done wrong, and it tells you why you have to vote against anyone and everyone who is not ready to repeal ObamaCare. Rolling back this focused effort to lessen our freedoms is essential to our future, and the future of our upcoming generations. --Del)

Obamacare outreach hits the clubs. By Natalie Villacorta
Excerpt: For Obamacare outreach, a Zumba class may work better than a gay bar. Washington’s new health insurance exchange dispatched a signup envoy to one of the city’s gay clubs one recent night to get out the word about Obamacare. It envisioned men mingling on the dance floor, a cocktail in one hand and enrollment information in the other. But the brochures about DC Health Link, as the exchange is called, weren’t snapped up as quickly as the free condoms provided by a local clinic.

NY Times' David Brooks Sees Path Of Obamacare's Ultimate Demise
Excerpt: On PBS’s “NewsHour” Friday, New York Times columnist David Brooks explained that the clock is ticking on ObamaCare. He said if it continues to be politically untenable (to) Senate Democrats, the individual mandate will be weakened and ultimately the law will go away. 

And in other news...

Excerpt: Al Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham killed 18 Iraqi Army officers, including a senior general and members of his staff, in a complex suicide attack in the western province of Anbar.

K Street mints money from regs surge. By Megan R. Wilson
Excerpt: Lobbyists are minting money from the surge in government regulations. Top K Street officials say their regulatory work has accelerated in recent years thanks to the sprawling rule-making from the healthcare and financial reform laws. (See Obama has created jobs...for lawyers and lobbyists. ~Bob)

Part of American Free Speech: Offending the Offenders
Excerpt: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton. If this doesn’t offend you, then I’m going to guess you already have a Hillary 2016 sticker on your car.

Having a Servant Is Not a Right. By Ananya Bhattacharyya
Excerpt AT the heart of the fracas surrounding the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York who promised to pay her housekeeper $9.75 per hour, in compliance with United States labor rules, but instead paid her $3.31 per hour, is India’s dirty secret: One segment of the Indian population routinely exploits another, and the country’s labor laws allow gross mistreatment of domestic workers.

Four taken into custody in fatal Short Hills mall carjacking in New Jersey
White victim, black killers, no statement from Obama, Jackson, Holder or Sharpton. ~Bob

Qatari Muslim professor and human rights advocate identified as major financier of al-Qaeda
Excerpt: I am frequently criticized for pointing out that there is no reliable way to distinguish between "moderate" and "extremist" Muslims, i.e., jihad terrorists and Islamic supremacists and Muslims who are peaceful and have no involvement in jihad or supremacist activity. This is routinely cited as evidence of my "bigotry," as if I am somehow impugning peaceful Muslims by pointing it out and implying that all Muslims are terrorists. These are games the Left and Islamic supremacists play in order to demonize and discredit their opposition, of course, for actually what I mean is quite clear: that jihadists and jihad sympathizers are not generally put out of mosques and Islamic organizations, but move freely within even those who style themselves as "moderate": witness the many terror convictions of former officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which despite its Hamas ties is routinely presented in the mainstream media as a respectable civil rights organization. (It is worth subscribing to the JihadWatch.org newsletter. ~Bob)

Excerpt: A terror-loving top attorney whose clientele has included Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law and jihadist loving Lynne Stewart was indicted Thursday for failing to report more than $3 million in income.

'If my son did what Michael Adebolajo did, I would be happy': Hate preacher Omar Bakri Muhammad says he is proud of Lee Rigby killer
The Religion of Peace. ~Bob

Excerpt: Don’t write off all academia just yet: The American Studies programs of at least two schools, Penn State Harrisburg and Brandeis, have now cut their ties with an academic outfit that voted to boycott Israeli universities. Too bad universities in New York City have yet to do likewise.

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn


4 wounded as US military aircraft takes on fire during evacuation mission in South Sudan
Excerpt: Rebel gunfire hit a U.S. military aircraft trying to evacuate American citizens caught in a remote region of South Sudan that on Saturday became a battle ground between the country’s military and renegade troops, officials said. Four U.S. service members were wounded.

I'm looking for one person defending Phil Robertson's free speech rights who also defended Martin Bashir's free speech rights. Anyone?

Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller Says A&E Network No Longer Welcome to Film "Duck Dynasty" at Douglas County Sheriff's Office or Facilities.
Excerpt: “I know it will not matter to A&E, but it will make me feel better. A&E has produced more than a half dozen programs with the assistance of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. They will not do any more with my assistance while I am sheriff. It is time for someone other than Hollywood and the news media to stand up for what is right!” (I couldn't get interested in the Duck Dynasty thing. Censorship is when the government stops speech. But an employer has a perfect right to terminate an employee who brings discredit on the organization, though not to stop his speech. ~Bob)

Cracker Barrel puts Duck Dynasty back in stores: ‘We made a mistake. . . we apologize’

Cracker Barrel: We screwed up big time
Excerpt: That’s the message Cracker Barrel is sending to enraged customers after the restaurant chain removed Duck Dynasty items from its stores over fears it might offend people. “Our intent was to avoid offending but that’s just what we’ve done,” Cracker Barrel said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. “You told us we made a mistake. (We haven’t eaten in Cracker Barrel in years since mom saw improper handling of food by wait staff. --Barb)

Piers Morgan I dare you to do an interview with a Muslim and ask him about homosexuality, I dee double dare you

Report: Pink Mafia Bullies GLAAD Experiencing "Record Levels Of Backlash" After Getting A&E To Suspend Duck Dynasty Star.
Excerpt: “In the five-and-a-half years I’ve worked at GLAAD, I’ve never received so many violently angry phone calls and social media posts attacking GLAAD for us speaking out against these comments,” the media watchdog organization’s vice president of communications Rich Ferraro told TheWrap."

USSR 'secret' Vietnam soldiers speak out: 3000 Soviet Vets in Vietnam

Only 7? Someone is auditioning for 'under-achiever of the year'. --GS

OPERATION AMERICAN SPRING - Washington, D.C. in the cross-hairs - The Out-of-Control Government Must Be Stopped. By Harry Riley 
Excerpt: (Please add the above title and some or all data from below to your FB, Twitter, Blog, Email list) TO: Patriots (black, white, male, female, civilian, military, truckers, bikers, militias, veterans, old, young, every American that loves freedom and liberty) We are past the point of no return, thus must move forward with an effort to save our nation, as there is no other choice. We are asking, pleading with you, and any others that have resources, national voices, email lists, blogs, FB, Twitter, to call for a non-violent American Spring sometime in the April/May 2014 time, in Washington D.C. We must appeal to ten million and more American patriots to come and stay in Washington, D.C. to stop the White House and Congress from total destruction of the United States. It’s now or never. God help us. (Col Riley has been very active in matters related to veterans and protests for some years now. Now he has arrived at a point where he believes it's time for a really major action, which he proposes here. I don't know if this will fly or not, but am passing it on for others to consider. Those of you with your own mailing lists may wish to circulate this as well. I certainly agree that this government has been a disaster for the nation, and for them to continue doing damage for three more years is a very scary proposition. Maybe have some hundreds of thousands of protesters show up in DC and stay for a while would get their attention. We can hope. --Del)

Mild He Lays His Glory By. By Archbishop Cranmer
Excerpt: It is a curious thing for God to become man; for the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. We are about to celebrate the day when the Son of God was born a baby in Bethlehem; when Christ emptied Himself and laid His glory by; born that man no more may die. He surrendered aspects of His divinity to assume the mantle of humanity: as the ancient creeds remind us, He was fully man and yet fully God.

What This School Did To ‘Silent Night’ Isn’t Going Over Well With Some Parents. By Billy Hallowell
Excerpt: A Long Island, N.Y., school district has apologized after it came under fire following a fifth grade choir’s removal of some key lyrics from the traditional Christmas song “Silent Night.” Many of the religious lines that point to the very heart of the Christmas season were simply axed from the students’ Dec. 12 performance at Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School. (And again, the secularists in grade schools act to remove the faintest trace of religion (Christian religion, of course) from the lives of the school children. How utterly insane is this. The link takes you to the news article, and there's video there of the kids singing mutilated Christmas songs. Unbelievable. --Del)

Obama's Syria policy is pretty much dead, and there are few good options. By Dan Murphy
Excerpt: President Barack Obama's Syria policy, such as it's been, is now dead. That it was on life support has been clear for a long time. But with the routing of the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) from its headquarters recently by Islamist rebel fighters, the plug should be pulled.


DHS Complicit In Drug Cartel Human Trafficking
Excerpt: A federal judge finds that the Department of Homeland Security, instead of arresting cartel members and the clients who pay them to smuggle children into the U.S., helps the drug lords complete the transactions.

Three videos before breakfast

Laying the foundation for blatant fascism in the U.S. By Larry Pinkney
Excerpt: When corporations and government become, in actuality, intertwined as one entity, the end result is fascism. ... The initial grooming and subsequent installation of Barack Obama as president of the U.S. was arranged and choreographed by the corporate power elite for whom he has been and is a very dangerous tool against struggling everyday people of all colors nationally and internationally. ... Associate Editor Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, ...

Al Sharpton's Chicago Town Hall Erupts Into Revolt Against Machine Politics
Excerpt: On Thursday, a town hall meeting hosted by Al Sharpton and the National Action Network to address gun violence exploded into a revolt against “Chicago Machine” politics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the aldermen in City Hall, with panel and audience members calling to vote out their elected officials. One 82-year-old preacher even called for “Tea Party” style meetings in some of Chicago’s south side communities such as Altgeld Gardens and Trumbull Park.

Liberal Hero Farrakhan’s Call for Gays to be Beheaded Gets No Reaction from Media
http://conservativebyte.com/2013/12/liberal-hero-farrakhans-call-gays-beheaded-gets-reaction-media/
Excerpt: It is amazing that Leftist hero and Obama buddy Louis Farrakhan can talk about beheading and stoning gays to death and you won’t hear a word from the media. The silence is telling and very predictable.

Obama commutes sentence of Deval Patrick's cousin along with seven others convicted on drug charges - but the governor insists he had nothing to do with it
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2526815/Obama-wields-presidential-powers-commute-sentences-eight-crack-dealers-bids-balance-huge-racial-gap-inmates-drug-cases.html
Excerpt: Governor Deval Patrick is a close ally of President Obama's but he said that he was not involved in the commutation application for Reynolds Allen Wintersmith Jr., his 39-year-old cousin who was sentenced to life in prison for possession and intent to distribute.

Oh Little Scrote of Bethnal Green
New carol from the UK. ~Bob

Funny Christmas Tweets
Most from the UK. ~Bob

Papal Economics. By John C. Goodman 
Excerpt: "Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as 'a new tyranny,'" reads the lead of the Reuters story by Naomi O'Leary. She is referring to the Evangelii Gaudium, the latest apostolic exhortation from the Holy Father. Similar headlines appeared at NBC, at the Daily Kos, in the Nation and elsewhere. But as Robert Ramono points out, nowhere did the pope actually say those words.

Muslim cleric: "Blowing oneself up for the sake of Allah is acceptable" -- People who want to ban this are "trying to alter the religion of Allah"

New Rash of Church Closings Sweeps Across Indonesia. By Ryan Morgan
Excerpt: I watched as the pastor began to cry, tears welling up in his eyes as he described the scene to me. It was May 18th, 2012, and there were hundreds upon hundreds of screaming fanatics hurling rocks, dirt, and even bags filled with urine at his congregation as the police stood by and watched. Signs hanging near his church read "Jesus is a dog" and "Kill the Christians." The rioters claimed the pastor had never obtained the proper permits to operate his church, and the local government agreed, sealing the building and prohibiting the pastor and his congregation from ever returning.

FBI Raids Gulen School in New Orleans
Excerpt: FBI and Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School officials aren’t saying why the FBI converged on the Baton Rouge school’s campus Wednesday evening, carting off boxes.
But the school has ties to a controversial education movement inspired by a Turkish Muslim scholar, Fethullah Gulen. And other schools connected with that movement have reportedly been investigated by the FBI.

Israeli National Skin Bank
Older, but Snopes says true. ~Bob. Excerpt: This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her. ... One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life.

Cambodia Apes Vietnam in Its War on Religion. By Michael Benge
Excerpt: The axiom "monkey see, monkey do" comes to mind in a recent incident at the Buddhist Temple Wat Kanteyaram(Eastern United Temple Foundation of Jacksonville Inc.). The Cambodian Buddhist community rallied in JacksonvilleFlorida on November 29 through December 1, 2013 to protest "The Great Supreme Patriarch," Tep Vong, who was to officiate at the Temple's sacred Seima Kam Buddhist sanctification ceremony. The community was adamant that the sanctification would be desecrated by Tep Vong's presence, since he stands accused of a litany of human rights abuses that make him ineligible to preside over the ceremony.

Please explain why Obama/Holder went after TrueTheVote but did nothing when the Black Panthers manned voting polls with weapons? (Holder explained when he said blacks were "my people." ~Bob) Please explain why Obama spoke out in defense of Trayvon Martin but was silent on Delbert Belton's murder?

More fruit from Obama's non-Congressionally-authorized, lead-from-behind war. ~Bob

Aspirin risks may outweigh benefits in healthy adults
Healthy adults who take daily aspirin to stave off heart disease may be inviting more harm than benefit, according to a new review of past studies. Adults face a crush of conflicting health messages about aspirin and the role it plays as a preventive medicine. In an attempt to bring clarity to the topic, UK researchers sifted through the most recent evidence from nine randomized controlled trials – which are considered medicine's gold standard – and other systematic reviews of such trials. (Mentions well-known GI bleeding, ulcers issues. Does NOT mention increased risk of macular degeneration (blindness) posed to geriatric patients by aspirin protocol.

In a rare public apology, the militant leader of Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen has said that one of his fighters disobeyed orders and attacked a hospital attached to the Defense Ministry during an assault that killed 52 people earlier this month. …We accept full responsibility for what happened in the hospital and will pay blood money for the victims' families." The apology seemed prompted by Yemen state television earlier broadcasting a video showing a gunman attacking doctors and other hospital staff. 

Dr. Manny: ‘Sex Sent Me to the ER’ TV show makes me sick
Excerpt: As a women’s doctor, I can’t think of anything more disgusting and reprehensible than glamorizing injuries associated with having sex. This is exactly what is happening on a new TLC show, premiering on Dec. 28, called “Sex Sent Me to the ER,” during which scripted actors reenact real-life sex injuries incurred by regular people. In reports of one episode, a 440-pound man manages to put his 110 pound girlfriend’s head through a sheetrock wall while having sex with her. (Saw the previews while watching TLC. Makes you understand how sick and disgusting the American culture has become with the current bent of leadership in government, LGBT, progressives, atheists, ACLU and Satanists throwing out God, Jesus and the 10 Commandments. How sick to do this just after Christmas…let alone charge us money on our cable and satellite bills for this type of programming. More fodder for the radical Islamists….dumb, dumb and dumber. --Barb)

11 for 13. Not sure which i missed. ~Bob

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Guest Post: Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors And Other Surprises
Colonel Donald J. Myers USMC (Ret)
 
On Tuesday, our president met behind closed doors with CEOs from Google, Twitter, Apple, and other tech experts to discuss what can be done about the poor performance of the healthcare start, and the National Security Agency collecting phone records on all Americans. I suppose that we will never know what was discussed unless it turns out to be something that can be portrayed as positive. I don't know about everyone else, but I am fed up with all of the closed door meetings by our elected officials.

Senator Patty Murray (D) and representative Paul Ryan (R) came up with a budget deal that the entire congress approved on Tuesday. there hasn't been a budget for five years and now we are passing a two year budget. I doubt that any of our congressional representatives read the entire bill, but WE are the ones who are stuck with it. We will continue to add to the debt with promises that cuts will be made in the future. Wow, I am really impressed.

I appreciate the fact that there are some things that must be negotiated in secret, but it seems that now almost everything is negotiated in secret and the voting time is so short that it is impossible to read the bill. CSPAN covers the general meetings of both houses, but more often than not, the discussions that we want to hear are not covered.

To add to the secrecy, the White House Press Corps has not been allowed to have photographers in selected meetings. The official White House photographers pass out the photos that they have taken. That is not quite the same because they can be posed for effect and to make a point for the administration.

Remember that the ObamaCare bill was passed with a lot of secrecy and the actual vote took place on Christmas eve with not a single republican vote for it in either house. Also remember that then Speaker Nancy Pelosi  said that we had to pass the bill to learn what was in it. We are now learning what is in it and we do not like it. Senator Patty Murray is saying much the same for the current budget when she said that reducing the cost of living allowance for military retirees to include those retired because of wounds should not have happened, but that that will be corrected in the near future. I'm sure they are waiting with bated breath.

There does not seem to be any accountability for actions that have gone astray. The IRS scandal saw no one held accountable. The same is true for the NSA fiasco and the rollout of Obamacare. We were promised that this would be the most open administration in history. It seems like that promise is much like the promise to keep your insurance and doctor if we liked them. Trust must be earned on a daily basis. James Kouzes and Barry Posner have conducted extensive research on leadership throughout the world. According to their research the top attribute expected of leaders is integrity. That includes doing what you said you would do and being where you said you would be. integrity cannot be faked for any length of time. As Abraham Lincoln stated,"You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." I think we are finally discovering that fact.

*****
 

Donald J. Myers a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a regular columnist for Hernando Today. He lives in Spring Hill and can be contacted at dmyersusmc@aol.com.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Your weekend news

Update on John Payne: Friday morning, the phone rang and it was John--not much over 50 hours since he came out of surgery for his lung transplant. What a blessing. So we spent the morning with Britnye's sick cat at the vet, and the afternoon visiting John. (The Christmas Tree can wait.) He has walked three times already, the last time while we were there, and is on only one LPM of oxygen. (I'm on 7 LPM to sleep, 10 to 15 to walk slowly.) They hope to take him fully off tomorrow. He said he feels good, better than he has in a long time. His color is good (yes, I know he's a black guy, not a "rosy glow," but his skin had been ashen, now shiny and healthy looking). He was alert and chipper. It gave us great encouragement for when my lung comes. I passed on everyone's good wishes and prayers. Still a long road, so don't stop. We are proud of that brother Marine!

Between the vet and the hospital, we hardly had a moment today, tree not decorated, presents not wrapped, so short post for your weekend.

Let's see. Want to bet the White House releases any more bad Obamacare news late Tuesday, Christmas Eve, when few are paying attention? 

BTW, Winter starts Saturday. Due to "global warming" I'm not expecting it to be much worse than the cold, icy, snow fall we've just had.. .~Bob

Settled Law? Administration announces new ObamaCare exemption
Excerpt: The Obama administration, in an 11th-hour change just before the holiday break, announced a major exemption in ObamaCare that will let people who lost coverage and are struggling to get a new plan sign up for bare-bones policies. The move Thursday to allow potentially hundreds of thousands of people to sign up for "catastrophic" coverage plans was blasted by the insurance industry as a shift that would cause "tremendous instability.” (Another week, another imperial decree changing what they called "settled law," without reference to Congress. They are thrashing about trying to make this disaster wok. ~Bob)

Five Thoughts on the Latest Obamacare Bombshells. By Guy Benson
Excerpt: Say hello to your pre-holiday, late-week, kitchen-sink news dump. Kevin wrote about the administration's new batch of staggering last-minute decrees last night, and Avik Roy has additional details here. The brand new regulations will offer two new options for people whose plans have been canceled due to Obamacare: First, this group will now have the opportunity to purchase "catastrophic" coverage that was previously reserved for people under the age of 30. This might sound like a great deal, but it's not. 

Excerpt: This week Obamacare passed an unflattering milestone. As of today, the Obama administration has spent longer botching the implementation of Obamacare than the Roosevelt and Truman administrations spent fighting and winning the Second World War.

America's First Taste Of Nationalized Health Care Is Bitter. By Charles Krauthammer
Excerpt: The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it." But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical ObamaCare is — which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place. ObamaCare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, mirabile dictu, not costing the government a dime. (OK, here we are. In the middle of a mess even worse than I had predicted, which changes day by day as our President (who keeps telling us he is not a dictator) gets up sometimes in the morning and decides to make a pronouncement that changes the "settled law" of ObamaCare. He has done this so many times now that it's hard to keep count, all in response to the horrific mess that this very badly thought out and horribly set up monster program has created. This is not like GM doing minor fixes to the new car design that have inconvenienced a few drivers. This is like trying to turn a monster SUV with the wrong size engine, a too weak transmission, no brakes, a leaky gas tank, a frame meant for a Pinto, and seats that don't adjust into a smoothly functioning race car. The answer is to scrap the design and start over. Maybe with people from the other side of the aisle involved, and actual experts from the various parts of the health care system too. But of course none of the politicians who were in favor of it will recognize that, no matter what. And this will just keep getting worse. --Del)

ObamaCare: A Christmas Gift from the Poor to the Rich. By Matthew Vadum 
Excerpt: Because Obamacare will go into an actuarial death spiral if enough young people refuse to enroll, and because it’s a day ending in a “Y,” it’s time for yet another sleazy, lowbrow attempt to strong-arm young, healthy Americans into buying overpriced Affordable Care Act-compliant insurance that they don’t need and in many cases can’t afford. And why is such health insurance unaffordable to the young and the poor? Because Obamacare imposes ridiculous, expensive mandates, for example, forcing old men to cover women’s birth control while forcing young people to cover geriatric medical care.

The Obamacare Chaos Strategy’s Outlines Begin to Emerge: De facto single-payer, by any means necessary.
Excerpt: Now we’re supposed to believe, even when given virtually unlimited resources, a 42-month head start, and another three months to make corrections, that the people in our government and the contractors who serve it are so breathtakingly stupid and incredibly incompetent that they can’t properly set up Obamacare’s bureaucracy, create functioning online and offline consumer interfaces, and build the systems required to communicate and interact with insurance companies participating in its federal exchanges. (Again... they CAN'T be this stupid, so....it has to be deliberate. More and more people are arriving at the conclusion that this has all been a game to push the nation into a totally government controlled health care system. I'm not sure yet myself, but the evidence is convincing. The next year will tell us more, as the system continues to show itself to be a disaster. --Del)

Great news: If you like your cancellation, you can keep your cancellation!
Excerpt: Old and busted: “Those cancellations are exactly what we want, because people can sign up for better plans now!” New hotness: Those catastrophic plans we derided for the last five years will work just fine for all of you who got screwed by the Affordable Care Act. Or, hey, don’t bother getting insurance at all!

Other news and comment

Great Christmas Story: Mrs Norman And The Water Biscuits
Excerpt: Christmas is indeed a time of miracles. Perhaps miracles happen so often at Christmas because our hearts are softened and our empathy and sympathy for others is so acute during this season. Or perhaps, by still another miracle, we are listening to the words of a carpenter born some 2,000 years ago. Several years ago, as part of my annual Christmas writings for my children, I wrote a short story titled "Mrs Norman and The Water Biscuits". The story is true. Though this particular miracle did not occur at Christmas, it was certainly the miracle my family desperately needed at the time.

The Nightmare That’s Coming To America
Excerpt: The massive growth of our government is causing many small business to close their doors forever. As a result government jobs increase and the overall middle class become poorer. Thus making America more controllable because they are owned by the government. Once a majority of the people are employed through them, they can garnish wages at will. After all if most people work for them, there will be no competition, so who’s to say they can’t lower the wages on the masses. (When the government is the only employer, you dance to their tune or starve. ~Bob)

Everything is Just Ducky. By Andy Weddington
Excerpt: Until yesterday I'd never heard of Phil Robertson.

MPAC Peddles Debunked Gaza Dam Story
Excerpt: The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is promoting a story accusing Israel of opening a dam during a freak winter storm, causing massive flooding in the Gaza Strip. ... The problem is that the dam doesn't seem to exist, and the story, originally pushed by Hamas, was debunked days ago by the Times of Israel.

Excerpt: The revelation that Nelson Mandela was trained by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in 1962 will no doubt bring rise to cognitive dissonance in the most hard-line, anti-Israel campaigners around the world. But spare a moment to think how hard it will be for them to now urge the boycotting of Israel, and hurl words like “apartheid state” around when indeed it was the Zionists that trained the man who ended apartheid: Mandela.

Cops, Doctors Got to Sexually Molest & Humiliate Woman Because Dog Said So
Excerpt: Nothing about this was right. As we move through the sequence, remember that each step after #3 was taken because no drugs or any other illegal item or substance was found on her person. The woman was pulled stopped at random for additional treatment after coming back into El Paso from Juarez. Unlike our previous story, she didn’t even roll a stop sign, allegedly. The border agent inserted his finger between the woman’s buttocks when there was no reason to search her for contraband. (I have no idea if this was a male or female agent.) (I always want to withhold judgment until know the full story. ~Bob)

Liberal Media Agrees That It's Biased
Excerpt: Recently Politico had a round table with some important figures in the national media. From CNN Jake Tapper, from NBC Norah O’Donnell, and from the New York Times Mark Leibovich and Peter Baker. The Moderator, Politico’s Mike Allen, asked a simple question of the panel, “Does the Media lean left? Now, for conservatives who have been paying attention, this isn’t anything new to us. We’ve known for years that the media was liberal. In fact, we’ve known that they’ve known they were liberal… but this admission by some very respectable members of the journalist class should be a wake-up call to liberals who like to pretend our concerns of a liberal media bias is simple paranoia. It isn’t.

Obama Allows Great Lakes Water To Be Sold To China As Half The U.S. Faces Extreme Water Crisis. By Michael Snyder
Excerpt: What in the world is Barack Obama thinking? At a time when the United States is facing the greatest water crisis that it has ever known, Obama is allowing water from the Great Lakes to be drained, bottled and shipped to China and other countries around the globe. Right now, the Great Lakes hold approximately 21 percentof the total supply of fresh water in the entire world. (Americans are used to the availability of fresh water in unlimited amounts, we waste water at a rate that would probably fill the Black Sea in a year or two. But it turns out that fresh water is not a naturally unlimited resource, and crunch time for water is coming at the world fast. And coming at various areas in the USA pretty quickly as well. If southern California doesn't get a hell of a lot of rainfall this year, things are liable to get pretty dicey in both the cities and for some agricultural areas. This is exactly the kind of thing that government is supposed to be looking at and taking measures to avoid a future disaster. The government of California hasn't been doing too well at this, and the feds don't seem to be too focused on it either. I guess we'll wait until one day when people can't get decent flow out of their taps anymore, and farms turn into dust bowls, and then there'll be all the running around and jumping up and down about it. By then, of course it'll be very, very late to start doing anything about it. --Del)

Great Column: Obama Is Too Smart to Fail. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: Self-esteem is the new intelligence. Obama’s intelligence was manufactured by pandering to the biases and tastes of his supporters. The more he shared their biases and tastes, the smarter he seemed to be and the smarter they felt by having so much in common with such a smart man.

Manila Philippines airport shooting: Gunmen kill four
Excerpt: Gunmen have shot dead four people, including a mayor, at Manila airport in the Philippines, officials have said. Ukol Talumpa, mayor of the southern town Labangan, and three others were hit while waiting outside the airport terminal.

Ugandan MPs pass life in jail anti-homosexual law
Excerpt: Uganda's parliament has passed a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts to include life imprisonment in some cases. The anti-homosexuality bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence not to report gay people. (This will be a bit tricky for the "all cultures are equally valid" folks--bet they just ignore it. ~Bob)

Is Bitcoin Real Money?
Excerpt: To become a real alternative currency, Bitcoins must be recognized by a majority of businesses and consumers. They must be as safe, or safer, than currency issued by a central bank -- a concern as hackers become more and more sophisticated. And they must be transportable. Currently, the Bitcoin does not meet any of these requirements, and this is why it is trading for much less than its actual convertible U.S. dollar value.

Excerpt: According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent an average of 4 percent less over the four day Thanksgiving weekend than they did last year. Overall, that means that approximately $1.7 billion less was spent at U.S. retailers compared to last year. It had already been projected that this holiday shopping season would be the worst for retailers since 2009, but if these numbers are any indication it may be even worse than expected. So why is this happening? Well, basically the American consumer is tapped out. 

Turkey Cashes In on the Iran Talks
Excerpt: You may have thought the Geneva deal struck last month between Iran and the P5+1 nations (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) was a sweet one for Tehran — getting billions in sanctions relief in exchange for mere promises to halt its nuclear program. But Turkey may be an even bigger winner. It just needs to open its doors and wait for Iranian funds to pour in.

Parents unhappy with 'Gangsta Claus' school Christmas play
Excerpt: School officials in Columbia County, Arkansas are doing some damage control, after a school play featured "Gangsta Claus," which included scenes portraying people being killed, including Santa Claus himself and a Walmart clerk.


Thursday, December 19, 2013

Today's News & Update on John

Update on my friend and brother Marine John Payne, who got his new lung Wednesday morning. He is awake, alert (though he nods off often) and writing notes to his wife. He asked to see us, so we stopped by after PT this morning. I was surprised they let me in, with my cough, but stayed clear in case. He recognized us, but is not yet too responsive. They say he is doing well. We passed greetings on from many of you. The surgeon told his wife it was good a lung came along, as he may have only had a couple of months without it. Thanks for everyone's prayers and good thoughts for him--and for me. A blessing in all this trouble is becoming friends with John and Donna--very good folks.

Today & Tuesday at PT, I did 32 minutes on the treadmill at 1.7 MPH, or 9/10th of a mile, plus three sets of four other exercises. If it doesn't sound like much, try doing it with a scarf wrapped a couple of times around your face restricting your breathing!

Obamacare News at the End--for a change. ~Bob

Frightening Must Read: 83 Numbers From 2013 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
Excerpt: During 2013, America continued to steadily march down a self-destructive path toward oblivion. As a society, our debt levels are completely and totally out of control. Our financial system has been transformed into the largest casino on the entire planet and our big banks are behaving even more recklessly than they did just before the last financial crisis.

Peace Prize Quote
"Dignity does not consist in possessing honours, but in deserving them." - Aristotle

Hamas man killed, 6 injured, in Jenin firefight with IDF
Excerpt: A 22-year-old man was killed and six more were injured when the IDF exchanged fire with Palestinians during an operation in the West Bank city of Jenin Wednesday night.

Non-Citizens Caught Voting In Key Swing State In 2012 Presidential Election
Excerpt: Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced Wednesday that his office found 17 non-citizens illegally cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election — and has referred the case for possible prosecution.

Barbara Walters On Barack Obama: 'We Thought He Was Going To Be ... The Next Messiah'
Excerpt: "He made so many promises. We thought that he was going to be - I shouldn't say this at Christmastime, but the next messiah. And the whole ObamaCare, or whatever you want to call it, the Affordable Health[care] Act, it just hasn't worked for him. And he’s stumbled around on it and people feel very disappointed because they expected more." 

‘Massive Seizure Of Power’: Climate scientists, economists challenge EPA
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/massive-seizure-of-power-climate-scientists-economists-challenge-epa/
Excerpt: A group of climate scientists and economists are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other stationary sources. These critics see a “massive seizure of power” by the agency.

Obama's Recovery: $1.3 Trillion Below Average
Excerpt: It also means that Obama's recovery — now more than 4 years old — remains the worst since WWII. That's despite the fact that, by this point, half the previous recoveries had been interrupted by another recession. Had Obama's recovery been only as good as the average of the past 10 recoveries, the economy would be $1.3 trillion larger. That's $4,038 for every person in the U.S., or $10,451 per household.

The Insiders: Obama’s ‘Indiana Jones’ trick. By Ed Rogers
Excerpt: Nothing about corporate earnings or broad-based business confidence suggests that we are experiencing real economic growth. All the president is doing is further endangering his fellow Democrats, who already have the dead weight of Obamacare hanging around their necks as they prepare for the 2014 elections. This president may be one of the luckiest politicians of all time, but believing he can replace the government-supplied growth in the stock market with real economic growth when he and his Democratic allies continue to champion no-growth policies is unrealistic.

"Duck Dynasty" Star Phil Robertson Also Under Fire for African American Statements. By Suzy Byrne
http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/-duck-dynasty--star-phil-robertson-digs-his-hole-a-little-deeper-by-also-stinging-african-americans-173821415.html
Excerpt: "I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once," the reality star said of growing up in pre-Civil-Rights-era Louisiana. "Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. (the fact that I think the race baiters like Obama, Holder, Jackson and Sharpton have made things worse for blacks doesn't mean I don't think there has been real racism--I've seen it. But creating a give-up-you're-all-victims mentality in blacks, or encouraging counter racism, makes things worse. ~Bob)

War on Subsidies: Brussels Questions German Energy Revolution
Excerpt: As part of Germany's switch to renewables, industry has been exempt from paying higher prices associated with solar and wind energy. The European Commission, however, believes the practice distorts competition on the Continent. Huge penalties could be in store. (The problem with the transnational elites' policies is that they are like a snake trying to eat its tail. Or rather a snake trying to eatitself starting with the tail. The ideology-bound Left invariably ignores one major thing: reality. And now reality is breathing down their necks like never before. It happened in Detroit, and it is pandemic in the West. Consider this: The EU has long expected Germany to bail out all of the rest of the EU countries that get into serious financial trouble. Yet the EU bosses, trained as they are in socialism-Keynesianism, have no understanding of Economics 101. They literally do not know, or refuse to believe what the Soviets learned the hard way, namely, that propaganda, laws and decrees alone can't control supply and demand. Supply in this case refers to the ability to provided bailouts. Germany is the last country standing after an all-out assault on national economies using as weapons over-regulation and taxes, the usual economic wrecking balls of the Left. Yet, even this engine of the European economy is now the target of the EU's campaign against prosperity. Demand here refers to the need for such bailouts-the need by central or oversized banks and nations, like Greece, for a perennial creditor to pay their bills. This demand is created by the EU itself, in large part by its tacit guarantee to rescue irresponsible governments, who as a result of this guarantee, indulge in irresponsible fiscal behavior-just as bank customers often indulge in irresponsible borrowing as a result of the banks' recklessly liberal lending policies (which are in turn encouraged, even enforced, by a global epidemic of fiscally reckless government policies-encouraged by wraithlike figures behind the curtain). So let's see. The EU created this fiscal monster and then needed a money source to pay for its debauchery. Germany was the main source, but as the reckless policies took their toll, Germany became the only country left that could pay for the unbridled spending spree. That in itself is dangerous. But it gets worse. Now their lethal lack of common sense comes into play: Germany, that same sugar daddy that paid for the irresponsibility is being punished for the fact that it is in a position to do so. This insanity cannot last long. Once the EU and Germany's own Left--e.g., the increasingly powerful Greens--have finished picking the bones of its industry, there will be nothing left to prop up the deranged EU wizards and pay for their bacchanalian brawl. --Don Hank)

Al Qaeda's Courts in Syria Lock Up and Torture Children. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Islamic law. It’s everywhere you don’t want to be. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which has seized control of territory in northern Syria, has reportedly committed horrific abuses in its prisons in the region. Sources told Amnesty that some of those imprisoned by ISIS are as young as eight years old.

Special Report--Chinese Military's secret to success: European engineering. By David Lague
http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-chinese-military-39-secret-success-european-134407260.html
Excerpt: If the People's Liberation Army went to war tomorrow, it would field an arsenal bristling with hardware from some of America's closest allies: Germany, France and Britain. Most of China's advanced surface warships are powered by German and French-designed diesel engines. Chinese destroyers have French sonar, anti-submarine-warfare helicopters and surface-to-air missiles. Above the battlefield, British jet engines drive PLA fighter bombers and anti-ship strike aircraft.

Obama ‘cavalier’ in hiding foreign aid order, judge rules
Excerpt: A district court judge ruled that President Obama can’t lawfully keep hidden a foreign aid order he tried to shield via a claim of executive privilege, characterizing the move as a “cavalier” dodge of the Freedom of Information Act. The Justice Department had argued that a foreign-aid directive that Mr. Obama signed in 2010 should remain secret, because it was part of the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development and fell under the umbrella of executive privilege — despite its unclassified status, Politico reported…("Keep your plan" may be his biggest lie, but "most transparent administration in history" ranks right u there. ~Bob)

Excerpt: The London School of Economics (LSE) has today issued a long-awaited apology to students Chris Moos and Abhishek Phandis, representatives of the student Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSEASH), who wore t-shirts featuring the popular Jesus and Mo cartoon at the SU Freshers’ Fair on 3 October, and who were asked to cover their t-shirts or face removal from the Fair. The incident, covered first by TrendingCentral.com at the time, was described as an “effective blasphemy law”, and said to be indicative of a wider trend around various university campuses across the country, wherein minorities are singled out and targeted under the guise of “political correctness”.

The Democratic Party is a Cult Worthy of Jonestown. By Daniel Greefield
Excerpt: If Jim Jones were around today, there’s little doubt that he and his cult would still be campaigning for Democrats just like they used to. “What you had here was a ready-made volunteer workforce,” said Agar Jaicks, who was chairman of the county Democratic Central Committee, the governing body of the Democratic Party in San Francisco. “And you also had in Jones a man who touched a component of the consensus power forces in the city, such as labor and ethnicity groups, and he was very strong in the Western Addition. So here was a guy who could provide workers for causes progressives cared about.”

Worth Reading: Reagan's Welfare Queen Whom Liberals Says Didn't Exist, Existed and Killed People. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: This is from Slate so there are more caveats than from a dozen lawyers being forced to sign a contract with the devil, but it knocks down the lie that the Welfare Queen was some sort of imaginary racist character that Reagan made up to make freeloaders look bad: “In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record,” the former California governor declared at a campaign rally in January 1976. “She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.”

Lawsuit: Lesbian boss fired gym teacher because of his ‘traditional family’
http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/lawsuit-lesbian-boss-fired-gym-teacher-because-of-his-traditional-family/#ixzz2nwS0XWwp
Excerpt: A gym teacher in New York City has filed a lawsuit claiming that his lesbian boss at a posh private school sacked him because he is straight, happily married and has three children with his heterosexual wife. Plaintiff Gregory Kenney taught physical education for 16 years at the Trinity School, a fancypants K-12 school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where tuition is over $40,000 per kid per year….He asserts that gay athletic director Pat Krieger despised him for his “traditional family status” ever since she took over in 2009. (Don't know the facts; I'm tolerant of gays, but tolerance must go both ways. Just as some blacks are racist--and encouraged in that by the race baiters--some gays are biased towards straights. Have encountered both kinds. ~Bob)

Excerpt: Fifth grade students at Fremont Elementary School in Colorado were assigned a reading' border=0 v:shapes="_x0000_i1025">  passage that describes global warming as a dangerous, man-made phenomenon that will destroy civilization in a few hundred years. The reading assignment was found inside a workbook aligned with the controversial national Common Core curriculum guidelines, and was titled “Homework from the Future.” It tells the fictional story of a visitor to the year 2512 who discovers that the eastern United States is under water and the country’s population greatly reduced, all thanks to man-made global warming: (Gov in education=brainwashing. Hitler knew it; used it well. So did Soviets, etc. --Barb. The fact that the "warmists" only allow one side to be presented tells you all you need to know about their case. ~Bob)

Egypt Buries the Brotherhood. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: It’s not unusual for the United States and a Muslim country to be on the opposite sides of the War on Terror. It is unusual for a Muslim country to take a stand against terrorism while the United States backs the right of a terrorist group to burn churches, torture opposition members and maintain control of a country with its own nuclear program.

Excerpt: A newly released designation by the US Treasury Department identifies two alleged al Qaeda supporters who have raised funds for the terror network. The fundraising has benefited multiple al Qaeda branches, according to Treasury, and has at times totaled millions of dollars per month. Some of this money has been funneled through a longtime al Qaeda operative known as Abu Khalid al Suri, who served as one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted couriers prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and is now Ayman al Zawahiri's main representative in the Levant. Al Suri is also a founding member of Ahrar al Sham, an al Qaeda-allied extremist group in Syria

Orwellian Denver Post Edits “Socialist” Out Of Classmate’s Description Of Arapahoe Shooter
Excerpt: It’s one of the most blatant examples of Soviet-style media disinformation and manipulation I’ve ever seen, here in the West, in my life: A prominent, big-city newspaper deliberately distorting/omitting a salient detail of an important news story, in order to provide cover for the evil school of economic thought that their editors share with yet another crazed, violent attacker of innocents. It’s bad enough that we’ve already seen numerous examples of the democrat-run mainstream media trying to smear the Tea Party & conservatives by falsely, shamelessly attempting to associate various mass-shooters and terrorists with conservative philosophy and politics (while, in fact, they are almost invariably leftist, Obama-supporting democrats who carry out such attacks)

Hosni Mubarak allies cleared of corruption charges
Excerpt: An Egyptian court has acquitted the two sons of former President Hosni Mubarak, and his last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, of charges of embezzlement.

Slaughter of Christian Women and Children in Muslim Lands. By Raymond Ibrahim 
Excerpt: Two of the most tragic Islamic attacks on Christians, killing several women and children, took place in the month of October, one in Syria another in Egypt.

Judge Orders Removal of San Diego War Cross
Excerpt: A judge on Thursday ordered that a war memorial cross atop a San Diego mountain be removed from federal property in 90 days but said the ruling would be put on hold if it is appealed. (They could make it inter-faith. Put add a Budda, a Star of David and maybe hang a few gays or stone a rape victim for the Muslims. ~Bob)

How Free Is North America?
Excerpt: The most-free jurisdiction in North America is in Canada, according to a study by Dean Stansel, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Fred McMahon of the Fraser Institute.
                   
Developing Countries Need Coal-Fired Power Plants
Excerpt: Coal has lifted 680 million people in China out of poverty over the past 30 years, says Bjørn Lomborn, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

Syrian fighter defects to Qaeda-linked group
Our ally. Did he take his Obama-guns with him? ~Bob. Excerpt: In November, however, he announced his "repentance" for his membership in the battalion and the FSA, dubbing them "apostates".

Quote
Make yourself indispensable, and you will move up. Act as though you are indispensable, and you will move out. --Jules Ormont

Excerpt: The heart of Yellowstone National Park is its caldera, a vast basin left behind after the last of three volcanic eruptions spanning a period of 2.1 million years. …Using measurements from seismic waves from earthquakes, scientists were able to map the magma lake underneath Yellowstone's caldera as being 55 miles long, and 18 miles wide. …This revelation puts the size of the magma chamber at 2 1/2 times larger than previously thought. 

The Obamacare Train Wreck

Good Column: The Obamacare Generation: The ACA depends on Millennials picking up the tab — as they already are for other entitlements — in the midst of a bad economy. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: Among these unanswered questions, the most disturbing pertain to the demand that millions of so-called Millennials must purchase health insurance — estimated at about $1,700 a year — that they will hardly use. Their premiums supposedly will subsidize older, in-need Americans who cannot pay the full costs of coverage that they will draw on frequently. (If I understand the progressive position, the laws of mathematics and economics are racist. ~Bob)

Pajama Boy: The Obama Machine’s Id. The new face of Obamacare is a man in a plaid onesie. Of course. By Charles C. W. Cooke
Excerpt: Oh dear. The Obama administration isn’t doing very well with putting an empathetic face on its calamitous health-insurance law, is it? First, we had Julia, the creepy, eyeless, vision-of-horror from Brave New Worldwhose life was run from cradle to grave by the federal government. Then, we had Adriana, the painfully neutral and carefully ambi-racial stock-model-from-everywhere whose face became so synonymous with HealthCare.gov’s hilarious launch that she had to be replaced with a graphic plugging an 800 number. And now, courtesy of Organizing for Action, we have Pajama Boy, a metrosexual hipster in a plaid onesie who wants you to spend your precious Christmas days talking to him about the president’s vision for health insurance.

Taking Pleasure in Obamacare's failures. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Morning Jolt is worth subscribing to. I can only give you a taste from time to time to encourage you to do so. ~Bob. Excerpt: From the beginning, Obamacare fans inside and outside of government insisted that they were right, that we were wrong, and that we were motivated by all sorts of malicious and callous motives. They insisted our skepticism was fueled by ignorance and outdated ideology. Our warnings and dire predictions were dismissed as sour-grapes negativity and pessimism. Most of the ideas from the right -- medical malpractice reform, interstate sales of insurance -- were ignored or dismissed. We said you couldn't require insurance companies to cover a lot of new expenses -- i.e., pre-existing conditions -- without driving up costs, and that higher costs inevitably would drive up premiums. Obama's promise that his plan would lower premiums by $2,500 per year for families was always industrial-strength snake-oil, and yet somehow we were the bad guys for saying it couldn't possibly happen, short of covering the costs from the discovery of the Leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now it is exceedingly clear that one-sixth of the nation's economy is being fouled up beyond recognition by a convoluted, complicated, poorly-planned Rube Goldberg of a law that has been implemented by hacks whose overestimation of their own abilities is on an astronomical level. So we're not enjoying any of the problems from Obamacare, but spare us the insistence that we not take any satisfaction in seeing our assessment of the world, the limits of policy, the capabilities of government, and the possibility of grandiose, utopian promises reaffirmed, verified, underlined, highlighted, and footnoted in high-definition, day after day.

Poll: Many uninsured haven't explored Obamacare options. By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus
Excerpt: More than two months after the health care exchanges opened, a new CBS News/New York Times poll reveals most uninsured Americans - 58 percent - say they have not looked up information about applying for insurance, while four in 10 have done that.

Breitbart Poll: 70% Do Not Trust The Media To Inform About Obamacare
The other 30% read only the sports and comics pages--if they can read. ~Bob

Funny: Obamacare Is The Gift That No One Wants: The 12 Days of Obamacare
This is good! ~Bob

Obamacare Tech Hurdle Looms Right Before Enrollment Deadline
Excerpt: Switching hosts is not in and of itself a huge risk if it is done carefully and with lots of preparation, according to technical experts interviewed by Reuters. It is the timing of the highly complex maneuver that is risky. If there are problems, the website could become sluggish or even unusable for anyone trying to enroll. The government is tempting fate, they said.

Some Illinois Obamacare Applicants Asked To Start Over
Excerpt: Illinois officials are e-mailing and calling some 30,000 people, advising them to start over on their health insurance applications.

NMHIX group enrollment so far: 291
Excerpt: As of Wednesday, the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange had spent at least $2.5 million on marketing and outreach campaigns to get people to buy health insurance.
And as of Wednesday, 291 people had enrolled for coverage beginning Jan. 1 on NMHIX’s small business exchange. ($859k each. ~Bob)

ObamaCare's Troubles Are Only Beginning: Be prepared for eligibility, payment and information protection debacles—and longer waits for care. By Michael J. Boskin
Excerpt: The White House is claiming that the Healthcare.gov website is mostly fixed, that the millions of Americans whose health plans were canceled thanks to government rules may be able to keep them for another year, and that in any event these people will get better plans through ObamaCare exchanges. Whatever the truth of these assertions, those who expect better days ahead for the Affordable Care Act are in for a rude awakening. The shocks—economic and political—will get much worse next year and beyond. Here's why:

Worth Reading: Top 10 Broken Obamacare Promises. By Alyene Senger
Excerpt: Since the passage of Obamacare in 2010, many of the President’s famous promises have been routinely broken. As he so ironically threatened in 2009, “If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out.” To that end, here are 10 promises of Obamacare that have already been broken.

The CoveredCA.com Collapse: How Many California Democrats Does It Take With It? By Hugh Hewitt 
Excerpt: Peter Lee is going to need a copy of The Happiest Life, and very soon, because his 2014 looks like it will be miserable, though not as miserable as he will have made the start of the new year for hundreds of thousands of Californians whom Lee has failed. Lee is the number one guy at what may prove to be the biggest failure of many big failures in the state Obamacare exchanges.

The News in Zingers: By Argus Hamilton

Excerpt: President Obama's approval rating fell to thirty-eight percent Friday while Toronto mayor Rob Ford's approval rating soared to fifty percent. The conclusion is plain to see. President Obama would have been better off smoking crack than passing Obamacare.