Well, I'm back, sort of. You can send e-mail as long as you understand
that I'll have to delete a lot of it unread. tartanmarine(at)gmail.com.
Managing my recovery from a lung transplant December 23,
2013 takes a lot of time for meds, rehab, other exercise, taking vitals and
using other machines, etc. and my energy level is still quite low.
I will post a shortened blog when possible, but not every
day. If you send an item formatted for the blog, it will have a better chance
than if you just send a link. Zero chance without a link. FORMAT:
Exact title of
article in Bold
www.URL-Link.com (link to the
article on line.)
Excerpt: (After the word "Excerpt" two to three
sentences if short, less if article is very short.
(Any comment in parentheses, plus --Your name or initials)
Sorry, but if you don't have time to format it, I probably
don't as well.
Than for all your support, good wishes an prayers as this
lung thing went forward. I'm trying to get into the 50% who survive 5 years, but
without it I don't think I had 5 months.
Apparently Obamacare didn't get better while I was in hospital
getting a new lung.
Excerpt: No matter where you live in the United States ,
Obamacare is causing headaches, stress, and aggravation for someone near you.
Tweet from slone @slone
SNAP! RT @JessaNaomi:
Now that Dems are asking R's to help "fix" Obamacare, I'm pretty sure
the answer should be, "We didn't build that."
Medicaid Expansion
Boosted Emergency Room Visits In Oregon
Excerpt: Giving poor people health insurance, the belief
was, would decrease their dependence on hospital emergency rooms by providing
them access to more appropriate, lower-cost primary care. But a study published
in the journal Science on
Thursday finds that's not the case. When you give people Medicaid, it seems
they use both more primary care and more emergency room services.
4.2M Americans
Dropped From Health Plans
Excerpt: On The Kelly File, we saw
some updated numbers about just how many Americans have lost their health plans
since the launch of ObamaCare. More than 4.2 million Americans have now seen
their health insurance policies canceled due to the new regulations.
Effects of Medicaid
on Clinical outcomes
Excerpt: Medicaid
coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health
outcomes in the first 2 years.
Obama adviser Gene
Sperling says administration offered 'no magic number' for health marketplace
sign-ups
Excerpt: But the Obama administration has used a number -- 7
million by March -- in the past. There’s no denying that. We rate this claim
Mostly False. (Note that politicians usually under-predict what they expect, to
make the outcome a big success. I've done it myself. If they said 7M, they
expected 10M. ~Bob)
'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!':
Obamacare confusion reigns as frustrated patients walk out of hospitals without
treatment. By David Martosko, U.S.
Excerpt: Hospital staff in Northern
Virginia are turning away sick people on a
frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their
Obamacare insurance plans are in effect. Patients in a close-in DC suburb who
think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their
December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking
their word for it.
IRS chief says may
face budget crunch on Obamacare rollout
Excerpt: The U.S. Internal Revenue Service may need to spend
money on its Obamacare implementation at the expense of other agency programs
due to budget constraints, its new commissioner said on Monday.
Democratic hopeful
Mizeur decries ‘failure of leadership’ on Maryland
Excerpt: Democratic gubernatorial
hopeful Heather R. Mizeur on Monday called the rollout of
Maryland’s online health insurance exchange a “debacle” and
said the General Assembly needs to “step in and make it right.” ... She became
the latest member of her party to pointedly question the leadership of Gov.
Martin O’Malley’s administration on the project, which has been overseen by Lt.
Gov. Anthony G. Brown, a leading Democratic candidate for governor.
“How Are We Supposed
To Live?” Michigan
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/12/supposed-live-michigan-workers-discover-obamacare-means-impoverishment/#SmQJ5G0uEc4shwXx.99
http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/12/supposed-live-michigan-workers-discover-obamacare-means-impoverishment/#SmQJ5G0uEc4shwXx.99
Excerpt: The news was presented at the company’s annual
benefits meeting earlier this month, when employees were told that the health
insurance plan that the auto dealership had provided its workers was canceled
because it doesn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act, better known as
Obamacare.
Health care: Medical
offices see year-end rush
Excerpt: As the year comes to an end, doctor’s offices are
filling up quickly with people scrambling for appointments before the changes
of the Affordable Care Act kick in. Many simply have questions about the
landmark health care law, filling up clinics across the Coachella Valley
Starting the new year
in Obamacare limbo
Excerpt: Planning to use your new Obamacare insurance
benefits early in the new year? If you don’t have your brand spanking new ID
card, you’d better bring along your wallet.
Management experts
knock Obama
Excerpt: To listen to Obama discuss the rollout through the
fall, he was still figuring out some of the finer points, too. If he had known
healthcare.gov wasn’t going to work by its launch date, he said in mid-November, “I wouldn’t be going out saying, boy, this is
going to be great.” “In management circles, that’s an indictment,” said the
longtime consultant. “How could you not know? And if no one told you, you’re
still culpable for that too.”
MMS Study Shows
Patient Wait Times for Primary Care Still Long
Excerpt: The Massachusetts Medical Society today
released its ninth annual Patient Access to Care Study, showing that wait times for
new patient appointments with primary care physicians remain long, that half or
more of primary care practices remain closed to new patients, and that
acceptance of the government insurance programs of Medicare and MassHealth
(Medicaid) by physicians remains high in the Commonwealth. ... The percentage
of family physicians accepting new patients has dropped 19 percent over the
last seven years; the percentage of internists accepting new patients has
plunged 21 percent over the last nine years; and the percentage of
pediatricians accepting new patients has fallen 10 percent over the last four
years.
Conceal Carry
Applications Overwhelmingly Outpace Obamacare Enrollment
http://conservativebyte.com/2014/01/conceal-carry-applications-overwhelmingly-outpace-obamacare-enrollment/
http://conservativebyte.com/2014/01/conceal-carry-applications-overwhelmingly-outpace-obamacare-enrollment/
Excerpt: Conceal carry works. ObamaCare doesn’t.
Conceal carry protects you. ObamaCare steals from you. The sad thing is how
liberals don’t seem to understand this simple concept.
What ObamaCare is
Really About
Excerpt:…I’m a 54-year-old consulting engineer and make
between $60,000 and $125,000 per year, depending on how hard I work and whether
or not there are work projects out there for me. y girlfriend is 61 and makes
about $18,000 per year, working as a part-time mail clerk. or me, making
$60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy,
which also happens to impose a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 per month. r my
girlfriend, the same exact policy, same deductible, costs $1 per month. That’s
right, $1 per month. I’m not making this up. (A very interesting input.
Critics will call this racist, of course. The middle class taxpayers of California are the real
victims in so many ways. I just keep wondering how long the state can
keep going with its tax and spend policies. And ObamaCare will just add
to the load on the middle class. The future looks bleak for the California . --Del )
Excerpt: Insurance companies aren’t crazy about their share
of the health law’s taxes, but mostly they’ve complained to politicians and
regulators. At least one health plan wants to bring consumers into the loop. “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes” is a
separate line item on bills Blue Cross Blue
Shield of Alabama is sending to individual customers.
(Only applies to folks making over $250k. Barack promised! ~Bob)
Hiding the Hacking
at HealthCare.gov: If your personal info is filched from the
site, the government doesn’t have to tell you. By John Fund
Excerpt: But at least Target informed its customers of the
security breach, as it is required by federal law to do. HealthCare.gov faces
no such requirement; it need never notify customers that their personal
information has been hacked or possibly compromised. The Department of Health
and Human Services was specifically asked to include a notification requirement
in the rules it designed for the health-care exchanges, but HHS declined.
Excerpt: Support for the country's new health care law has
dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. ... Only 35% of
those questioned in the poll say they support the health care law, a 5-point
drop in less than a month. Sixty-two percent say they oppose the law, up four
points from November. (And
ultimately, if you’ve got a majority of folks who believe in something, then it
should be able to pass. --Barack Obama. Like repealing Obamacare?
~Bob)
And in other news:
The Marines are
Working!
This photo that was taken at the Military Recruiting
Station in South Bend , IN.
Tweet from Brady Cremeens @BradyCremeens
Republicans hate women so much they have 4 times as many of
them running states than do Democrats.
IAC PR exec fired
over offensive AIDS tweet
Again, she has the freedom to say what she wants. And they
have the freedom to fire her for embarrassing the company. ~Bob
Older but worth sharing: The West and the Tyranny of Public Debt
Excerpt: The history of public debt is the very history of
national power: how it has been won and how it has been lost. Dreams and
impatience have always driven men in power to draw on the resources of
others—be it slaves, the inhabitants of occupied lands, or their own children
yet to be born—in order to carry out their schemes, to consolidate power, to
grow their own fortunes. But never, outside periods of total war, has the debt
of the world’s most powerful states grown so immense. Never has it so heavily
threatened their political systems and standards of living. Public debt cannot keep
growing without unleashing terrible catastrophes. Anyone saying this today is
accused of pessimism. The first signs of economic recovery, harbingers of a
supposedly falling debt, are held up to contradict him. Yet we wouldn’t be the
first to think ourselves uniquely able to escape the fate of other states
felled by their debt, such as the Republic
of Venice
Quote
Character, not circumstances, makes the man. --Booker T.
Washington
Afghan girl 'found
with suicide vest after brother convinces her to attack'
Excerpt: An Afghan girl believed to be about 10-years-old
was caught in Helmand province wearing a bomb vest after her brother encouraged
her to carry out a suicide attack, police officials said. The girl, named as
Spogmai, had been convinced to attack border police after male relatives
accused her of having “illicit relations” with officers, according to reports.
Excerpt: I'm going to write about Jerry Coleman today;
someone who more than half of you have never heard of. Your loss.
Jerry was the purest form of love, the most decent human being one could
ever hope to meet. Jerry Coleman was the baseball broadcaster for the
San Diego Padres for four decades. Jerry Coleman was the worst baseball
broadcaster I've ever heard. His achilles heel was that he loved the game
so much, had such excitement for the game, that he would get caught up in the
excitement of a spectacular play, or a dramatic score, that he would completely
forget to tell you what happened on the field. ... Jerry Coleman was a young
man when World War II broke out. A slick fielding second baseman in the
Yankees farm system, when the war began Jerry joined the Marines and became a
Marine aviator. He flew more than 50 missions in the Pacific Theater
winning more than his share of chest lettuce, including the Distinguished
Flying Cross.
The 'Trickle-Down' Lie. By Thomas Sowell
Excerpt: According to Mayor de Blasio, "They believe
that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that
somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else." If there
is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top
contender.
MMA fighter kills
armed intruder, 'severely' injures another and scares off two more in home
invasion gone wrong
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534476/MMA-fighter-kills-armed-intruder-severely-injures-scares-two-home-invasion-gone-wrong.html#ixzz2pcykQfsT
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2534476/MMA-fighter-kills-armed-intruder-severely-injures-scares-two-home-invasion-gone-wrong.html#ixzz2pcykQfsT
Excerpt: A mixed martial arts fighter in New Mexico may face
charges after authorities say he fended off four home invaders - killing one
and severely injuring another - during a an early morning break in on New
Year's Day.
How the Arab Spring Unleashed Al Qaeda. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Open up a national newspaper and flip to the
stories about the Middle East . The daily toll
of bombings and shootings, starving refugees and demolished cities have little
resemblance to the cheerful stories about the transformation of the Middle East that were running during the boom days of the
Arab Spring.
Alan Grayson (D, FL), Barbara Lee (D, CA), & Jan
Schakowsky (D, IL) tried to consult with terrorist-led group on drone strikes.
'Terrorist-led' being the opinion of the United States
Excerpt: First off, these particular Democrats can’t seem to
get it through their heads that al-Qaeda is, like, the enemy. Which is why
the State Department denied the representative a visa, after all (heck of a
thing when the State Department is the one with its head on a swivel)*. Second…
while I understand why Representatives Grayson, Lee, and Schakowsky might want
to get the straight dope on what it’s like to get hit by a drone strike, going
to actual terrorists is actually not the way to go. Because if we targeted said
group with one, they’d most likely be dead and thus not able to give
a report. ("Red Jan" was my Congress Critter in IL for a while. ~Bob)
PA leader: Stages
plan to eliminate Israel
Excerpt: In an interview on Syrian TV, senior Palestinian
official Abbas Zaki said the PA will only agree to a treaty with Israel if the
Palestinian state is established on the 1967 lines. However, he stressed that
'67 lines would only be the beginning. After that, the Palestinians will
continue with the stages plan:
Iranian Cleric: ‘Having
a Nuclear Bomb is Necessary to Put Down Israel
Excerpt: A top Iranian lawmaker and cleric said that the
country’s uranium enrichment program could allow it to build a nuclear weapon
“in two weeks” in order to “put down Israel ,” according to multiple
reports in the Farsi language press.
Excerpt: An orthopaedic surgeon is speaking out in
frustration over excessive waiting times faced by Otago hip and
knee-replacement patients, and says the region is not clearing a backlog of
cases. Associate Prof David Gwynne-Jones, of Dunedin , said he spent more time explaining
the system to patients than talking about the operations themselves. (The joys
of a single-payer system. ~Bob)
Excerpt: We were supposed to have long ago reached “peak
oil” and an age of always-higher gas prices. Wind and solar power — and a
reduced lifestyle — were our dismal future. But someone or something did not
cooperate with gloomy government predictions. After all the failed subsidized
green companies, the postponement of the Keystone Pipeline, the radical
restrictions of new gas and oil leasing on federal lands, and the promises for
radical climate-change legislation curtailing carbon-energy use, the United
States nevertheless seems awash in old energy.
Excerpt: When fields said to hold billions of barrels of oil
were discovered off the coast here, exuberant government officials said the
deep-sea prize would turn Brazil
into a major energy player. More than six years later, the outlook for Brazil ’s oil
industry, much like the Brazilian economy itself, is more sobering. Oil
production is stagnant, the state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, is hobbled by
debt, and foreign oil companies are wary of investing here.
MSNBC: Harris-Perry
and Panel Ridicule Mitt Romney's Black Grandson
The above image was on a family Facebook posting. It's
just a large scale family portrait taken at a picnic or some sort of family
event. It's not part of any kind of political campaign. And it most
certainly is not something that should be taken as an opportunity to ridicule a
family with an adopted child of a different racial heritage. Everyone on
that TV program should be horribly ashamed of their behavior, and they deserve
contempt for their attitudes. --Del. Excerpt: In a nauseating display of
mean-spirited ignorance, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel of five
ridiculed Mitt Romney's black grandchild as something "that's not like the
others." The MSNBC segment was a look back at 2013, and for some reason a
Romney family photo that shows former Massachusetts
governor with a grandchild on each knee was cherry-picked for mockery. The only
apparent reason for the ridicule was purely based on the race of Kieran Romney,
the governor's adopted grandchild who happens to be black.
Excerpt: New York
City ’s Department of Investigation (DOI) has just
shown how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. Its
undercover agents were able to obtain ballots for city elections a total of 61
times — 39 times using the names of dead people, 14 times using the names of
incarcerated felons, and eight times using the names of non-residents.
The ‘Racism’
Wrecking Ball: Indiscriminate charges of racism do more harm
than good, as Martin Luther King well knew. By John Fund
Excerpt: Shouting
“racism” in a crowded media and political theater has become a substitute for
thought and debate in America
Excerpt: A federal judge on Monday overturned Chicago 's ban on the sale
and transfer of firearms, ruling that the city's ordinances aimed at reducing
gun violence are unconstitutional.
2013 Guns Sales Set New Record. By Katie Pavlich
Excerpt: The FBI has released new
statistics on NICS background checks showing 2013 gun sales hit a new
record. The total number of background checks conducted for gun sales last year
add up to 21,093,273, beating the previous 2012 record of 19,592,303 by
1,500,970. Texas
conducted the most background checks with 1,633,278. (Dear Barack, Many thanks.
America 's
Gun Manufacturers.)
Uncomfortable
Truths about Family Breakdown: Children without married parents
miss out on more than just income. By Michael Barone
Excerpt: These differences have sharp implications for
upward mobility. Schulz points to an Economic Mobility Project analysis showing
that, among children who start off in the bottom third of the income
distribution, only 26 percent with divorced parents move up, compared with 42
percent born to unmarried mothers (who may marry later, of course) and 50
percent who grow up with two married parents.
Excerpt: Two events last week — one an announcement by the
Marine Corps, the other speeches at the inauguration of New York City's new
mayor — illustrated vividly how President Obama and his media cohort have so
narrowed the boundaries of political speech that we no longer believe we
can challenge outright lies. Among the lies we’ve become inured to is that
women can perform every job a man can, including those of combat infantryman
and special operators.
Former Guantanamo detainee implicated in Benghazi
Excerpt: U.S.
officials suspect that a former Guantanamo
Bay detainee played a role in the
attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi , Libya
NYC workers charged
in disability scam
Excerpt: Scores of retired New York City police officers, firefighters
and prison guards were charged Tuesday with faking psychiatric problems to get
federal disability benefits — with some falsely claiming their conditions arose
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, prosecutors said. Four ringleaders coached
the former workers on how to falsely describe symptoms of depression and other
mental health problems that allowed them to get payouts as high as $500,000,
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said.
Excerpt: Lest anyone doubt that America is now rule by one dictator
and an entire army of liberal court judges, we have only to look at the
happenings this week to see who's running the store. The Florida courts on Monday struck
down the new law that would have required welfare recipients in that state to
be drug tested before receiving state welfare benefits. The courts ruled
requiring welfare applicants to be drug tested violated the "search and
seizure" laws in the United States Constitution.
Posts
One step at a time, Marine! So glad to see you back, even if part time. You cannot fail with so many prayers and positive vibes sent your way.
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