Month: February 2014

A close look at the spending bills introduced in Congress shows that of the 70 members who sponsored the largest number of spending bills, 65 were Democrats, four were Republicans and one an independent.

10:20 am

A close look at the spending bills introduced in Congress shows that of the 70 members who sponsored the largest number of spending bills, 65 were Democrats, four were Republicans and one an independent.

This puts the lie to the claim that there is no difference between the two parties.

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Will Piers Morgan apologize for spreading a racist hoax?

10:08 am

Will Piers Morgan apologize for spreading a racist hoax?

I doubt it, but even if he does apologize (as has happened a lot at NBC recently), he won’t really mean it. When you are a hate-filled bigot, working at a hate-filled television network, apologizes don’t mean you’ve mended your ways, only that you are looking for cover so you can spread more hate.

Note also that Deval Patrick, Democratic governor of Massachusetts, also joined Morgan in spreading this lie.

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The 2014 Birthday Bleg

10:00 am

I really dislike doing this, but someone has to pay the bills, and this website is one way I do it. February 5 will be my sixty-first birthday. As I have done the past two years, I am posting a birthday bleg, requesting donations to help fund the existence of Behind the Black. If you like my webpage and want to support it in any way, please consider donating something. I would be grateful for anything you can give.. Some people have even subscribed, sending as little as $2 per month.

The tip jar can be found in the right column, below the search box.

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A new report from the Congressional Budget Office has found that Obamacare will increase the deficit and slow the economy far more than originally predicted.

9:56 am

Finding out what’s in it: A new report from the Congressional Budget Office has found that Obamacare will increase the deficit and slow the economy far more than originally predicted.

The non-partisan agency’s report found that the healthcare law’s negative effects on the economy will be “substantially larger” than what it had previously anticipated. The CBO is now estimating that the law will reduce labor force compensation by 1 percent from 2017 to 2024, twice the reduction it previously had projected. This will decrease the number of full-time equivalent jobs in 2021 by 2.3 million, CBO said. It had previously estimated the decrease would be 800,000.

Aren’t you glad the Democrats shut the government down in October to prevent any delay or changes to their law?

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Jupiter’s shrinking Great Red Spot.

9:34 am

Jupiter’s shrinking Great Red Spot.

In the 1880s the GRS resembled a huge blimp gliding high above white crystalline clouds of ammonia and spanned 40,000 km (25, 000 miles) across. You couldn’t miss it even in those small brass refractors that were the standard amateur observing gear back in the day. Nearly one hundred years later in 1979, the Spot’s north-south extent has remained virtually unchanged, but it’s girth had shrunk to 25,000 km (15,535 miles) or just shy of two Earth diameters. Recent work done by expert astrophotographer Damian Peach using the WINJUPOS program to precisely measure the GRS in high resolution photos over the past 10 years indicates a continued steady shrinkage.

Lots more fascinating information at the link. Read it all.

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Bolden and Mikulski hold a press conference to lobby for continuing funding for the James Webb Space Telescope.

9:13 am

Bolden and Mikulski hold a press conference to lobby for continuing funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Before JWST entered development, around the turn of the century, program officials projected it would cost $1 billion to $3.5 billion and launch between 2007 to 2011, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Jan. 8. Now, after lengthy delays [seven years] and billions in added costs [a real budget of $8.8 billion], JWST is entering its peak development years, in which major subsystems will be put together, tested, integrated with one another, and tested again. It will be, according to Bolden, one of the most difficult parts of JWST’s construction.

“This is our tough budget year,” Bolden said. It is also the most expensive, according to projections the White House released last April with its 2014 budget proposal. Bolden spoke to the press here after he and Mikulski, JWST’s biggest ally in Congress, held a town hall meeting at Goddard, the center in charge of building the massive infrared observatory. Both NASA employees and executives from some of JWST’s major industry contractors attended.

Mikulski told reporters that automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, which reduced NASA’s 2013 appropriation to about $16.9 billion, “resulted in furloughs, shutdowns, slowdowns [and] slamdown politics [which] are exactly what could derail or cause enormous cost overruns to the James Webb.”

I am especially entertained by the disasters Mikulski lists in the last paragraph, all of which she blames on sequestration. They are identical to the lies Democratic politicians like her told before sequestration took effect, none of which happened. That she now makes believe as if these disasters did happen and expects us to believe her new lies about the future illustrates how much in contempt she holds the general public. Does she really believe people are that stupid?

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Every Democratic senator up for re-election in 2014 voted with the president at least 90 percent of the time in 2013.

4:53 pm

A fact to remember when Democrats make believe they oppose Obama in the coming election: Every Democratic senator up for re-election in 2014 voted with the president at least 90 percent of the time in 2013.

It also appears that Democrat support for Obama was higher when they controlled both houses of Congress, “prevailing on almost 97 percent of the votes in the two chambers on which [Obama] took a position in 2009 and almost 86 percent in 2010, when Democrats controlled both House and Senate.”

That was also when the Democrats shoved Obamacare down our throats.

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An Obama supporter discovers she was betrayed by Obama and Obamacare.

9:37 am

Finding out what’s in it: An Obama supporter discovers she was betrayed by Obama and Obamacare.

My plan was canceled last fall. According to the regulators behind ObamaCare, it was a subpar plan that should no longer be sold to consumers. Another 16,000 Tennesseans on the same plan were similarly dumped. Many, like me, liked their plans and wanted to keep them. This wasn’t my insurer’s fault at all. CoverTN actually fought for me to keep my health care. After I received my cancellation notice, the folks at CoverTN requested that the federal government give them a waiver, which would let them grandfather my plan into ObamaCare. Their request was rejected.

This left me with no health plan and only one choice: Buy a plan through the ObamaCare exchanges.

After weighing my options, I settled on a “platinum” plan. This was the best plan that I could choose. A “bronze,” “silver” or “gold” plan all would leave me paying exorbitant amounts of money on my frequent, and expensive, trips to doctors and specialists. But the platinum plan was the lesser of two expensive evils. My new plan costs me $373 a month, even after a small subsidy. By comparison, my old plan only cost me $57 a month. And I now pay 25 percent co-insurance on all doctor visits until I reach my out-of-pocket maximum of $1,500. This is much higher than under CoverTN.

All told, I’m likely going to pay more than $6,000 more each year for my medical care.

Just remember: Even as the insurance cancellation notices were going out last fall, the Democrats and Obama were refusing to negotiate any changes to Obamacare, even vowing to shut the government down rather than negotiate. They must really love this law and the things it is doing to innocent people like this woman.

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Slandering an American icon.

9:29 am

Slandering an American icon.

It strikes me that, in addition to (if reports are true) grotesque ambition, Ms. Streep reflects a certain warped mindset that is all too prominent in the fashionable circles of our time. I am talking about a predisposition to believe that anything iconically American is corrupt.

The full essay is here.

I should also add that Ms. Streep’s coments also illustrate nicely the typical know-it-all ignorance of modern leftwing elite culture. She knows that Walt Disney was bigoted, without knowing a goddamn thing about him.

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After resuming drilling in Seattle — and only going four feet — Bertha has been stopped again.

8:12 pm

After resuming drilling in Seattle — and only going four feet — Bertha has been stopped again.

High temperatures near the machine’s cutting face prompted contractors to stop mining after the drill advanced a total of 4 feet in test runs Tuesday and Wednesday. And that ended Bertha’s attempt to resume mining after an eight-week layoff.

The earlier stoppage remains unexplained. They found some concrete chunks and steel pipe sections in the way, but nothing that could have explained why the drill was blocked. Now the high temperatures pose a more significant problem, as they suggest there is something technical wrong with the giant drill.

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