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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Obamacare to increase costs 60%

Finding out what’s in it: A new report from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, because of Obamacare, the cost for employment-based health insurance will rise by 60% by 2025.

These increases are on top of the increases we’ve seen in the past five years, since the law was passed. Moreover, the increases are going to cost the federal government trillions in the coming years, as the law requires the government to pay large subsidies for those in the lower income brackets who can’t afford these insane premiums. In fact, last year the tab was about $300 billion. And that’s only the start. Worse, these estimates by the CBO are routinely low.

Obviously, we should vote for one of the Democrats, who are promising to fix the problem by waving they arms and making it vanish, while also promising to provide everyone with free healthcare. Or maybe we should vote for the Republican named Trump who has made similar promises though not quite as ludicrous. Why not? What does reality have to do with anything anymore?

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • wodun

    At $300b, it becomes one of the largest expenditures in the budget.

  • pzatchok

    As long as the US has a single solder the left will cry we need to spend less on defense and more on helping the poor.
    Even though spending more on the poor has never actually worked in the long run.
    For the most part being poor is a lifestyle the poor person has chosen.
    They chose not to get educated, gain a skill, do drugs, not save, spend foolishly. have children or not do the overtime and extra work to get ahead.
    Its the lifestyle they choose for themselves and throwing money at them has never worked to get them out of poverty.

    It only makes them dependent on the government handouts and the government offering ‘free’ anything is just adding new chains of slavery around their neck.

  • Steve Earle

    pzatchok
    February 13, 2016 at 1:35 am

    “For the most part being poor is a lifestyle the poor person has chosen.”

    “Its the lifestyle they choose for themselves and throwing money at them has never worked to get them out of poverty.”

    “It only makes them dependent on the government handouts and the government offering ‘free’ anything is just adding new chains of slavery around their neck.”

    **************************

    Exactly right. Our responsibility is only to provide a safety net of last resort, not was has become a lifestyle.

    Another part of this is the loss of Shame as a cultural control. With the sinking of religion and the nuclear family, Shame has become a bad word. If there is no shame, no religion, no family, then people are ripe to be lured into the Left’s idea of Paradise……

    An interesting thing is that the Left has managed to do this cultural enslavement to every minority class except Asians. In fact I don’t recall any efforts in that direction by the left. I wonder why, especially given that Asians were the largest segment of legal immigration for the last several years IIRC.

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “the law requires the government to pay large subsidies for those in the lower income brackets who can’t afford these insane premiums.”

    Obama has declared Congress and its aides be allowed to receive the Obamacare subsidies, because these people are also too poor to afford the premiums. When these well-paid people are unable to afford the high cost of the premiums, what chance do the rest of us have? It seems to me, with such a declaration, that anyone paid less than Congress or its aides must also be considered among America’s lower income brackets.

    Half a century ago, America set up a safety net, the “War on Poverty,” but I have heard this net called a hammock, in recent years, because too many people spend their lives resting in it instead of using it to keep from hitting bottom.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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