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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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:

 

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Obamacare forces small businesses to drop employee health benefits

Finding out what’s in it: An IRS ruling from 2013, based on Obamacare and now going into effect, will force small businesses that offer alternatives to health insurances to drop those alternatives, or face hefty fines.

This ruling applies to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, who supposedly were going to be unaffected by Obamacare. Previously, they could offer their employees stipends to buy insurance themselves, as individuals. Obamacare bans this, requiring the business to either join Obamacare, which is too expensive, or face fines if they provide the stipends. So, the wonderful law that Obama and the Democrats passed instead leaves these workers with less than they had before.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

7 comments

  • Wayne

    This is me & my employer.
    My Company has about 40 people on the payroll & we all get paid an “extra” $3/hour to help us buy our own insurance. I don’t believe any of our employees qualify for a subsidy (I don’t) and only a few people are covered through their spouses insurance.
    We’ve been warned about this, but honestly I’m not sure what is going to happen.
    I pay a monthly amount for health insurance that is 1.5 X’s what my house-mortgage payment used to be, it’s unreal.
    (My wife died 3 years ago, if not for her life-insurance payout, my “middle-class lifestyle,” would have vanished under the weight of health-insurance by now.)

  • Edward

    Wayne,
    If, without your stipend, health insurance is as unaffordable for you as it is for me, you may be joining me in my current scofflaw status.

    The silver lining is that we each would be saving the $2,500 per year that Obama promised.

    The cloud, of course, is that we would not be covered at all — not keeping the healthcare plan that we liked, as Obama promised we could.

    On the up-side, we are finding out what is in the bill.

    On the down-side, we are finding out what is in the bill. It is worse than we thought, in 2010.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV7dDSgbaQ0 (1 minute)
    Now that we are in the future, are you feeling like it is a healthier America? Are you as very excited as Pelosi thought you would be? Then again, we did not need health insurance to control our diet. We do that on our own.

  • phillo

    The illegal immigrants and the welfare folk are happy! Just like Canada.

    Phill O

  • eddie willers

    I have yet to see a success story.

    Am I just going to the wrong websites?

  • “. . . leaves these workers with less than they had before.”

    Liberalism in a nutshell, example #37.

    When a health professional asks for my insurance, I tell them I’m self-insured. Bonus: I get 15% – 20% off the bill. So by not strictly adhering to the law, I’m better off than those the law purports to ‘help’. That doesn’t even make sense.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    I truly hope Chief Injustice Roberts has family screwed by Obamacare.

  • Wayne

    DK:
    Unfortunately no– Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the Fed government are exempt from all provisions of socialized medicine.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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