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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five 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. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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 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 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

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.

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