A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

The house of cards begins to fall: A union is calling for the repeal of Obamacare.

Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.

But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.

These provisions jeopardize our multi-employer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health plans.

But don’t worry, come the next election this same union will continue to support the same Democratic politicians that gave us Obamacare, because party partisanship is far more important than common sense and rational leadership.

A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

Does this make you feel safer? A decorated war veteran on a Boy Scout hike with his 15-year-old son was arrested by police in Texas because he was “rudely displaying” a firearm.

Army Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham told Fox News he was illegally disarmed by members of the Temple Police Dept. – even though he held the proper permits to carry his weapons. Grisham and his son were on a 10-mile hike in a rural area populated by wild boars and cougars. He was carrying an AR-15 rifle and a .45 caliber pistol. He was charged with resisting arrest – even though video his son filmed of the incident clearly showed that Grisham did not resist arrest. Police later reduced the charges to interfering with a peace officer while performing a duty – a class B misdemeanor.

Update: several commenters have pointed out facts about Grisham, including this very detailed report from Michael Yon, that raise serious questions about the reliability of this story. Worth reading.

A private company tells the IAU to bug off!

A private company tells the IAU to bug off about who has the power to name things in space!

Uwingu affirms the IAU’s right to create naming systems for astronomers But we know that the IAU has no purview—informal or official—to control popular naming of bodies in the sky or features on them, just as geographers have no purview to control people’s naming of features along hiking trails. People clearly enjoy connecting to the sky and having an input to common-use naming. We will continue to stand up for the public’s rights in this regard, and look forward to raising more grant funds for space researchers and educators this way.

The company also pointed out that even astronomers name things without the IAU’s approval.

Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

The day of reckoning looms: Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

In other words, even if the federal, state, and city governments took 100 percent of your income in taxes, they still wouldn’t get enough money to pay their expenses. And since government spending has continued to rise since 2010 amid a stagnant economy, this situation has worsened, not improved. Worse, in 2012 the public voted in favor of accelerating this situation by voting for more Democrats in the Senate, while keeping a spendthrift Democratic President in power.

We are going bankrupt. It is only a matter of time.

Doctors driven to bankruptcy

Doctors driven to bankruptcy.

What is amazing about this article about the recent spike in doctors filing for bankruptcy is how it somehow never mentions Obamacare at all. The closest the author comes is a mention of “changing regulations.” How informative!

If the author was a good journalist, which he isn’t, it should have been self evident that the advent and effects of Obamacare has to be included in this story, if only to give it the proper context.

The coming Obamacare chaos

The coming Obamacare chaos.

The article is a very detailed summary of the many problems caused by Obamacare, from increased unemployment to loss of healthcare insurance to higher premiums to higher debt. Everyone should read it. However, the most important question is laid out in the very first paragraph:

The biggest political problem faced by so-called “liberals” and so-called “progressives” in President Obama’s second term is how to prevent voters from holding them politically responsible as the public comes to realize how badly they were lied to during the first Obama term to win passage of Obamacare.

It is going to be the number one priority of all Democratic politicians and their allies in the mainstream press to somehow find a way to blame Republicans for Obamacare. The question will be whether they will succeed.

The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have admitted their data is worthless

The scientists who attempted to re-invent Michael Mann’s hockey stick global warming graph and were caught fudging their data have essentially admitted that their data is worthless.

This is what they say in a FAQ they have added to their paper:

Q: What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?

A: Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. [emphasis mine]

They are basically admitting that the data used to create the temperature rise of their hockey stick during the past 100 years is unreliable and therefore useless for scientific purposes. Which raises the question: Why did they publish it in the first place? See especially this analysis of this paper and the press’s reaction to it by climate scientists Roger Pielke.

The collapse of household income since 2009.

The collapse of household income since 2009.

A comparison of the graph in the article above with the changing federal debt (both graphs below the fold) is quite revealing. The steep drop in household income in 2009 lines up precisely with the steep rise in federal deficits beginning in 2009. I wonder if they have anything to do with each other? The article also notes the possible negative impact of Obamacare. How could they think such a thing?
» Read more

“We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

Canada to the UN environmental movement: “We’re just not interested in continuing to support bureaucracies and talkfests.”

The country has pulled out of a UN program supposedly aimed at “combating desertification,” noting that

only 18% of the roughly CAD$350,000 per year that Canada contributed to the U.N. initiative is “actually spent on programming,” [Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper] told Parliament this week during question period. “The rest goes to various bureaucratic measures. … It’s not an effective way to spend taxpayers’ money.”

As is their normal approach to debate, there is a lot of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and name-calling among the environmentalists, but no substantive response to counter Harper’s point above.

Science and sequestration in context

On March 21, the House accepted the continuing resolution proposed by the Senate for the year 2013. This continuing resolution will fund everything in the federal government though September of this year, and includes the cuts imposed on March 1 by sequestration.

As it always does, the journal Science did a specific analysis of the science portion of this budget bill. As usual, they looked only at the trees, not the forest, comparing the budget changes up or down for the 2012 and 2013 years only, noting how those changes will impact each agency’s programs. As usual, Science also took the side for more federal spending, assuming that in each case any cut was sure to cause significant harm to the nation’s ability to do cutting edge science.

I like to take a wider and deeper view. Below is a chart showing how the budgets for these agencies have changed since 2008. They give a much clearer perspective of the consequences of sequestration and the cuts, if any, imposed by Congress on these science agencies.
» Read more

To show support for the New Jersey family that had been threatened by the government for posting a picture of their son holding a rifle, hundreds of parents post pictures of their own gun-toting kids.

Pushback: To show support for the New Jersey family that had been threatened by the government for posting a picture of their son holding a rifle, hundreds of parents post pictures of their own gun-toting kids.

Note also that if you look at the posed pictures, none of the kids have their hands on the trigger. Unlike Michael Bloomberg’s actor in his anti-gun ads, these kids have been taught the safe way to handle a gun.

A Democratic voter discovers he’s actually a tea party racist.

A Democratic voter discovers he’s actually a tea party racist.

Today was a bad day. After meeting with my tax accountant, I am now cutting a very large check to the State of California, all of which resulted from Proposition 30 and the “retroactive tax” that was levied on my 2012 income. This despite the fact that I already paid my 2012 taxes back in September.

While the law stipulates that I must surrender this money, I refuse to acknowledge this as a tax at all. This is not a tax. This is an asset seizure plain and simple. The term “retroactive tax” is a despicable euphemism. It is no different than when Hugo Chavez used the benign-sounding “nationalize” to describe his seizure of private property in Venezuela.

He then notes that he is not a tea party member or even a Republican and that he voted for Obama twice.

Wanna bet that in the next election he’ll still vote Democratic? Based on the history of the past three decades, I expect that even after this experience, he will still refuse to abandon the faction he has adopted (the Democratic Party) and change his vote.

Obamacare may cost small business as much as 65% of their profits.

Obamacare may cost small business as much as 65% of their profits.

At these levels, the question that will soon occur to the business owner is “Why am I bothering?” If he can shrink his business to less than 50 employees and avoid the Obamacare costs, he will.

And in related news: Health insurers are privately warning brokers that premiums may double next year for many individuals and small businesses due to Obamacare.

A congressional report, issued by Republicans in the House and Senate, says that Obamacare will increase healthcare costs by 200 percent.

A congressional report, issued by Republicans in the House and Senate, says that Obamacare will increase healthcare costs by 200 percent.

Though the report is partisan, it is worth reading because of the depth of the analysis as well as the range of its historical research. For example:

The report notes that a number of states have already imposed requirements on health coverage and the result has been fewer choices and higher premiums. In New York, for example, a 30-year-old male paid an average of $1,200 a year in annual premiums in 1993, but one month after the state passed Obamacare-like reforms, premiums soared to $3,240. At the time Washington state passed similar reforms, 19 insurance carriers wrote policies for state residents. Within six years, only two carriers remained in the state.

I was living in New York when the state legislature passed this early version of Obamacare and can attest to truth of the above facts. Costs doubled and insurance companies fled the state, reducing competition. I even wrote about an article about it. The evidence from these state efforts illustrates the likelihood that Obamacare will do the same, nationwide.

According to a federal report, businesses nationwide remain reluctant to hire because of Obamacare.

According to a federal report, businesses nationwide remain reluctant to hire because of Obamacare.

Earlier this month, the Fed released its latest “beige book” – a monthly report on economic conditions across the country. The book noted that employers across the country have “cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”

And it is only going to get worse. Read the whole article. The new taxes imposed by Obamacare are going to crush the healthcare industry.

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