Obamacare includes 171-word definition of menu

Finding out what’s in it: The Food and Drug Administration has released its final regulations on how restaurants must write their menus as mandated by Obamacare.

The final guidance includes a 96-word definition of “combination meal” and a 163-word definition of “restaurant-type food.” The government also goes into when “Aunt Cora’s French toast breakfast” must have its calories listed and tells restaurants not to use plus or minus signs on their menus because they are too “confusing” to Americans.

But drawing the biggest criticism is the government’s definition of menu and strict rules for calorie labeling of toppings. The government considers a menu to be the “primary writing of the covered establishment from which a customer makes an order selection, including, but not limited to, breakfast, lunch and dinner menus; dessert menus; beverage menus, children’s menus, other specialty menus (such as catering), electronic menus, and menus on the Internet.” The full definition is 171 words. Merriam-Webster has a 12-word definition for menu.

The phrase “from which a customer makes an order selection” opened the door for coupons and advertisements to be included in the mandate. The FDA said calories must be listed on coupons if they have the restaurant’s phone number, and advertisements can be “considered a menu.”

There’s more at the link. Read it all to find out how deeply Obamacare is working to organize and regulate our lives.

But don’t worry. The same people who wrote the law are going to be running things after November. They will surely fix it!

Trump’s new finance chief donates 2x more to Democrats than Republicans

Researching November’s Democratic primary: The man Donald Trump just appointed as his finance chairman routinely donates twice as much to Democrats than he does to Republicans, and has deep ties with the Democratic Party’s most liberal wing.

Beyond his contributions, Mnuchin’s past employers don’t fall in line with Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner and worked for liberal mega-donor George Soros’s hedge fund. He also contributed to a group called America Coming Together, which was largely funded by Soros and unions.

But don’t worry. We now have two candidates who will fix Obamacare and make sure the foreign policy of the United States is run by the same people that have been doing it for the past eight years.

Putin signs Russian homesteading act

On Monday Russia’s president Vladimir Putin signed a new law that is a variation of the American homesteading acts that helped settle the west in the 1800s.

Trutnev’s initial suggestion was to “create a mechanism for the free allocation of a 1 hectare (2.5 acres) plot of land to every resident of the Far East and to anyone who is willing to come and live in the region so that they could start a private business in farming, forestry, game hunting or some other enterprise.” He added that the agreement could be signed for five years, and then it should either enter full force if the new landlord follows the plan, or be declared void if the land is not used.

They might be doing it wrong in aerospace, but if this story is correct Putin’s government has got it right when it comes to land ownership.

Manager resigns as investigation pinpoints issues during first Vostochny launch

The first head rolls: Even as the investigation into the one day delay for the first Vostochny launch uncovers number of issues, including an incorrectly installed cable, the manager of one division has already resigned.

The problem with a cable made in violation of designer documents delayed the launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, the newspaper Izvestia wrote on May 5. “Academician Semikhatov NPO Avtomatiki modeled that situation, saw it with their eyes and certified the results. The rocket’s cable was made in violation of designer documents and lacked a number of vital straps,” a representative of the Roscosmos administration told the newspaper. “Heads of the Yekaterinburg-based NPOA and those responsible for the integrity of methods used in testing the ground control system at the cosmodrome will be definitely held responsible for the contingency,” he said.

They have also found an additional “20 problems”. Expect more heads to roll, which might be a good thing, as it might help fix some of the quality control problems that have become an increasing problem in the Russian aerospace industry.

You asked for this

The post is short but this is the essence: “Given the choice between a dozen solid conservatives and one Clinton-supporting con artist and game-show host, you chose the con artist.”

Nothing can change the fact that all of Donald Trump’s past and recent history suggest that he is a moderate liberal Democrat. I expect him to rule in exactly that way should he win the presidency. He won’t be as corrupt or as leftwing as Clinton, but considering the power the federal government already wields, his willingness to support and use it will nonetheless contribute to the continuing decline in American freedom.

I hope I am wrong. I sadly do not expect that.

Eighth-grader arrested for using $2 bill

The coming dark age: School officials had an eighth-grader arrested when she tried to pay for her lunch with a legal $2 bill.

“I went to the lunch line, and they said my $2 bill was fake,” Danesiah told the news station. “They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.” School officials called Daneisha’s grandmother, Sharon Kay Joseph, and asked, ” ‘Did you give Danesiah a $2 bill for lunch?’ He told me it was fake,” the grandmother recalled.

An investigation into the $2 bill led Fort Bend ISD police to a local convenience store that gave it to Ms. Joseph, ABC reported. Police were then led to a bank where the 1953-issued bill was examined and determined to be real.

Note that both the school officials and the police had no idea that there is such a thing as a $2 bill.

Congressman proposes major changes to regulation of commercial space

Doug Messier has posted a detailed analysis of Congressman Jim Bridenstine’s (R-Oklahoma) proposed American Space Renaissance Act (ASRA) that is definitely worth reading.

Most of the changes appear aimed at organizing the regulation process of commercial space more completely under FAA control, rather than the hodge-podge of agencies that presently have responsibility. The bill also encourages NOAA and NASA to increase their use of commercial data for weather and Earth remote sensing.

At first glance, the bill looks good, but it also is not likely to be passed as written. Moreover, not surprisingly it calls for a hefty increase in funding for the FAA agencies being given more responsibilities, but I wonder if Congress will comparably reduce the funding of those agencies it takes responsibility from. My instinct tells me no, which means of course that the government and bureaucracy grows again.

How tiny cowardice is destroying us

Link here.

This is how culture wars are lost: through the slow accumulation of individually defensible but collectively unjustifiable decisions not to resist. It’s the decision that objecting during diversity training simply isn’t worth the hassle. It’s the decision not to say anything when you see a colleague or fellow student facing persecution because of their beliefs. It’s a life habit of always taking the path of least resistance, keeping your head down, and doing your best to preserve your own family and career. The small fights don’t matter anyway, right? I recently spoke to a mid-level executive at a major corporation who had been forced to sit through mandatory “inclusivity” training. The topic was transgender rights, and the trainer proceeded to spout far-left ideology as fact, going so far as to label all who disagreed with the notion that a man can become a woman “transphobic.” I asked if anyone objected to any part of the training, and the response was immediate. “Are you crazy? No one wants to deal with HR.”

Read it all. We are faced with bullies, who run away and hide the instant someone challenges them. The problem is that too many people are unwilling to challenge them, so they win time after time after time.

Why Russian aerospace will not compete

The fallout from the scrub and one day delay of the first launch at Vostochny, while Vladimir Putin was there and watching, has generated an investigation and the suspension of one designer.

The official goal of the commission was to find causes of the failed launch attempt and to check the completeness of tests leading to the incident.

However given a minor technical impact of the delay, the investigation likely had the primarily political nature, namely it was aimed to demonstrate to the Kremlin that the industry problems were being dealt with. Moreover, Rogozin also made a decision during the work of the commission to suspend the responsibilities of Leonid Shalimov, the designer general at NPO Avtomatika, which supplied the hardware allegedly responsible for the incident. Rogozin summoned Shalimov to Moscow on May 6, apparently to present the results of the investigation. [emphasis mine]

When you develop any new system or cutting edge technology, things are certain to go wrong. This is the one certainty that I will admit to and gladly embrace, and to which good designers, scientists, and engineers all agree. Vostochny is brand new. It stands barely finished. No launch had ever been attempted there before. For there to be a one day delay because of a minor engineering issue is hardly a sign of poor workmanship. Instead, it suggests the people who built it did a reasonably good job, even as many of their managers ripped them and the project off.

What we see here is an industry that is being run not by people who understand the business, but by distant politicians whose only interest is power and control. Can you imagine any manager in Roscosmos anywhere being willing to approve the start of a radical new engineering project, faced with pressure from Putin and these power-hungry politicians in Moscow? It won’t happen. Until there is a change and the politicians let go of their control of this industry, Roscosmos is going to take the safe route every single time.

Nothing new is going to come from Russia’s aerospace industry for a very long time.

Russian court calls for arrest of Vostochny suspects

A Russian court has essentially done what we would call “denying bail” and demanded the arrest of two former Vostochny executives who have been charged with taking bribes during the construction phase of the spaceport.

The court ruled to arrest at least until June 20 the former chief of Spetsstroitekhnologii firm at the Federal Agency for Special Construction, Vladimir Shamailov, and his suspected accomplice Renat Syamiullin. The court agreed with the position in prosecution that staying out of prison the suspects could flee investigation as well as try to destroy the evidence. It is expected that today’s court ruling will be challenged.

Anti-Trump protesters get violent

Fascist brownshirts: A man tries to walk down the street in California wearing a Trump hat and gets physically attacked by anti-Trump protesters.

Nor is this all. The link describes numerous other examples of violence by anti-Trump protesters in California. This link describes additional anti-Trump violence, including smashing windows, destroying police cars, and attacking Trump supporters. More here.

I have posted a video below the fold of the man with the Trump hat being attacked.

As those who read my website know, I am not a fan of Donald Trump. However, I support fully the right of free speech for him and his supporters. Moreover, a close look at what he says shows that he isn’t a bigot nor is he racist. He has been very clear about his positions on immigration and Middle East refugees, and in neither case has he called for a ban based on race or religion. In the first case he has simply demanded that our immigration laws be enforced, and has justly criticized the federal government for failing to do its job. In the second case he has clearly said that this is not the time to accept large numbers of unvetted immigrants from the Middle East. While I do not trust him to do what he says, in neither case has he said anything that is that unreasonable.

These anti-Trump protesters however are not moved by mere disagreement. All that appears to move them is hate. They hate Trump and his supporters, see them as evil, and want them destroyed, by any means necessary. And if you don’t believe me watch the video below the fold.
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The stupid party, part 2

Update: Thomas Sowell chimes in, expressing some of the same thoughts I do below.

As we approach the Indiana primary next Tuesday, it appears that we are also approaching the moment of truth for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and the Republican Party. And not surprisingly, that party appears ready to once again shoot itself in the foot, as it did in 1996, 2000, 2008, and 2012.

Polls show that the race is very tight, though the momentum seems to be favoring Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, national polls as well as the analysis of most political insiders say that Trump will lose to Hillary Clinton in November, while those same polls and insiders say that Ted Cruz has a far better shot at winning the national election.

In other words, it looks like Republican voters are going to pick the weaker of the two candidates for their nominee.

Pretty dumb, eh? What makes it even dumber is that even the slightest honest appraisal of the political beliefs of Donald Trump quickly reveals himself to be a RINO, a liberal Democrat with many ties to the corrupt political establishments of both parties. In addition, his political positions both before and during the campaign have revealed himself repeatedly to be a liberal Democratic in all things except illegal immigration, and even here he has shown indications that he will go soft once in office.

Trump is not a corrupt lying politician like Hillary Clinton. He would definitely be a better choice than her. Moreover, the insiders and the polls might be wrong about his chances against her, but I do not think so. Trump’s primary election results suggested to me that he has the support, like Mitt Romney, of a large minority of moderate Republicans and moderate former Democrats (concentrated in the northeast) that will not translate into a majority in the general election. If anything, he has set himself up to be a nice target for the press to destroy, once he is the Republican candidate.

For the Republican Party to favor him over Ted Cruz, a committed conservative who has repeatedly proven his willingness to stand up for these ideals, even under terrible fire from the press, the left, and the Republican leadership that really doesn’t want the right to win, is either madness, or it shows that the country in general no long believes in the ideals that founded it.

I’m not sure which it is, but either way, the future does not look good.

Another successful launch for India

The competition heats up: India has successfully launched its seventh home-built GPS satellite, completing their GPS constellation.

The seven first-generation satellites have been launched over a three-year period, starting with the deployment of IRNSS-1A in July 2013. ISRO has launched all of the satellites itself using the PSLV rocket. The flight number for Thursday’s launch was PSLV C33, which saw the vehicle fly in its most powerful configuration, the PSLV-XL. This version of the PSLV was introduced in October 2008 with the launch of the Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe, and features more powerful solid rocket boosters than the standard PSLV, increasing the amount of payload it can carry into orbit.

Meanwhile, they are gearing up for the first test flight of the engineering prototype of their reusuable spaceplane.

First launch from Vostochny a success

The competition heats up: After more than a decade of construction and more than $6 billion, the new Russian spaceport succeeded in its first rocket launch in the early morning hours of April 28, sending three satellites into Earth orbit.

Several news stories have said that Putin was not happy about the one day launch delay due to a computer issue, as well as the one day delay of a Soyuz launch in French Guiana earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, don’t expect any further launches at Vostochny for a long time. The spaceport really isn’t ready for regular operations. This launch was merely a face-saving gesture to disguise the fact that construction is really more than a year behind schedule, not three months.

Congress micro-manages rocket engineering again

In an effort to funnel money to Aerojet Rocketdyne at the cost of every other rocket company in the nation, the House Armed Services Committee has written a bill that tells the Air Force exactly how it will build its future rockets.

“The Committee shares the concern of many members that reliance on Russian-designed rocket engines is no longer acceptable,” the committee said April 25. “The Chairman’s Proposal, as recommended by Chairman Rogers of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, denies the Air Force’s request to pursue the development, at taxpayer expense, of new commercial launch systems. It instead focuses on the development of a new American engine to replace the Russian RD-180 by 2019 to protect assured access to space and to end reliance on Russian engines. The Mark also holds the Air Force accountable for its awards of rocket propulsion contracts that violated the FY15 and FY16 NDAAs.”

…“The funds would not be authorized to be obligated or expended to develop or procure a launch vehicle, an upper stage, a strap-on motor, or related infrastructure,” says a draft of the 2017 defense authorization bill.

As presently written, the bill would leave the Air Force only one option: use engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

If anything demonstrates the corruption or foolishness of our elected officials, it is this proposal. Not only are they telling the Air Force how to design rockets, they are limiting the options so much that they are guaranteeing that it will either cost us more than we can afford, or it won’t be doable at all. As I say, either they are corrupt (working to benefit Aerojet Rocketdyne in exchange for money), or they are foolish, (preventing the Air Force from exploring as many inexpensive future options as possible).

Soyuz rocket launch scrubbed due to faulty IMU

Uh-oh: A Soyuz rocket launch from French Guiana was scrubbed an hour before launch on Sunday because of detected problems with the inertial measurement unit (IMU) in its navigational system.

Arianespace chief executive Stephane Israel tweeted Sunday that the faulty inertial measurement unit, or IMU, will be replaced overnight in time for a launch attempt Monday. The IMU is located on the Soyuz rocket’s third stage and is used to determine the heading and orientation of the vehicle in the first nine minutes of its mission, feeding critical attitude data to the launcher’s guidance computers, which transmit steering commands to the engines.

The venerable Soyuz booster flies more often than any other launcher in the world, and delays due to technical causes are rare. [emphasis mine]

This is not good news for Russia’s aerospace industry, as it suggests that the quality control problems Russia has experienced with the company that manufactures its Proton rocket are now beginning to appear with the different company that manufactures the Soyuz rocket.

If true, this is also very bad news for American astronauts, who must use this rocket to get to and from space.

More evidence you can’t trust anything Donald Trump says

Just go to this link and read it. Trump has increasingly reminded me of Clinton in everything he has said and done in the past few weeks, with only one problem. Clinton has more style and a greater understanding of policy, even if I disagreed with him and considered him a liar in almost everything he said.

More and more I am convinced that this prediction of Trump’s administration will turn out to be exactly right.

Obamacare bankrupting state governments

Finding out what’s in it: States that agreed to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion are now discovering that it is bankrupting them.

[T] he budget scuffle [in Arkansas over the expansion] has highlighted the harsh fiscal reality emerging in the Obamacare Medicaid-expansion program — and these lawmakers will have to own it. Beginning next year, Arkansas is obligated to share 5 percent of the program’s cost. Doing this would account for a whopping 60 percent of the year-over-year growth in the state’s budget. With a 10 percent state match on the horizon — coupled with the program’s over-enrollment, cost overruns, and waste, fraud, and abuse — Medicaid expansion will devour Arkansas’s budget over the next ten years.

The budget picture is similarly bleak in other states that took the plunge. Only 18 months into Ohio’s expansion, the state’s total Medicaid costs nearly doubled, to $4.05 billion. By next year, Buckeye taxpayers will be on the hook for over $130 million to meet the 5 percent state match, more than double the projected $55.5 million.

The worst part of this story however is that voters in Arkansas clearly indicated in elections that they wanted the expansion to end. Despite this, the governor (a Republican) and elected officials are still maneuvering to maintain the expansion. Like Congress after 2010 and 2014, landslide victories by conservatives seem to have no meaning to these people.

Shelby blocks Export-Import Bank nominee

In a move that is preventing the recently renewed Export-Import Bank from functioning, Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) has been blocking the nomination of a new board member.

Until the board position is filled, the bank cannot finance any deals greater than $10 million, which essentially prevents it from doing much.

I find this story quite surprising. It says that Shelby has opposed the Ex-Im Bank because he considers it the worse form of “crony capitalism”. Yet, Shelby is also the king of aerospace pork, pushing NASA to fund SLS (thus pouring money into Alabama and the Marshall Spaceflight Center), despite the fact that SLS is a gigantic boondoggle that will never accomplish anything in space.

I suspect that Shelby’s real goals are twofold: 1. He doesn’t like the deals the bank has been financing, and wants to apply pressure on them to instead give deals to his own corporate buddies. 2. He is trying to extort campaign contributions from the parties involved.

Sadly, I can’t believe for an instant that Shelby has altruistic motives.

China to launch full space station in 2018

The competition heats up: China has announced that it will launch the first module of its full space station, named Tianhe-1, in 2018.

The article also gives an short summary of China’s space plans in 2016:

2016 will also be a busy and crucial year for China. Assembly of its second space lab, Tiangong-2, has been completed and the space station prototype will launch in September. This is set to be followed a month later by the Shenzhou-11 crewed mission with two Chinese astronauts. It will also debut new launch vehicles, the Long March 5 and 7, which will greatly increase the country’s launch capabilities.

Long March 5 is capable of putting 25 tons in orbit, making it comparable to Boeing’s Delta 4 Heavy, the most powerful rocket presently operational.

San Francisco requires new buildings have solar panels

Another reason to leave California: San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has unanimously passed a local law that will require all new buildings, both commercial and residential, that are lower than 10 stories tall to install solar panels on their roofs.

San Francisco’s new regulations add to already existing Californian laws which require 15 percent of rooftops on buildings of 10 stories or less to be unshaded and solar ready. Under the new law, buildings must have either solar photovoltaic or solar water panels installed, or a mix of the two.

As part of a concerted effort to one day run the city entirely on renewables, the mayor set up a taskforce in 2011 to develop policies and programs that steer it in this direction. It hopes to achieve this goal by 2025.

1. This will add a significant cost to the construction of new buildings, guaranteeing that there will be a decline in construction of such buildings in San Francisco.

2. I am certain that the task force that the mayor set up in 2011 was dominated by individuals in the solar power industry, all of whom are going to benefit greatly by this new law. I would also not be surprised if I learned that they donated money to the mayor’s campaign fund.

3. This law, as well as the city’s plan to run itself entirely on renewables by 2025, are pure fantasies based on ideology that no law can dictate. They must evolve, based on the realities of economics and technological discovery. That San Francisco’s political leadership can’t understand this fundamental fact of life indicates that this city is going to bankrupt itself in the near future, especially since its population overwhelming agrees with the fantasies of their political leaders. Expect more stupid laws like this, and except the situation there to become increasingly oppressive as these ideologues increasingly impose their unworkable fantasies on everyone.

California’s Democratic fascist attorney general loses in court

Link here. In her campaign for California governor, Attorney General Kamala Harris has been demanding that conservative organizations hand her their confidential tax information so she can obtain the names of their donors.

Her obvious intent was either to publicize the names of donors, which are confidential under federal law, so that they could be threatened by liberals, or else to shut them up herself through bogus investigations. Americans For Prosperity brought an action in federal court, seeking an injunction barring Harris from seeking Schedule B to its Form 990. Today, following a full trial on the merits, Federal Judge Manuel Real granted AFP’s motion and issued a permanent injunction against the Attorney General.

Go to the link and read it all. The reasons that the judge ruled against this fascist thug who is using the power of her position as attorney general to attack her opponents are quite ugly. It seems the court recognized that Harris and her liberal supporters posed a violent threat to those donors.

During the course of trial, the Court heard ample evidence establishing that AFP, its employees, supporters and donors face public threats, harassment, intimidation, and retaliation once their support for and affiliation with the organization becomes publicly known. For example, Lucas Hilgemann, Chief Executive Officer of AFP, testified that in 2013, the security staff of AFP alerted him that a technology contractor working inside AFP headquarters posted online that he was “inside the belly of the beast” and that he could easily walk into Mr. Hilgemann’s office and slit his throat. (Hilgemann Test. 2/23/16 Vol. I, p. 57:2–14). That individual was also found in AFP’s parking garage, taking pictures of employees’ license places. (Id. at 57:15–23). Another witness and major donor, Art Pope, testified about an AFP event in Washington D.C. in 2011. Mr. Pope testified that after protestors attempted to enter the building and disrupt the event, they began to push and shove AFP guests to keep them inside of the building. (Pope Test. 2/24/16 Vol. II, p. 47:7–15). Mr. Pope attempted to help a woman in a wheelchair exit the building; however the protestors had blocked their path. (Pope Test. 2/25/16 Vol. I, p. 21:20–22:12). Once they finally exited the building, they still had to go through a hostile crowd that was shouting, yelling and pushing. (Id. at 22:22–23:2). At another event in Wisconsin, after speaking to a crowd of AFP supporters, Mr. Hilgemann was threatened by a protestor who used multiple slurs and spit in Mr. Hilgemann’s face. (Hilgemann Test. 2/23/16 Vol. I, p. 48:12–49:15). Again, at another event in Michigan where an AFP tent was set up, several hundred protestors surrounded the tent and used knives and box-cutters to cut at the ropes of tent, eventually causing the large tent to collapse with AFP supporters still inside. (Id. at 50:16–51:25).

This is only one excerpt of the judge’s detailed opinion, which goes on to list more examples of liberal thuggery and brown-shirted violence.

The worst part of this is that I expect Harris to win the election and become governor of California. That will put her in an even stronger position of power in the Democratic Party, allowing her to shape it to become an even more oppressive engine for hate and tyranny. If you are conservative and live in California, be very afraid. The government will soon be knocking on your door, and the visit will not be friendly.

Orbital ATK negotiating lease for part of VAB

The competition heats up: Orbital ATK has begun negotiations with NASA for possibly leasing part of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for use in connection with a military rocket.

Virginia-based Orbital ATK is one of two rocket companies that launch resupply missions to the International Space Station, but this deal would not involve those missions or that rocket, the company’s Antares. The Antares launches from NASA’s space port at Wallops Island, Va., carrying the Orbital ATK Cygnus capsule.

The new rocket that Orbital ATK hopes to develop and one day assemble in the VAB would be a medium- to heavy-lift rocket.The planned rocket currently referred to by the name the Air Force set for it, the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle-class rocket.

It sounds like Orbital ATK is putting together a bid to compete for the Air Force rocket contract, and needs to get a handle on the costs for using the VAB at Kennedy in order to make the offer credible.

“You have no right to speak.”

The quote in the headline gives only a taste of the thuggery, bigotry, and hate expressed by the protesters at the University of Missouri last fall against whites and anyone who dared disagree with them. Go here to get the full flavor, which includes women being harassed and threatened merely because she happened to be white, protesters threatening to kill whites because they weren’t immediately getting what they wanted, and of course, at least one teacher, Melissa Click, threatening a student journalist with violence for reporting on the protests.

I am still only giving you a taste. The worst part of the story is that the fascists on all of today’s campuses were very well represented by the thugs who took over the University of Missouri last year. It isn’t any different elsewhere. Don’t dare express dissent to the left wing orthodoxy, or you might find yourself the target of violence and hate.

UnitedHealth abandoning Obamacare

Finding out what’s in it: Because of significant loses due to Obamacare, the nation’s largest health insurance company, UnitedHealth, will cut participation in all but a handful of public health exchanges next year

CEO Stephen Hemsley said Tuesday that the company expects losses from its exchange business to total more than $1 billion for this year and last. He added that the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers. The state-based exchanges are a key element behind the Affordable Care Act’s push to expand insurance coverage. But insurers have struggled with higher than expected claims from that business.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it now expects to lose $650 million this year on its exchange business, up from its previous projection for $525 million. The insurer lost $475 million in 2015, a spokesman said. UnitedHealth has already decided to pull out of Arkansas, Georgia and Michigan in 2017, and Hemsley told analysts during a Tuesday morning conference call that his company will not carry financial exposure from the exchanges into 2017.

And why have they been losing so much money? It seems that only sick people are signing up, resulting in expensive claims that the insurance companies cannot afford to pay because they have too-few healthy customers buying their insurance. And why do they have too few healthy customers? They can’t avoid the higher prices for insurance that Obamacare has forced upon them.

This monstrous law, which the American public never wanted, should never have been passed. The sooner it can be repealed, the better for everyone.

The commerical battle over U.S. surplus ICBM’s

Link here. The article provides a good summary of the conflict between Orbital ATK and Virgin Galactic over the Defense Department’s possible sale of surplus ICBM’s for commercial use.

While Orbital has been lobbying to get Congress to lift the ban on the Pentagon selling its surplus rockets to the private sector, Virgin Galactic has been harnessing the industry lobbying arm to convince Congress to keep the ban. They fear that if the missiles become available, their as yet unflown LauncherOne will not be able to compete.

I find it very revealing that Virgin Galactic wants to use regulation to hinder their competitors. To me, this is another sign that they are not very competitive or competent in actual rocket building. Rather than build and launch their rocket at a competitive price, they want to stifle an opportunity to lower launch costs.

A hearing on this issue is taking place today. Stay tuned.

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