Tag: government

Another Obamacare co-op, the largest, collapses

8:45 am

Finding out what’s in it: New York’s Obamacare co-op, the country’s largest and the one that took the most government loans to get established, is now facing bankruptcy and collapse.

It is unclear if the co-op deliberately misled state regulators in its original filings, or if regulators found evidence of financial wrongdoing while they tried to close down the defunct non-profit. The co-op’s insolvency was announced September 25.

The New York Department of Financial Services, which regulates insurers in the Empire State, also revised its earlier announcement to the co-op’s 215,000 policyholders that they had until Dec. 30 to find new insurance coverage. Regulators now advise the co-op’s enrollees, many who are poor, that they have to secure new coverage within the next two weeks. DFS said in a statement late Friday that consumers “must take action to choose a new plan for the remainder of 2015 on or before November 15, 2015.”

It also appears that the co-op has been understating its bad financial condition to government officials. Other than that, things remain peachy-keen!

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Sea level fraud by the Colorado Sea Level Research Group

6:05 pm

The dishonesty of climate scientists: A comparison of the raw data with the published adjusted sea level data reveals unexplained “adjustments” made by the Colorado Sea Level Research Group at the University of Colorado that increase the reported rate of sea level rise without any explanation.

In 2004, the rate of sea level rise for the 1990s was measured at 2.8 mm per year (margin of error 0.4 mm). Somehow, in 2015 that same data for the 1990s now shows the rate to be 3.3 mm per year, adjusted upward 0.5 mm per year, an amount greater than the margin of error noted in 2004. There is no justifiable reason that I can see for these adjustments, and if there is, they have not provided it.

Be sure you click on the link and look at the graphs. They are quite damning.

Note also that when I began my effort to unravel the climate change field back in 2004, I spent a lot of time reading older literature describing then what was known about sea level rise. These earlier published papers from the late 1990s, generally agreed that the rate of sea level rise for the past century had averaged around 2 mm per year. When I started looking at the modern data in 2004, however, the accepted rate was 2.8 mm, but I could find no explanation for why the consensus had upped the number from 2 mm. Nor did any published work explain how the previously published sea level data from before 1990 had somehow changed to this higher number.

They have now upped the rate again to 3.3 mm per year, but have once again provided no explanation as to why. The adjustments themselves are very suspicious, since they all go in one direction. Either they are allowing their biases to color their judgment, or they are committing outright fraud for the sake of selling the idea of global warming.

Either way, this is not science. Until they provide a good explanation for the adjustments, their funding should be stopped, now.

One more thought: Even at higher 3.3 mm per year, the total sea level rise for the next century will be a whopping one foot, hardly something to panic about.

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History: CNBC, the tea party, and this week’s debate

12:38 pm

Link here. The essay is a fascinating look back at the factors that generated the tea party movement in 2009, centered greatly on a single commentary that took place on CNBC at the time. The essay then notes how NBC then revamped CNBC’s lineup, making it far more liberal and Democratic, which is why we had what we had at the Republican Presidential debate this past week.

It is very much worth a read, as it gives some very important background to these events. It also makes this point, which I think is quite significant:

[I]t was Cruz’s defense of the entire field, and of all conservatives, that was like a game changing pick six in football. The debate was instantly different. That was the match and the gasoline to another conservative explosion. I contend nothing will be the same in debates any time soon, or in any liberal media interviews for that matter – and this is critical. [emphasis in original]

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Greenland ice sheet not covered in soot

9:55 pm

The uncertainty of science: A new study of the Greenland ice sheet has found that the darkening sensed there by satellites is not caused by dust and soot deposited by forest fires and industry but was instead caused by the slow degradation of the sensors on the satellites themselves.

In trying to explain the apparent decline in reflectivity, lead author Chris Polashenski, an adjunct assistant professor at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and a research geophysicist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, and his colleagues analyzed dozens of snow-pit samples from the 2012-2014 snowfalls across northern Greenland and compared them with samples from earlier years. The results showed no significant change in the quantity of black carbon deposited for the past 60 years or the quantity and mineralogical makeup of dust compared to the last 12,000 years, meaning that deposition of these light absorbing impurities is not a primary cause of reflectivity reduction or surface melting in the dry snow zone. Algae growth, which darkens ice, also was ruled out as a factor.

Instead, the findings suggest the apparent decline in the dry snow zone’s reflectivity is being caused by uncorrected degradation of sensors in NASA’s aging MODIS satellites and that the declining trend will likely disappear when new measurements are reprocessed.

In other words, this story is another case of fear-mongering environmentalists and climate scientists (but I repeat myself) prematurely blaming human activity on the destruction of the environment.

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Eutelsat signs a multi-launch Proton rocket deal

9:27 pm

The competition heats up: Satellite maker Eutelsat has signed a seven year multi-launch deal with International Launch Services (ILS) using the Proton rocket.

The ILS press release does not state how many launches this contract covers, which makes me suspect that ILS was forced due to competition with SpaceX to give Eutelsat a great deal of flexibility about which launcher it uses with each satellite down the road. The ILS release even admits this. ““With their selection of ILS Proton for this Multi-Launch Agreement Eutelsat has made a clear statement that flexibility and schedule assurance are key discriminators.”

This is still a good thing for the Russians, as it insures them a share in the launch market for almost the next decade.

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Christians do have a right to religion in Dearborn

9:29 am

Victory for free speech: A federal court today ruled that the First Amendment rights of several Christians were violated by the police when they forcibly removed them from a 2012 Arab-American festival in Dearborn, Michigan when the Muslims there began throwing bottles, eggs and other objects at them.

By an 8-7 vote, the entire 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday said Wayne County, Michigan and two deputy police chiefs were civilly liable to members of Bible Believers for violating their First Amendment rights. The case now returns to a federal district judge to award damages and attorney’s fees.

It is important to understand what happened. The Muslim festival was open to the general public, being held on public streets. All the Christians did was walk through that festival holding signs and preaching the gospel. They were then attacked by a mob, and the police, rather than arresting the attackers, threatened the Christians with arrest if they didn’t shut up and leave. When the Christian refused the police escorted them away.

Watch the video of the event below the fold if you don’t believe me.

The bad news however is that the court only ruled in favor of free speech by an 8-7 vote, and that it was overturning a lower court ruling that had said the police had the right to remove the Christians. These details are further proof that a large percentage of the American intellectual community now believes it perfectly reasonable for the government to silence religious speech, if it thinks it has to, and that it is perfectly reasonable to accept the heckler’s veto when someone wishes to express an opinion that is disagreeable.
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High school coach suspended for praying

9:15 am

Fascists: A high school coach in Washington state has been suspended by school officials for praying after football games.

What the coach had been doing was to kneel at the 50 yard line after games and pray for a few minutes. He asked no one to join him.

Kennedy’s tradition started seven years ago when he thanked God for the game and the players after coaching his first game at Bremerton High School. A few games into his private practice, students began to ask the coach what he was doing. “I was thanking God for you guys,” Kennedy remembered saying to his players, according to a Liberty Institute statement. “Then a couple said they were Christians and asked if they could join. I responded, ‘It’s a free country, you can do whatever you want to do.’”

Essentially, the school is telling him that he is not permitted to express his religious beliefs while at work. Sounds kind of unconstitutional to me.

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45 Republicans vote against Paul Ryan nomination

3:04 pm

The Republicans have nominated Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) for Speaker of the House with only 200 of 245 votes.

Those 45 members are enough to block him from getting the Speakership during the partisan floor vote on Thursday — if the 45 GOP legislators maintain their opposition, and if Ryan is not aided by a last-minute bloc of Democratic votes.

During the closed-door conference, Ryan won just 200 votes for the nomination. Former Florida House Speaker Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) earned a whopping 43 votes. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — who isn’t officially running for Speaker — received one vote. House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who dropped out of the Speakership race a couple weeks ago, got one vote as well.

The failure on Ryan’s part to win 218 votes—the threshold for anyone to win the Speakership on the House floor assuming every member of the House is present and voting for a person—is a major embarrassment on his part.

If those who opposed Ryan in this Republican vote maintain that opposition when the whole House votes, the only way Ryan can become Speaker is if he gets Democratic votes. If that happens than either he won’t become Speaker or the Republican Party faces a breakup.

Based on recent events with the budget deal, it might make sense for some of these fake conservatives in the Republican Party to admit their real loyalty and join the Democrats. The conservatives would then probably lose control of Congress, but at least we would know where people honestly stood.

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A mother and father is still the best for kids

2:14 pm

Science discovers the obvious: Several new studies have found again that children generally do better in a stable family with a mother and a father than in any other combination.

In recent weeks, a barrage of new evidence has come to light demonstrating what was once common sense. “Family structure matters” (in the words of my American Enterprise Institute colleague Brad Wilcox, who is also the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia). Princeton University and the left-of-center Brookings Institution released a study that reported “most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes.” Why this is so is still hotly contested.

Another study, co-authored by Wilcox, found that states with more married parents do better on a broad range of economic indicators, including upward mobility for poor children and lower rates of child poverty. On most economic indicators, the Washington Post summarized, “the share of parents who are married in a state is a better predictor of that state’s economic health than the racial composition and educational attainment of the state’s residents.”

I think it amusing that some scientists wonder “why this is so.” I also realize that by stating this obvious fact of nature I and these scientists are being racist homophobes who want to oppress minorities, but who am I to argue with reality?

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Another Obamacare co-op fails

10:14 am

Finding out what’s in it: Utah’s only Obamacare co-op has announced it is shutting down at the end of the year due to lack of funding/income.

Arches, the only co-op health plan in Utah, began offering insurance through the Affordable Care Act in fall 2013, beginning coverage in January 2014. The nonprofit group says it’s ceasing operations because of a lack of funding from the federal “risk corridor” program, which was built into the Affordable Care Act and intended to protect insurance companies from their losses. “As one of the carriers on the (health care) exchange, we stood to benefit by our calculations in excess of $30 million for those ‘risk corridor’ payments,” Tricia Schumann, chief marketing and communications officer for Arches, told KSL. “We did anticipate those cash payments coming in … this quarter.”

The point of the fund was to mitigate losses among insurance companies and co-ops that suffered large financial risk associated with the Affordable Care Act because of unprecedented enrollment for coverage.

However, federal officials announced Oct. 1 that only 12.6 percent of the expected windfall from that risk management fund would be awarded to insurance companies.

In other words, they — and Obamacare — never had a viable profit model (as predicted by conservatives even before the law was passed). Instead, they were depending on large federal government handouts, as mandated by Obamacare itself. The federal government however simply can’t afford to give out that much money, and thus, bankruptcy.

All the more reason to continue to vote Democrat! They cared, even though they hadn’t the slightest idea of what they were doing and thus pushed through a law that was incredibly stupid and damaging. That they cared however is all that matters.

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Ryan to support budget deal

9:57 am

The fix is in: House Speaker-to-be Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) announced today that he will support the two year budget deal worked out by the White House and Republican and Democratic leaders that locks in increased spending and raises the debt limit for the next two years.

I could also say that Ryan’s betrayal of the conservatives in Congress didn’t take long. He didn’t even wait until he was officially elected Speaker. And if you read his reasons for this decision at the link, you will see them for what they are, shallow talking points that mean nothing.

The only good thing about this is — and it isn’t much — is that it will likely provide Ted Cruz some nice ammunition during tonight’s Presidential debate.

That the Freedom Caucus in the House is pissed at the deal and will oppose it also suggests to me that we are getting closer and closer to a split in the Republican Party.

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Get 2 out of 10 questions right and pass!

9:41 am

The coming dark age: A California school district has instituted a new grading scale that allows students to pass with a score of only 20 out of 100.

Some teachers have tried to hang on to the traditional grading system but have been tripped up by a blanket new policy that students, even if they do not hand in homework or take a test, get 50 percent. Under the new rule, it’s possible for a student who skips a test to receive a better grade than a student who takes the test and does poorly. “This is just incomprehensible. I don’t have words,” said Lanny Lowery, who has taught English at Rancho Cotate High since 1980

And then there’s this: NYC schools passing failing students, colleges accepting them.

In other words, you can now graduate having learned absolutely nothing. Should make for an interesting future for the student and the society that student helps shape.

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Russia’s ten-year space policy delayed again

9:22 am

The competition heats up: The completion of Russia’s much delayed ten-year space policy plan, originally planned for last year and then planned for November, has likely been delayed again.

The program was supposed to be submitted to the government for approval late last year, but the collapse of the ruble, ongoing launch failures and related mishaps, leadership shakeups at the federal space agency, and an industry-wide reform plan have all conspired to delay the final draft. A draft was expected this summer, but in March a senior Roscosmos official was quoted by the TASS news agency as saying that the proposal had already been significantly altered, and “looks completely different” than it did when originally completed in 2014. The biggest change to the draft was the level of funding dedicated to Russian space exploration over the 10-year period from 2016 to 2025, which was reduced by 10 percent between drafts to 3.4 trillion rubles ($52.5 billion).

Just like the Soviet era’s many repeated five-year plans, expect the goals of this policy statement, once announced, to fail repeatedly. They will have some initial success, but in the end this top-down government program, like NASA’s SLS, will have more to do with creating non-productive jobs than actually building spaceships and rockets.

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The Okinawa missiles of October

11:42 pm

Though the story is not confirmed, it appears that in 1962 the Air Force base at Okinawa came mere seconds from launching its nuclear missiles during the Cuban missile crisis.

The most frightening part of the story is this:

According to Bordne’s account—which, recall, is based on hearing just one side of a phone call—the situation of one launch crew was particularly stark: All its targets were in Russia. Its launch officer, a lieutenant, did not acknowledge the authority of the senior field officer—i.e. Capt. Bassett—to override the now-repeated order of the major. The second launch officer at that site reported to Bassett that the lieutenant had ordered his crew to proceed with the launch of its missiles! Bassett immediately ordered the other launch officer, as Bordne remembers it, “to send two airmen over with weapons and shoot the [lieutenant] if he tries to launch without [either] verbal authorization from the ‘senior officer in the field’ or the upgrade to DEFCON 1 by Missile Operations Center.”

Read it all. Quite fascinating, and chilling. A hat tip to Shane Rollin, my web guy, for sending this to me.

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Lockheed Martin ready to build Orion?

6:08 pm

O joy! After more than a decade of design work, costing billions, Lockheed Martin now says it is ready to begin building the first Orion capsule for eventual launch only 8 years from now!

“The vast majority of Orion’s design is over, and now we will only change things when new requirements come into play,” said Michael Hawes, Lockheed Martin Orion vice president and program manager. “Considering the incredible complexity of this spacecraft, the team is very proud to have successfully completed the design review and is looking forward to seeing it fly.”

For those who don’t detect my sarcasm, I find this project more than absurd. Bush proposed Orion in 2004. Lockheed has been spending billions for years just designing it. In about six to eight years from now they might finally get one capsule completed for launch in 2023, almost two decades after it was first proposed.

Two decades to build one capsule! With a cost in the billions. Let these facts sink in for a bit and then ask yourself: Why are we spending money on this pork project that will never fly?

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Congressional leaders negotiating 2-year spending deal

10:48 am

The fix is in: The White House and Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders hope to complete a two year budget deal by tonight that will allow an increase in the debt limit.

White House budget director Shaun Donovan and legislative affairs director Katie Beirne Fallon are hammering out the package with staff representing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is expected to be elected Speaker on Thursday, but he has not taken part in these budget negotiations, aides said. In recent weeks, Boehner has said he wants to “clean the barn up a little bit” before he leaves Congress at the end of the week.

Legislation to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government is central to the deal, but the talks are also said to include measures that would fund highway and infrastructure construction and renew the Export-Import Bank for one year.  

If you read the article with a clear mind, you will see that all the dealmaking is designed to increase spending. Moreover, it notes how Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) does not want to have the renewal of the Export-Import Bank on a stand-alone bill. Unstated is why, as he knows that on its own the Republican majorities in both Houses would shoot it down in a second.

When Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) refers to these guys as the “Washington cartel” he is exactly right. They have no interest in cutting the size of the federal government, and are doing whatever they can to maintain their steadily weakening grip on power. The good news is that their grip is weakening.

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Billions of Obamacare funds pocketed by Democrats

9:17 am

Finding out what’s in it (for Democrats): Billions of dollars of Obamacare funds have vanished, having been given to sixteen states — mostly Democratically-run — to build Obamacare marketplaces but never used as intended.

The controls on federal spending right now are nil. The money almost goes out randomly, without any scrutiny, funding the friends of the Washington politicians both in Washington and throughout the country. The Democrats might have benefited royally from Obamacare, but the Republican leadership gets its own payoffs with these funds, which is why they haven’t done much to cut spending, even though that was the promise they ran under.

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NASA to decide on 2nd cargo contracts Nov 5

9:40 am

The competition heats up: NASA will announce the two contract winners for its second round of ISS cargo contracts on November 5.

If it was up to me to pick the two winners from the four companies bidding, SpaceX, Boeing, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada, I would go with Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada. SpaceX and Boeing already have contracts to ferry crews to ISS with their Dragon and Starliner capsules. By picking Orbital ATK’s Cygnus capsule and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser reusable mini-shuttle, NASA would then have four different ways to get payloads to ISS.

Sadly, the decision is not up to me. It is more likely NASA will pick SpaceX and Boeing. Boeing especially is likely to get picked because they are an established big player with lots of capital and influence.

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The coming dark ages

5:00 pm

I decided today, after one of my readers, John Harman, sent me a link to a very blunt but accurate piece describing the sad state of modern American culture, that it was necessary to explain why I had posted nothing here on Behind the Black on Thursday, even though I was home all day doing what I usually do, scanning the web for interesting stuff.

To begin, you might want to read the essay that John sent me, entitled Wimp Nation: Poised to Fall. It sums up the cultural situation quite nicely.

The United States has become a nation of weak, pampered, easily frightened, helpless milquetoasts who have never caught a fish, fired a gun, chopped a log, hitchhiked across the country, or been in a schoolyard fight. If their cat dies, they call a grief therapist. Everything frightens Americans.

Read it all.

You then might want to read this story about Hillary Clinton’s testimony and questioning on Thursday in front of the House Benghazi committee. Here too the author captures the sick intellectually dishonest nature of America’s political culture.

What we discovered is this: The White House and Clinton apparently knew that the Benghazi attack was the premeditated work of Islamic terrorists before the bodies were cold. She and the administration nevertheless proceeded to propagate a falsehood that advanced the president’s preferred political narrative just six weeks before a tightly-contested national election.

As I noted to John, Hillary Clinton’s testimony wasn’t news, it was a joke. What did we learn? She is a liar? That’s news? What was worse, as the author of the article noted, were the reporters willing to make believe this wasn’t so.

Then there are these two stories:
» Read more

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Justice Dept ends IRS investigation with no charges

1:49 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: The Obama Justice Department has decided to file no criminal charges against anyone, including Lois Lerner, in the IRS scandal.

I was going to label this a whitewash in the headline, but decided to leave that conclusion to my readers. This quote from the article however should help you decide whether it was a whitewash:

Some Republicans have questioned the validity of the probe from the beginning, after learning that one of the Justice Department lawyers assigned to the investigation was a contributor to Mr. Obama’s political campaigns. [emphasis mine]

So, Lerner and the IRS conspire with the Obama administration from 2010 to 2012 to squelch the ability of conservatives to organize and raise funds prior to the 2012 election. The result: Obama wins, and the Republicans fail to win the Senate. Afterward the Democrats shrug their shoulders, say they shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t really bad anyway.

The worse part will be the number of reporters and media folk who will rally to the Democrats for this corrupt use of government power to crush their political opposition.

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Obamacare still accepts fake enrollees

9:05 am

Finding out what’s in it: For the second time the GAO has been able to sign up fake enrollees to Obamacare.

The Government Accountability Office sent 10 auditors with fictitious enrollment information to the federal healthcare.gov site as well as two state-run ObamaCare exchanges, to sign up for subsidized insurance. While eight didn’t make it through the initial identity-checking process, all 10 eventually obtained coverage, even though four obviously had made up Social Security numbers that started with “000.” They all were able to keep their coverage despite filing fake follow-up documentation.

In addition, the GAO tried to sign eight more up for Medicaid coverage. Three made it through the process, and four ended up getting subsidized private coverage instead. The only one that failed was in California, which refused to sign the person up without a Social Security number.

The GAO did this also last year. Apparently, despite having a year to fix the problem, our crack government officials couldn’t do it. Not that I am surprised. Government operations are never very efficient or successful. There is no incentive to do well, as it is impossible to get fired, there is no competition, and the funds are coerced tax dollars rather than freely given by voluntary customers.

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Update on Vostochny delays

8:26 am

RussianSpaceWeb today has posted a good detailed update on the construction status of Vostochny.

The update suggests that the April 12 deadline is not firm. Things could be delayed beyond that date. The update also made no mention of the report that the Soyuz rocket assembly building had been built to the wrong size. This could either mean that the building was built correctly and the report was wrong, or that they are now trying to keep this fact from the press while they scramble to fix it.

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Hawaii names third telescope to be removed from Mauna Kea

4:38 pm

The dark ages return! The University of Hawaii has announced that the UKIRT Observatory on Mauna Kea will be decommissioned, making it the third telescope to be removed in order to try to satisfy the protesters hostile to the construction of the new Thirty Meter Telescope.

You wanna bet this won’t satisfy the protesters and that they will demand more while refusing to end their protests?

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Two NASA employees indicted for allowing Chinese scientist access

8:37 am

Two NASA supervisors from the Langley Research Center in Virginia have been indicted for allowing a Chinese scientist unrestricted access to the facilities there for two years, including allowing the scientist to return to China with a NASA-issued laptop.

What I find amazing about this indictment is that a U.S. attorney in the Obama Justice Department has issued it. The Obama administration and NASA administrator Charles Bolden want unrestricted cooperation with China, and have even done some things that could also violate the same laws against providing U.S. technology to China. Under these conditions, I would have thought the attorney would have been ordered to drop the case, just as the Obama administration has done with numerous other examples where someone in that administration did something illegal and got away with it.

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Obamacare causes school shutdowns in Tennessee

10:39 pm

Finding out what’s in it: A Tennessee school district has been forced to shutter classrooms, putting more than a thousand students out of school, because of the cost of Obamacare.

It is important to repeatedly note the disaster that is Obamacare, because many of the same people who wrote and imposed Obamacare on the nation, the Democratic Party, are still in office and are running for office again. Do we want these people writing additional laws?

Or are we so stupid that we are willing to ignore their failure and give them an opportunity to screw us again?

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Eleven more Obamacare co-ops face bankruptcy

9:03 am

Finding out what’s in it: Eleven more Obamacare state health insurance co-ops are on the verge of bankruptcy, according to an assessment that the Obama administration is keeping secret.

The key to this story is this quote:

Just in the last three weeks, five of the original 24 Obamacare co-ops announced plans to close, bringing the total of failures to nine barely two years after their launch with $2 billion in start-up capital from the taxpayers under the Affordable Care Act. All 24 received 15-year loans in varying amounts to offer health insurance to poor and low income customers and provide publicly funded competition to private, for-profit insurers. Among the co-ops to announce closings were those in Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Vermont, New York and Colorado.

Nearly half a million failing co-op customers will have to find new coverage in 2016. More than $900 million of the original $2 billion in loans has been lost. [emphasis mine]

In other words, this part of Obamacare was really nothing more than a way to funnel a lot of cash to Democratic activists and supporters. That the co-ops are going bankrupt really doesn’t matter, because the money will remain in those Democratic hands regardless.

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R.I.P. George Mueller

8:32 am

One of the most important managers during the 1960s and 1970s at NASA, George Mueller (pronounced “Miller”) has passed away at 97 after a short illness.

NASA and sources close to Mueller’s family confirmed his passing on Thursday (Oct. 15).

Mueller, as associate administrator, headed the Office of Manned Space Flight at NASA’s Washington headquarters from 1963 through 1969. During that time, Mueller brought together NASA’s three human spaceflight centers under a common management system, introduced an approach to testing that made landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade possible, played a key part in the design of the United States’ first space station and advocated for a reusable space transportation system that became known as the space shuttle.

Unlike the many government managers that followed him, Mueller’s goal was never to build an empire, but to get humans into space as quickly and as efficiently as possible. If only we had more people like him.

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Two more Obamacare state co-ops fail

12:27 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare co-ops in Tennessee and Kentucky have announced that they are going out of business and their customers need to find new health insurance plans.

The following two paragraphs about the failure of the Kentucky co-op illustrate succinctly what conservatives were saying about Obamacare before it was launched about why it was never going to work:

The co-op lost $50 million last year, partly because over 20,000 more people had purchased the insurance than originally estimated. Glenn Jennings, Kentucky Health Cooperative’s interim CEO, told the Herald-Leader that further financial woes came because many of their new members had not previously had health insurance, leading to “a lot of people with pent up medical needs.” Then, said Jennings, “when they suddenly had health insurance…they began using their benefits.”

Jennings said that they had slowed their losses to $4 million in the first half of 2015, but were counting on substantial federal loans to continue operations. Instead, the feds announced they would only provide 12.6 percent of the funds requested by insurers through the assistance program. Kentucky’s insurers were hoping to get a total of $77 million in loans, but only received $9.7 million.

If insurance companies are forced to take anyone, as Obamacare does, then no one is going to buy insurance until they need it, defeating the entire premise of insurance. Thus, the Kentucky co-op was quickly saddled with too many sick customers and not enough healthy ones to pay the costs. To solve this they were then depending on the government to make up the difference. This however is simply impossible. There just isn’t enough of other people’s tax dollars to fund such inefficiencies.

The unsurprising result: Bankruptcy. As the article notes, of the 23 state co-ops still in operation, 21 are losing money. Expect more bankruptcies to come.

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Iran writes its own bill

9:56 am

The bill approved by Iran’s legislature this week is not the deal negotiated by John Kerry and approved by Obama.

Instead, the Majlis approved by a 161 to 59 vote, with 13 abstentions, a nine point document they created which authorizes the Iranian government to move forward on a path that will do at least two things: one, remove international sanctions against Iran, and two, end Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

Got that?

End Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Not end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Ending Israel’s program is apparently point one of the nine point document approved by the Majlis on Tuesday.

Read it all. Rather than agree to limit their nuclear production, as declared by the idiots in the Obama administration, the legislation allows them to accelerate it. As the article notes, the only person sticking with Obama’s Iran nuclear deal is Obama.

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“There are kindergarten classes with more realistic assessments of cost-benefit tradeoffs than the crowd watching this debate at the Wynn Las Vegas.”

10:58 am

Link here. The headline, noting how the Democratic Party debate revealed it to be an openly socialist party, is hardly news. The Democrats have been radically communist since 2004, when the party thought Joe Lieberman was too much a moderate for their taste. Since then, their candidates and policies have all be very hardcore left, demanding everything be controlled and run by the government.

The sad thing has been that the voting public has either been blind to this, or actually has wanted it. I don’t know which is worse.

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