Tag: politics

The Obama administration today revealed that ObamaCare enrollment will be delayed for small businesses and Spanish speakers.

12:07 pm

The Obama administration today revealed that ObamaCare enrollment will be delayed for small businesses and Spanish speakers.

It appears that neither the small business and Spanish language websites for enrolling will be ready on time, which also appears to be par for the course for this law and administration.

Not that this matters. The Democrats are going to make sure this law will stand no matter what.

Posted about a third of the way across Texas.

Leave a comment

“The Democrats in 2014 should by all means be asked relentlessly to defend their monster.”

8:40 am

“The Democrats in 2014 should by all means be asked relentlessly to defend their monster.”

As its Oct. 1 implementation date arrives, ObamaCare is the biggest bet that American liberalism has made in 80 years on its foundational beliefs. This thing called “ObamaCare” carries on its back all the justifications, hopes and dreams of the entitlement state. The chance is at hand to let its political underpinnings collapse, perhaps permanently.
If ObamaCare fails, or seriously falters, the entitlement state will suffer a historic loss of credibility with the American people. It will finally be vulnerable to challenge and fundamental change.

Still in New Mexico.

One comment

A store owner’s entire bank account was seized by the IRS, even though he was not charged with any crime and had recently passed an audit.

7:54 am

Theft by government: A store owner’s entire bank account was seized by the IRS, even though he was not charged with any crime and had recently passed an audit.

The government falsely accused me of violating federal banking laws by making frequent cash deposits of less than $10,000. It is illegal to make deposits of less than $10,000 in cash if you are doing it to avoid regulations that require the banks to report larger deposits to the IRS. It’s not against the law, though, to make smaller deposits when there is a legitimate, legal business reason. That is exactly what I have been doing. My clerks routinely deposited cash earned at Schott’s at a bank right across the street. It’s never a good idea to risk letting too much money accumulate on-site. Like many other small businesses, my store’s insurance policy specifically limits coverage for cash losses to $10,000. The government would have learned that if it asked me, but it didn’t.

Just last year, we were audited by the IRS to make sure we complied with “anti-money-laundering” laws. The IRS gave us a clean bill of health. Our store has been making deposits this way for decades, and the IRS looked through our books during the audit. Yet no one said anything to me about violating any law. The IRS even sent me a letter about their audit saying, “No violations were identified.” Without any warning, officials just cleaned out my bank account.

Remarkably, the government doesn’t even have to charge me with any wrongdoing to keep my money. Many people know about criminal forfeiture, which allows police to seize the ill-gotten gains of convicted criminals. In my case, the government used civil forfeiture, which lets the government take money from people who have never been charged with any crime. Adding insult to injury, federal civil forfeiture law does not even grant me a hearing before or soon after they snatched my account. They’ve had my money for 10 months. I’ve been forced to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers just to get a hearing before a judge. Even more bizarre, under civil forfeiture, the government’s case is not against me, but against my property. This is why the official case has the ridiculous name, United States of America v. $35,651.11 in U.S. Currency. This is not just absurd; it’s unconstitutional.

Understand that the IRS could do this to anyone, without justifying their position in the slightest. And keep the money.

Posted on the road in New Mexico.

Leave a comment

The Treasury Inspector General has found that the IRS cannot account for $67 million of Obamacare funds.

3:06 pm

We’ve only just begun: The Treasury Inspector General has found that the IRS cannot account for $67 million of Obamacare funds.

he “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare. According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify approximately $67 million [from the slush fund] of indirect ACA costs incurred for Fiscal Years 2010 through 2012.”

The report also found other spending abuses, including using the money for travel that was unjustified.

But everything’s under control. The Democratic Party will make sure Obamacare is funded, no matter what!

6 comments

Based on the rates just announced by the Obama administration, health insurance premiums are going to skyrocket in 2014.

12:28 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Based on the rates just announced by the Obama administration, health insurance premiums are going to skyrocket in 2014.

The news is almost all bad, and I predict that these numbers are an underestimate of what will really happen.

But don’t worry. The Democratic Party has your back. They are going to make sure this law takes effect.

2 comments

The Obamacare wars are just beginning.

10:35 am

The Obamacare wars are just beginning.

This is war—turning sectors of the economy into partisan battlefields is a cost of their agenda that liberals, with their pure faith in “programs,” never factor in. But wars also have a way of leading to unexpected outcomes.

Read the whole thing. The author outlines how this terrible law, defended again today by the Democrats in the Senate, will have numerous unintended consequences that were unexpected and are generally bad.

Leave a comment

China today successfully launched a new quick response rocket.

9:57 am

The competition heats up: China today successfully launched a brand new quick response rocket.

Very little is known about the Kuaizhou rocket, other than it was developed by CASIC. No photos or graphics exist in the public domain. It is also known the rocket – likely on its test flight – was carrying a satellite, called Kuaizhou-1. Built by the Harbin Institute of Technology, the new satellite will be used for emergency data monitoring and imaging, under the control of the national remote sensing center at the national Academy of Sciences. The new satellite is probably part of a “quick response satellite system” model that was already announced as in the works by the Chinese.

The rocket appears to be fueled entirely by solid rocket motors. Thus, they could build a bunch and have them in storage, ready to go at any time.

Leave a comment

One man’s Obamacare nightmare.

2:24 pm

We’ve only just begun: One man’s Obamacare nightmare.

Insurance for the Mangiones and their two boys,which they bought on the individual market, was going to almost triple in 2014 — from $333 a month to $965. The insurance carrier made it clear the increase was in order to be compliant with the new health care law.

“This isn’t a Cadillac plan, this isn’t even a silver plan,” Mangione said, referring to higher levels of coverage under ObamaCare. “This is a high deductible plan where I’m assuming a lot of risk for my health insurance for my family. And nothing has changed, our boys are healthy– they’re young –my wife is healthy. I’m healthy, nothing in our medical history has changed to warrant a tripling of our premiums.

Sorry guy, something has changed to warrant the tripling of your premium: Obamacare is going into effect.

Leave a comment

German politicians openly admit they are trying to squelch any mention in the IPCC report of the recent 15 year pause in global temperature rise.

10:03 am

German politicians openly admit they are trying to squelch any mention in the IPCC report of the recent 15 year pause in global temperature rise.

Despite resistance from many researchers, the German ministries insist that it is important not to detract from the effectiveness of climate change warnings by discussing the past 15 years’ lack of global warming. Doing so, they say, would result in a loss of the support necessary for pursuing rigorous climate policies. “Climate policy needs the element of fear,” [German Green Party politician Hermann] Ott openly admits. “Otherwise, no politician would take on this topic.”

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Research would prefer to leave any discussion of the global warming hiatus entirely out of the new IPCC report summary. “In climate research, changes don’t count until they’ve been observed on a timescale of 30 years,” claims one delegate participating in the negotiations on behalf of German Research Minister Johanna Wanka of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Ministry for the Environment’s identical stance: “Climate fluctuations that don’t last very long are not scientifically relevant.” [emphasis mine]

I must admire the Green Party politician for admitting that his approach to science and politics is the use of fear. He might be the most honest, if fascist, politician in the world!

The IPCC and the climate science community should be warned, however. Their reputation for honest science is already in the tank. If the IPCC report to be released later this week makes believe that the climate pause hasn’t happened their ability to persuade anyone will be gone forever.

One comment

Obamacare was written and passed solely by Democrats.

9:53 am

A reminder: Obamacare was written and passed solely by the Democrats.

The no-trespass sign to the GOP during the writing of the Affordable Care Act deprived it of the benefits of critical scrutiny and helpful ideas from the business community that is a primary GOP constituent. That kind of input might have prevented many of the calamities caused by ObamaCare: the uncertainty prompting employers to put off hiring; the high costs provoking big businesses like Delta and Walgreens to shed coverage, and others to shift parts of their workforce from full to part time; the threat to union-negotiated medical insurance, and the unpopularity of the law.

While Social Security and Medicare always had hard-core foes on the right, that was nothing like the broad, persistent and combative enmity directed at ObamaCare. Democrats have no one to blame but their our-way-or-the-highway approach. [emphasis mine]

This law is the fault of the Democrats, and no one should allow them to distract us into forgetting that. Moreover, when or if the government shuts down, it will be because the Democrats in power once again voted in support of this terrible law. And they did it now, when its destructive consequences have become all too evident.

As much as they like to blame others for their failures, this failure is their responsibility, through and through.

Leave a comment

A seventh grade student faces expulsion from his school because he was playing with an air pistol — in his own yard.

9:18 am

Madness: A seventh grade student faces expulsion from his school because he was playing with an air pistol — in his own yard.

Khalid Caraballo, 12, and his friend, Aidan, were suspended for “possession, handling and use of a firearm” because they “shot two other friends who were with them while playing” with the airsoft guns, WAVY-TV reported. Caraballo answered “no, sir,” when asked if he took the toy gun to the bus stop or to school. “We were in our yard. This had nothing to do with school,” the student said.

So, government schools now have the right to tell students what they can and cannot do, wherever they are?

3 comments

Senator Cruz’s speech today in trying to get the Senator to pass the House bill funding the government but defunding Obamacare.

7:06 pm

An evening pause: Senator Cruz’s (R-Texas) speech today in trying to get the Senate to pass the House continuing resolution funding the government but defunding Obamacare. His speech begins at 6:25, after Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) rejected that bill.

I think it worthwhile for everyone to watch this speech, as Cruz makes it very clear that the only people willing to shut the government down are the Democrats. Moreover, Reid’s rejection establishes unequivocally the fact that the Democrats are once again endorsing Obamacare, despite its now very obvious disastrous problems.

25 comments

The global warming scientists at the IPCC struggle to explain the lack of warming.

9:41 am

The global warming scientists at the IPCC struggle to explain the lack of warming.

Though scientists don’t have any firm answers, they do have multiple theories. Xie has argued that the hiatus is the result of heat absorption by the Pacific Ocean — a little-understood, naturally occurring process that repeats itself every few decades. Xie and his colleagues presented the idea in a study published last month in the prestigious journal Nature.

The theory, which is gaining adherents, remains unproved by actual observation. Surface temperature records date to the late 1800s, but measurements of deep water temperature began only in the 1960s, so there just isn’t enough data to chart the long-term patterns, Xie said. [emphasis mine]

This theory, that the oceans are absorbing all the heat, is one of the new favorite explanations for the lack of warming by advocates of global warming. However, as this article correctly notes, we have no good data to support it, and even fewer theories to explain it.

The truth is really summed up by the article’s last paragraph:

“This unpredicted hiatus just reflects the fact that we don’t understand things as well as we thought,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado in Boulder and vocal critic of the climate change establishment. “Now the IPCC finds itself in a position that a science group never wants to be in. It’s in spin management mode.”

One comment

A medical school official urges denial of all medical care for all “Obamacare nonbelievers”.

9:12 am

Leftwing civility: A medical school official urges denial of all medical care for all “Obamacare nonbelievers”.

The article also describes the growing list of other recent and vicious rants by leftists, including the communications director of the Democratic Party in Sacramento, all wishing harm on those who disagree with them. As the author rightly notes, now that the incivility is aimed at conservatives, Obama’s “pious talk about civility in the wake of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is down the memory hole.”

Leave a comment

Only two weeks before Obamacare goes into effect, the law’s health exchanges can’t figure out what people will have to pay for coverage.

10:32 am

Not finding out what’s in it: Only two weeks before Obamacare goes into effect, the law’s health exchanges can’t figure out what people will have to pay for coverage.

It appears the software for determining premiums doesn’t work. But don’t worry, the Democrats voted to fund this turkey today!

Leave a comment

The Republican battle plan for defunding Obamacare while keeping the government operating.

10:12 am

The Republican battle plan for defunding Obamacare while keeping the government operating.

What makes me skeptical is their fear of having the government shut down, a fear that somehow does not worry the Democrats. While Obama and the Democrats are quite willing to shut everything down to save Obamacare, the Republicans don’t seem to have the same courage. Under these circumstances, they will likely lose the battle.

And why is it that everyone assumes the Republicans will be blamed for the shutdown when they seem to be the ones most interested in avoiding it?

Update: The House has now voted to defund Obamacare but fund the goverment.

Note that the Democrats in the House have once again voted in support of Obamacare, a law that is very clearly destroying the health insurance business.

2 comments

Home Depot joins Walgreens in dumping tens of thousands of employees from their employer heath insurance plan, because of Obamacare.

12:43 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Home Depot joins Walgreens in dumping tens of thousands of employees from their employer heath insurance plan, because of Obamacare. Key quote:

The accelerating shift of workers to Obama’s taxpayer-funded network will likely drive up costs to taxpayers, disadvantage companies that try to pay for their employees’ health-care and make more voters dependent on health-care decisions made by Democratic officials and legislators. The switch is also making a mockery of Obama’s promise that Americans would be able to keep their pre-Obamacare insurance if they prefer. “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,” he said in June 2009. [emphasis mine]

Obama’s statement in 2009 was an obvious lie and an insult to everyone’s intelligence. Unfortunately, it appears he estimated the intelligence of too many Americans quite rightly.

4 comments

The House vote to fund the government but not Obamacare will force vulnerable Senate Democrats to either endorse the unpopular law again or shut it down.

9:57 am

The House vote to fund the government but not Obamacare will force vulnerable Senate Democrats to either endorse the unpopular law again or shut it down.

Exactly. Force these Democrats to once again endorse this turkey of a law, just as it is about to go into effect. Even if the Republicans eventually back down, they will have successfully put these senators on record, only a year before the next election.

Leave a comment

IRS officials specifically targeted conservatives for harassment because they thought that was what President Obama wanted.

9:00 am

Working for the Democratic Party: IRS officials specifically targeted conservatives for harassment because they thought that was what President Obama wanted, according to an interim House report.

In the report, the investigators do not find evidence that IRS employees received orders from politicians to target the tea party, and agency officials deny overt bias or political motives. But the report says the IRS was at least taking cues from political leaders and designed special policies to review tea party applications, including dispatching some of them to Washington to be vetted by headquarters. “As prominent politicians publicly urged the IRS to take action on tax-exempt groups engaged in legal campaign intervention activities, the IRS treated tea party applications differently,” the staff report concludes. “Applications filed by tea party groups were identified and grouped due to media attention surrounding the existence of the tea party in general.”

It was about this time that both Obama and Democrats in Congress were demanding the IRS go after conservative organizations.

Leave a comment

New documents show that more than 80% of the organizations targeted by the IRS in 2011 for harassment were conservative.

10:22 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: New documents show that more than 80% of the organizations targeted by the IRS in 2011 for harassment were conservative.

A handful of liberal organizations were definitely targeted for close inspection, but it appears to me that these were merely picked to give the IRS some cover while it mainly focused at harassing as many conservatives organizations as possible.

Leave a comment

Another look at the leaked IPCC draft report.

10:11 pm

Another look at the leaked IPCC draft report. Key quote:

To those of us who have been following the climate debate for decades, the next few years will be electrifying. There is a high probability we will witness the crackup of one of the most influential scientific paradigms of the 20th century, and the implications for policy and global politics could be staggering.

The article also takes a close look at the contradiction between the data and the IPCC models and says this:

[W]hat is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. Now you know how to interpret those terms when you hear them.

Leave a comment
1 … 302 303 304 305 306 … 375