Tag: politics

Obamacare’s biggest problem.

6:52 am

Obamacare’s biggest problem.

As Obamacare rolls out, many current health plans will be cancelled because they don’t meet new ACA requirements,. The people who held these plans will have to purchase a comparable plan on the exchanges. In many cases, the “comparable plan” will be much more expensive.

As people “find out what’s in it” and are horrified by the cost, they will begin to develop a large rage at Obama and the endless lies he told about what this law would do. You won’t get to keep your doctor or your insurance, and everything will be far more expensive, not cheaper, as he claimed. Instead, everything that conservatives and tea party activists have said is turning out to be right.

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IRS officials, including Lois Lerner, used their private email accounts to illegally transmit confidential tax information.

7:39 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: IRS officials, including Lois Lerner, used their private email accounts to illegally transmit confidential tax information.

“[W]e have uncovered a troubling pattern of IRS officials sending official documents to non-official email accounts as well as the use of non-official email accounts to conduct official business,” the September 30th letter to acting IRS Commissioner Dan Werfil reads. “In some instances, IRS officials have sent taxpayer protected information to non-official email accounts.” The officials were identified as then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, Lois Lerner, who headed the office at the center of the scandal, Judith Kindall, and Nikole Flax, who worked in Lerner’s office.

In the letter to Werfil, Issa said that the committee had found over 1,600 pages of emails and documents related to official business in non-official email accounts. Nearly 30 pages of the material contained confidential tax information. The revelation raises serious questions about privacy and the security of the confidential data transmitted to the private email accounts. There is also a question of what might have been done with the data after it was sent to the private accounts. Those records would not be subject to the normal rules of transparency or freedom of information requests.

The only reason I can think of for these IRS officials to do this is because they wished to hide what they were doing, which also suggests that what they were doing was downright wrong.

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The public appears to be increasingly defiant about the National Park Service’s closure of parks.

7:27 pm

The public appears to be increasingly defiant about the National Park Service’s closure of parks.

Meanwhile, from a commenter here describing the situation at Great Smoky National Park since we left that area on Friday:

I was at the Smokies this weekend (Saturday and Sunday). The parking lot a Newfound Gap was completely open. The road to Clingman’s Dome was open. I did not travel down the North Carolina side of the park. Major trailheads were blocked at the Chimneys and Alum Cave Bluff. Chimneys picnic area closed. All other trailheads along 441 were open and there were plenty of people parked and enjoying the park. Little River Road was closed. We parked a couple of quiet walkways and took some short walks. Never saw an ranger anywhere.

If you are planning a trip to the Smokies then I would say to go for it. You may not be able to access some of the more popular areas of the park but there are plenty of areas that are accessible. I am planning a horseback riding trip (my own horses) in a couple of weeks and I am not going to let the dictatorial government in Washington ruin my plans.

The Chimney Top trail has been closed anyway during the week because of trail work, and the Alum Cave Bluff parking area is located at a spot where road work is presently going on and therefore might have been closed anyway as well.

And then there’s this: Yorktown restaurant owner defies the federal government, “occupying” his restaurant.

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If you sign up for Obamacare in Maryland you are required to agree to make your personal data available for “law enforcement and audit activities.”

7:11 pm

Finding out what’s in it: If you sign up for Obamacare in Maryland you are required to agree to make your personal data available for “law enforcement and audit activities.”

The terms also note that any emails you send will also fall under Maryland’s Public Information Act, the equivalent of that state’s freedom of information act, suggesting that those emails might also become public knowledge, against your wishes.

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The government shutdown is forcing House lawmakers to reuse their towels in the House gym.

6:55 pm

The horror! The government shutdown is forcing House lawmakers to reuse their towels in the House gym.

The important question is why this gym is even open, or even exists. I can think of a lot better uses of taxpayer dollars, especially considering how much money these elected officials make.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has decided that the shutdown prevents them from paying the death benefits to the families of military soldiers killed in action.

Compare and contrast.

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“The difference between competence and incompetence.”

6:38 am

USA Today, an Obamacare supporter, compares the Obama and Bush administrations: “The difference between competence and incompetence.”

Guess who they are criticizing?

As honest as the editorial is in noting the website failures of Obamacare, it dishonestly states that “as the incompetence drones on, however, it hands ammunition to those who want to kill the law regardless of the broad interest in it.” [emphasis mine] “Regardless of broad interest”? The public is “broadly interested” in the law for sure, but that is a weird way to describe the disgust and opposition that every poll has shown the law has generated.

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Despite a threat of arrest by the Obama administration, veterans from Ohio plan to visit the World War II memorial on Wednesday.

6:00 am

Despite a threat of arrest by the Obama administration, veterans from Ohio plan to visit the World War II memorial on Wednesday.

I suspect that the park service employee who said the vets risked arrest if they crossed the barricades regrets that statement. I also almost hope that the Obama administration does try to arrest someone, as such action will quite starkly illustrate how fascist the administration is behaving.

And then there’s this story: ‘Gestapo’ tactics meet senior citizens at Yellowstone.

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard. The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

Read the whole story. It should make you ashamed.

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The world that works vs the world that doesn’t.

6:18 pm

The world that works vs the world that doesn’t.

In Washington, penalties for failure are few: Has anyone been fired over the Obamacare launch debacle? Problems are always the fault of circumstances, or the Evil Opposition, or are simply swept under the rug. Of course, that means there’s not much learning from mistakes, and “more of the same, only we’ll try harder!” is a common response. As in The Hunger Games, life is always posh in Capital City; suffering is for the poor schlubs out in the provinces.

In the world that works, on the other hand, mistakes are painful: They cost people jobs, they cost investors money, they result in bad publicity that’s harder to explain away. Thus, people learn from them. Unsurprisingly, the world that works is where the money that Washington spends ultimately comes from.

The problem is that the bigger Washington gets, the less room is left for the world that works. As more and more of American life is taken over by the world of politics — in which wealth is not generated, but taken from one’s opponents and distributed to one’s supporters — a smaller share is left for the world that works.

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“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today.”

1:28 pm

Finding out what’s in it: “I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today.”

That’s what a knee-jerk Obamacare supporter said when he discovered how much the cost of his health insurance was going up after Obamacare takes effect. Here’s another good quote from another knee-jerk Obamacare supporter:

“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.” Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level — the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn’t realize they would rise so much.

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.” [emphasis mine]

Who did he think was going to pay for it? The tooth fairy?

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22 privately run campsites in New Hampshire are being told to close by the Forest Service, even though they get no money from the federal government.

12:07 pm

Obama fascism: 22 privately run campsites in New Hampshire are being told to close by the Forest Service, even though they get no money from the federal government.

According to the Union Leader, while the campsites are situated on federally owned land, they are entirely run by a private company, which has a contract to operate the sites and which pays the federal government a cut of the fees it collects. That means the closure will not only prevent thousands of campers from using the facilities, it will actually cost the federal government money it would have collected if it had simply done nothing.

These campsites were always allowed to operate during previous shutdowns. I should add that they have a legal contract with the government, which it appears the government is now breaking without real cause. If I were them I would be suing the Obama administration for loss of income and a violation of contract.

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The National Park Service is permitting a leftwing rally for illegal immigrants to take place on the National Mall, supposedly closed because of the government shutdown.

12:03 pm

Working for the left and the Democratic Party: The National Park Service is permitting a leftwing rally for illegal immigrants to take place on the National Mall, supposedly closed because of the government shutdown.

Much like the favoritism exhibited by the IRS, the park service is now clearly favoring leftwing protest. Want to gather at the World War II monument to celebrate the courage of Americans to free the world from Nazism and fascism? No! Want to gather on the National Mall to celebrate illegal immigrants? Yes!

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