An Obama supporter discovers she was betrayed by Obama and Obamacare.

Finding out what’s in it: An Obama supporter discovers she was betrayed by Obama and Obamacare.

My plan was canceled last fall. According to the regulators behind ObamaCare, it was a subpar plan that should no longer be sold to consumers. Another 16,000 Tennesseans on the same plan were similarly dumped. Many, like me, liked their plans and wanted to keep them. This wasn’t my insurer’s fault at all. CoverTN actually fought for me to keep my health care. After I received my cancellation notice, the folks at CoverTN requested that the federal government give them a waiver, which would let them grandfather my plan into ObamaCare. Their request was rejected.

This left me with no health plan and only one choice: Buy a plan through the ObamaCare exchanges.

After weighing my options, I settled on a “platinum” plan. This was the best plan that I could choose. A “bronze,” “silver” or “gold” plan all would leave me paying exorbitant amounts of money on my frequent, and expensive, trips to doctors and specialists. But the platinum plan was the lesser of two expensive evils. My new plan costs me $373 a month, even after a small subsidy. By comparison, my old plan only cost me $57 a month. And I now pay 25 percent co-insurance on all doctor visits until I reach my out-of-pocket maximum of $1,500. This is much higher than under CoverTN.

All told, I’m likely going to pay more than $6,000 more each year for my medical care.

Just remember: Even as the insurance cancellation notices were going out last fall, the Democrats and Obama were refusing to negotiate any changes to Obamacare, even vowing to shut the government down rather than negotiate. They must really love this law and the things it is doing to innocent people like this woman.

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The Gibson Guitar Company gives the federal government the finger.

The Gibson Guitar Company gives the federal government the finger.

A couple of years ago, the Feds raided the Gibson factory here in Music City, SWAT-team style, and shut the whole company down, allegedly for possessing illegally imported wood. From what I gather, it had mostly to do with how the shipping containers were labeled. Anyway, it didn’t merit a commando operation.

It was a disproportionate action on dubious grounds. Gibson later settled for $300,000. But not until after it had already lost far more than that by virtue of being forced to shut down operations.

This week Gibson has announced the “Government Series” of guitars, to celebrate the end of its tussle with the eager enforcers of the U.S. Customs Department. It’s a series of guitars made, purportedly, with the very same wood that was seized by the United States government, which was later returned at the end of the fiasco.

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Sick children in Washington state denied insurance coverage for specialty treatment at a children’s hospital.

Obamacare marches on: Sick children in Washington state denied insurance coverage for specialty treatment at a children’s hospital.

And then there’s this: A woman with a brain tumor finds she can’t afford treatment any longer, partly because her fees are higher and partly because her employer has cut her hours to avoid Obamacare.

In many cases, people will begin to negotiate directly with their doctors and hospitals. In the long run, this is actually a good thing, as it gets rid of the middle-man insurance company, which shouldn’t really be involved for most routine treatments.

In the short run it is a disaster, however. And just because Obamacare is causing this shift is not a reason to think Obamacare is good. The law was specifically touted by Obama and the Democrats as a way to reduce costs and get everyone health insurance. We now know that was an outright lie, as the law is doing the exact opposite.

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One in five enrollees in Obamacare are likely to have their policy canceled for not paying their premium.

Finding out what’s in it: One in five enrollees in Obamacare are likely to have their policy canceled for not paying their premium.

And why have they not paid their premiums? “We figure either those people had a change of heart or thought it was too expensive.”

Wait until later this year, when the cancellation notices go out from small businesses. People will then be so happy the Democrats and Obama were willing to shut the government down in October to keep their law in place.

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The dislike of Obamacare has risen, among the uninsured.

Finding out what’s in it: The dislike of Obamacare has risen, among the uninsured.

Weren’t the uninsured the group of people Obamacare was designed to specifically help? If their rejection of the law has risen, it provides more evidence of the law’s failure.

Which is no surprise to anyone willing to listen to any analysis of the law by any conservatives these past four years.

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Illinois officials have ordered an eleven-year-old to close her cupcake business that was earning her $200 a month.

We’re here to help you: Illinois officials have ordered an eleven-year-old to close her cupcake business that was earning her $200 a month.

“They called and said they were shutting us down,” said Chloe’s mother, Heather Stirling.

According to the Post-Dispatch, health officials informed the Stirlings that they would have to “buy a bakery or build her a kitchen separate from the one we have” for Chloe to continue selling cupcakes. “Obviously, we can’t do that,” Heather said. “We’ve already given her a little refrigerator to keep her things in, and her grandparents bought her a stand mixer. But a separate kitchen? Who can do that?” Chloe was charging $10 for a dozen cupcakes and $2 specialty cupcakes. “I’m saving for a bakery,” Chloe said in the piece that got her into trouble.

“The rules are the rules. It’s for the protection of the public health,” said health department spokeswoman Amy Yeager. “The guidelines apply to everyone. People will react how they choose to react. But it is our job.”

If this doesn’t illustrate why the rules are a bad idea in the first place, I don’t know what will. A free society allows for this kind of creative innovation, and also allows the possibility that maybe all cupcakes won’t be perfect.

Sadly, we don’t live in that free society any longer.

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Multiple U.S. science agencies have been accused of fudging data to fake the existence of global warming.

Someone else has noticed: Multiple U.S. science agencies have been accused of fudging data to fake the existence of global warming.

The “adjustment” schemes in the official U.S. dataset are so drastic, according to Goddard’s analysis, that they managed to “turn a 90 year cooling trend into a warming trend,” he said, suggesting that there may be a “software bug” at work. “Bottom line is that the [NOAA National Climatic Data Center] U.S. temperature record is completely broken, and meaningless,” Goddard concluded. “Adjustments that used to go flat after 1990 now go up exponentially. Adjustments which are documented as positive are implemented as negative.”

Respected climatologist and NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer actually showed evidence of what Goddard described as early as April of 2012, saying that “virtually all of the USHCN warming since 1973 appears to be the result of adjustments NOAA has made to the data.” Commenting on the latest findings, Dr. Spencer said that his own examination of the data and corrections to account for urban heat island (UHI) effects “support Steve’s contention that there’s something funny going on in the USHCN data.” He also called the NOAA methodology for adjusting the data “opaque” and said he believes it is prone to serious errors.

This article is essentially covering what I have already noted, that much of the data coming from NASA and NOAA has been seriously compromised, with past temperatures adjusted downward without any clear justification in order to make it appear as if the climate has warmed in recent decades.

I will be talking about this very issue tonight on Coast to Coast.

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“The most dangerous years of the Obama presidency are upon us.”

“The most dangerous years of the Obama presidency are upon us.”

His conclusion says it all:

Holding the House and taking back the Senate in 2014, while extremely important, cannot stop someone who considers himself above it all. A united front is needed for the next three years. So what is Republican and Congressional leadership planning?

A war on the Tea Party.

This is no time to petty internal politics. It is time to unite against the threat the Democrats pose, which they have now repeatedly admitted to quite openly, which is to deny their opponents any say in the political process.

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A newspaper chain plans to assemble a state-by-state database of every person permitted to carry a concealed weapon.

Freedom under attack: A newspaper chain plans to assemble a state-by-state database of every person permitted to carry a concealed weapon.

The CEO of the chain has released a statement saying that

[Civitas Media] never had any plans or intentions of publishing in print or online lists of holders of “conceal and carry” permits. Nor will Civitas Media develop databases of permit holders. A poorly crafted internal memo meant to highlight editorial discussions and planning incorrectly indicated that such a database was being planned; it has been considered and rejected.

Maybe so, but that such an idea was even considered by some of the company’s editors tells you a great deal about what those editors believe in, and it surely isn’t privacy, the second amendment, or personal rights.

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