Want to know why Arianespace has never made a profit? Read this story.
The story itself is not about Arianespace, but about the agencies that run it.
A new study has found that healthcare costs for small businesses have doubled since Obama became President.
The study’s research period begins in 2009, before Obamacare went into effect, but even then I guarantee that the early cost increases were in anticipation of the law that was coming and that no one wanted. Since then, the law has only made things worse.
In a related story, AOL cuts employee benefits, citing Obamacare as the cause.
An FBI agent mistakenly fills out the wrong box so that an innocent person is put on the no-fly list, she sues, and the federal government fights her for almost a decade in court proceedings that the government demands must be held in secret.
To translate, the FBI and the federal government did everything it could to cover up its bureaucratic bungle, not caring that it might destroy an innocent person.
Obviously, it therefore makes perfect sense to give the federal government as much power as we can, to regulate our lives in every way possible. They would never do this kind of idiocy in other areas, would they?
Another look at this week’s hearings on space regulation: More red tape in space.
“As the prospects for a greater number of commercial-transportation vehicles in space increase, it is time to consider closing the current regulatory and safety gap between launch and re-entry,” said George Nield, the FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, in remarks this week before Congress.
Yeah, that “gap” is an area where freedom exists, where federal regulators like Nield can’t get their grubby paws on what people do and tell them how to do it. Gotta close that gap, can’t have people doing what they want, can we?
Update: Here’s another report, indicating the same eagerness of the FAA to impose its will on private space.
“I will not retreat. I will not surrender. I will not be intimidated, and I will not ask for permission to exercise my constitutional rights.”
The words of one conservative who was harassed by the IRS and the Obama administration merely because she opposed them politically. Her most recent action? She is filing a formal complaint against Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummings for joining in on that harassment.
The unseriousness of the Republican leadership: Boehner suggests linking the debt-limit hike to a restoration of recent cuts to military benefits.
First of all, only a few weeks ago the Republican leadership was telling us these cuts were essential, which is why they went along with them in the last deal. Second and more important, we have far more significant issues — Obamacare and the federal debt — for which any serious conservative in office should be far more interested in pursuing than the relatively small cuts to military benefits.
If the Boehner and the Republican leadership were really serious about rolling back Obamacare as well as winning elections, they would link every negotiation with that issue. We all know they would eventually have to back down, but the goal would be force the Democrats to vote for Obamacare, again and again, even as that terrible law is devastating families nationwide. Not only would it put them in a bad light, it would emphasize the differences between the two parties.
More global warming fraud: A close review of the sources cited in the studies that claimed a 97% scientific consensus supporting global warming has found that claim to be false.
Instead of a 97% consensus, the review found that only 1 to 3% supported global warming. Quite a difference, eh?
The review’s press release nicely summarizes the incompetence or downright dishonesty of three of these consensus studies:
The Oreskes (2004) study claimed 75% consensus and a “remarkable lack of disagreement” by the other 25% of the abstracts she reviewed. Peiser (2005) re-ran her survey and found major discrepancies. Only 1.2% or 13 scientists out of 1,117 agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) view that human activity is the main cause of global warming since 1950. Peiser found that 34 scientists rejected or doubted the alleged ‘consensus’ position outright and 44 claimed natural factors as more influential. At least 470 papers expressed no position on Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming (AGW) whatsoever.
Doran & Zimmerman (2009) only assessed 79 scientists out of 3,146 respondents. Many scientists sent them emails protesting the survey design.
The recent Cook et al (2013) began with the broadest possible ‘consensus’ definition – rendering the idea of ‘consensus’ meaningless. Only 0.54% (or 64 scientists) explicitly agreed. Though Cook’s graphics on The Consensus Project website focus on fossil fuels, his study used the 1996 Houghton declaration which includes other human factors like agriculture and land-use change. Some 7983 scientists or 67% of the ~12,000 papers in the Cook study had no position on climate change. Many scientists publicly denounced Cook for wrongly assessing their work as supporting AGW when it does not.
Based on my experience talking to climate scientists as well as reading innumerable papers, I have always thought that the 97% consensus claim was weak or fishy. Now we not only have proof, we have evidence that the claim was based on lies.
Data tampering to create the illusion of global warming by James Hansen and NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.
The evidence shows that the data was adjusted to cool the past so that the present looks hotter. The question is: Why were these adjustments made? I can think of no justification, other than fraud and political manipulation.
Finding out what’s in it: A new survey of the nation’s top companies finds that large numbers plan to cut benefits, hours, and hiring to deal with the costs of Obamacare.
[The survey] of top companies found that 44 percent are considering reducing health benefits to current employees due to Obamacare, confirming the fears of millions of American workers. In its December survey of chief financial officers around the country, Duke also found that nearly half are “reluctant to hire full-time employers because of the Affordable Care Act.” And 40 percent are considering shifting to part-time workers and others will hire fewer workers or fire some to avoid the costs of the program. What’s more, they said in the study, “One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.”
Not surprisingly, the Democrats — who have defended Obamacare through thick and thin, even shutting down the government to facilitate its implementation — have called the loss of jobs a good thing.
Finding out what’s not in it: “I can’t imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen.”
I can.
We’re here to help you: A House subcommittee held hearings yesterday to consider updating the Commercial Space Launch Act that regulates the commercial space tourism industry.
Forgive me if I am pessimistic about anything Congress might do. So far, every time they have updated the law Congress has increased the regulatory regimen, making it harder and more expensive for these companies to get started. Consider these words from Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee:
» Read more
Finding out what’s in it: A new report from the Congressional Budget Office has found that Obamacare will increase the deficit and slow the economy far more than originally predicted.
The non-partisan agency’s report found that the healthcare law’s negative effects on the economy will be “substantially larger” than what it had previously anticipated. The CBO is now estimating that the law will reduce labor force compensation by 1 percent from 2017 to 2024, twice the reduction it previously had projected. This will decrease the number of full-time equivalent jobs in 2021 by 2.3 million, CBO said. It had previously estimated the decrease would be 800,000.
Aren’t you glad the Democrats shut the government down in October to prevent any delay or changes to their law?
A fact to remember when Democrats make believe they oppose Obama in the coming election: Every Democratic senator up for re-election in 2014 voted with the president at least 90 percent of the time in 2013.
It also appears that Democrat support for Obama was higher when they controlled both houses of Congress, “prevailing on almost 97 percent of the votes in the two chambers on which [Obama] took a position in 2009 and almost 86 percent in 2010, when Democrats controlled both House and Senate.”
That was also when the Democrats shoved Obamacare down our throats.
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.
An evening pause: Why good people should be armed.
The video is a little long, but she says it so well and honestly — while getting her facts right — that I think it is worth watching, to the end.
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.
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.
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.
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.
McCarthyism of the left: A Christian song has been stripped of its Oscar nomination as a result of protests within the Hollywood community.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
Does this make you feel safer? The TSA spent almost a billion dollars hiring behavior detection officers who then detected zero terrorists.
A Democrat reveals his dislike for democracy: New York Senator Charles Schumer proposes disenfranchising tea party voters in order to weaken their impact at the polls.
He also suggested that the IRS harassment of conservatives, and conservatives only, is a good thing.
Finding out what’s not in it: Enrollees in Obamacare in California are discovering few doctors or hospitals willing to accept their plans.
Worse, they are finding that the lists of doctors and hospitals that supposedly accept Obamacare is wrong.
For his part, Peter Lee, Covered California’s executive director, acknowledged that consumers may be getting misinformation from the state agency or insurer about whether their providers are participating. But, he said, the exchange is prepared to help those consumers get new plans that more suitably meet their needs. “If our directory or the directory of the health plan is wrong and a consumer wants to change plans, we’ll work with them to make sure they can do so,” Lee said in a news call this week. [emphasis mine]
The totalitarians of New York.
It is why I left back in 1998. Amazingly, it is getting far worse with the passing years. See for example this story.
The IRS harassment of conservatives continues.
The massive abuse of government power by the Obama administration against their conservative opponents nationwide makes anything done in New Jersey by Chris Christie’s underlings seem petty and inconsequential.
