Paul Ryan's Blindness

The FedGov's very own Bureau of Labor Statistics makes it clear:  Paul Ryan is blind to certain facts.

“The unemployment rates for foreign-born blacks, Asians, and Hispanics were lower than for their native-born counterparts, while the rates for foreign-born and native-born whites were little different.”  --quoted at MoonBattery


IOW, Ryan--like a lot of elected folks--doesn't really care what happens to the country in 20 years; he'll be retired, living nicely on a tax-funded pension.

As for your children:  screw 'em.

The GirlyGirls: Ryan, Sensenbrenner, Boehner

Nothing more need be said.

House Republicans are getting ready to surrender: There will be no serious fight over the debt limit.
The most senior figures in the House Republican Conference are privately acknowledging that they will almost certainly have to pass what’s called a clean debt ceiling increase in the next few months,...

Well, one thing:  "Thanks, Paul Ryan!!"

"No Exception" Abortion Stance from Cantor?

Here's what he said:

...Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader. “One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents,” Mr. Cantor said.....AOSHQ quoting NY Slimes

Well, except for the children murdered for the sin of their father--those conceived by rape.

Context at the link.

"Cut" in Food Stamps? Nope.

The 2008 baseline spend on food stamps was $600 Bn (CBO).

Then came The Marxist. 

Now the baseline is $972 Bn. (CBO).

So the Republicans wanted to slice $40 Bn. from the Marxist's $372 Bn increase.  They settled for an $8 Bn. "cut."

And they'll declare victory.

World's Leading Abortion Supporter to Speak at MurderWorks

Appropriate.

A while back, employees referred to Waukesha Engine as 'the murderworks'--a humorous contraction and mispronunciation of "motor works."

The facility is now part of GE and (surprise!!) Immelt gave the World's Leading Abortion Supporter permission to appear there.

It fits.

Shock! Slimeball PI Lawyers!!

Another slimeball-lawyer game.

...Claiming a “startling pattern of misrepresentation” exists in asbestos tort litigation, the judge allowed Garlock to gather evidence in 15 cases of asbestos claims in order to look at how often claims filed against multiple defendants are hidden in legal proceedings.

In those cases, the 15 plaintiffs collectively disclosed 32 claims during the course of the legal proceedings, but covertly hid the fact that they had collectively filed 284 other claims against other asbestos defendants....

Oh, nooooes!  What does this mean?

...This practice of alleging exposure to multiple asbestos products produces a lucrative result. “The total recovery by a typical claimant was estimated to be between $1 and $1.5 million, including an average of $560,000 in tort recoveries and about $600,000 from 22 Trusts,” Hodges explained....

Almost as though avarice has become a part of the lawyer's creed.

The Non-Persons

The teeny, tiny, pro-life march of 2014.  (Click to embiggen.)

NOT the MSM coverage.

"Register Your Guns!!": FAIL

Citizens of Connecticut tell their Gummint to f*&^ off.

So What About the Debt, Gov'nor?

Interesting item here, which will be completely ignored by ALL the pundits and MSM.

According to the State's own Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. the State owes about $16Bn.  Debt service is about 5% of the State budget.

Tax reductions are nice.  Debt reduction (not elimination) SHOULD be considered.

But that's not the way politicians roll.

The Real "TEA Party"

Well-written summation of the current crisis:

...Today’s parties, sadly, are coalitions bent on gaining political office. Our political scientists have been telling us this for decades, and there always was some truth to the claim. Such truths become more “true,” as it were, over time as principle becomes subject to mockery and the benefits of servitude to the state increase. The result, sadly, is not more “practical” governance, but rather an increase in corruption and an increased susceptibility to ideological extremism. And mere practicality will serve us ill in such times. The mere pursuit of interest cannot defeat the pursuit of ideology, for whatever “practical” benefits a politician without principle may offer, the ideologue’s promises will be infinitely more grand and appealing. Only after disaster strikes will mere practicality have a chance to win the day, and then it will be too late.

We should not be looking, then, for independents in our politics. We should be giving our support to those within our political parties who seek to return them to sane principles, rather than the combination of ideology and self-interest into which they have devolved. This may no longer be possible, at least directly, at the national level. But one can hope to find like-minded people of character in one’s locality within whom one may make common cause on the basis of principle. One thing is for certain: no amount of “common sense” or “rugged individualism” will make up for an independent-minded connection to principle and good character.

This observation could have come straight from Mark Levin or RedState, but it didn't.  And it should serve as a reminder to the Pubbies (yoo-hoo, Sen. Fitzgerald) that the TEA Party is your conscience calling.

That is, if you have principles.

The "Shooter" Ingredient

HT Paco for documentation of a thesis I've held.

Lefties with guns are extremely dangerous.  Gun laws should be revised:  if you vote or register (D), you may not purchase a gun.

More BATF Crap--From USFS

Some folks have to justify their payroll dollars any way they can.

...In late 2010 through 2011, under time constraints, and possibly due to not finding any illegal activity, Arnold and Webb resorted to various schemes to try to entice the hunters to break laws.

During one hunter’s trial in Haywood County, agents admitted to buying illegal bait for bears in Tennessee, and placing it in a hunter’s yard in Graham County. Hunters witnessed the officers killing at least four of the ten bears that were taken. These agents, against the advice of hunters, removed the bears’ gallbladders and called hunters from surrounding counties to try to get them to participate in the illegal selling of bear parts. The hunters refused to take part in this illegal activity. These are only two of the many tactics used in attempts to entrap hunters of Western North Carolina.

According to one attorney, Arnold admitted in court to violating 39 wildlife laws....

That's the same USFS which closed parks during the most flaccid "sequester" in history.

The fish rots from the head down, ya'know.

The Very Careful Anthem President

Anthem is best known as Blue Cross/Blue Shield (or 'the Blues' for old folks.)  The President of the Blues is rather careful when lobbed a bunch of softball questions about ObozoCare.

...Schreiber, president of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin, told me in his first interview on the subject that he anticipates Anthem’s Compcare product will attract 25 percent to 33 percent of the new marketplace enrollees in Wisconsin....

...The technological barriers are now being systematically eliminated. “We saw a large volume come in the last week of December and the first couple weeks of January. We’re working through that volume....

Tiptoeing past the graveyard....

The interviewer didn't bother to ask about premiums paid, nor about the demographics of the enrollees.  Those would have been tough questions.

But the Blues Pres was remarkably.......aaahhhhh.....uninformative......about the problems.

Maybe he had a motive, eh?

...Health insurer Humana Inc. recently warned that enrollees in the exchanges will probably be sicker than anticipated. So few if any insurers will be in surplus, and many will be seeking help. In other words, the exchanges as a whole will be unbalanced and in need of a taxpayer bailout. The CBO hasn't estimated how much the risk corridors will cost if participants in the exchanges are especially unhealthy....

...Obamacare has always depended, both operationally and politically, on an alliance between the administration and insurance companies. But that alliance is vulnerable. The most controversial element of Obamacare to date — the coercive measures it includes to get people to buy insurance — is only there to protect the insurance companies' viability. A bailout could be just as unpopular a sop to the insurers.

The Blues Pres likes the Taxpayer Money.  Speaking truth to power is fo'suckas.

Teh Dumb: Common Core

Ace nails it.  Nothing, ever, will replace the basics.

Exceptions for Babies, Not Druggies: Christie

Governor Christie has verbal dissonance.

Here he is in 2011 on Meet the Depressed:

I am pro-life, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That's my position, take it or leave it.

Tiresome BS bromide.  Killing a baby for its father's sin?  Hmmmm.  Incest?  Same.  "Life of the mother"?  Maybe in 1912's medicinal practice, but not today's.

Anyhow, here Christie is proposing to decriminalize the use of choom:

..."We will make drug treatment available to as many of our non-violent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands this simple truth: every life has value and no life is disposable,” Christie said during his inaugural speech this morning. 

Any exceptions, Governor?  What might they be?

The End of Gummint Liceity

Vox pens a nice summary here.  (He doesn't mention it, but the ruling cited below is another part of the End of Liceity of which he speaks.  The local echo is DA Chisholm's persecution of conservatives.)

Prelude:

At a tax symposium at Pepperdine Law School last week, former IRS chief counsel Donald Korb was asked, "On a scale of 1-10 ... how damaging is the current IRS scandal?"

His answer: 9.5. Other tax experts on the panel called it "awful," and said that it has done "tremendous damage."

I think that's right. And I think that the damage extends well beyond the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, I think that the government agency suffering the most damage isn't the IRS, but the National Security Agency. Because the NSA, even more than the IRS, depends on public trust. And now that the IRS has been revealed to be a political weapon, it's much harder for people to have faith in the NSA.  --quoting Glenn Reynolds/USA Today

What are the results of this perfidy?

This is why the American people are arming at a rate that has never been seen before. They are not afraid of crime. They are afraid of their government. On some inarticulate level of consciousness, they are aware of this: an unreasonable, ineloquent master who knows only the use of intimidation and force is bound to resort to the latter when the former fails.


It's only a matter of time before some minor spark sets off a conflagration.  And it could well happen in Milwaukee County, where the Chisholm/Landgraf Stasi is NOT all that popular.

The End of ObozoCare?

A story in which we find a Federal judge ignoring plain English because Statism.  (Of course, Roberts could always find a 'tax,' I suppose.)

...No later than June, 2015, the Supreme Court will hold that subsidies cannot be paid to individuals enrolled in the federal health exchange covering 36 of 50 states. 

Absent subsidies, 16 million people in the 36 affected states will face increased annual premium costs totaling $85 billion, based on Congressional estimates. The federal health exchange will have no option but to disclose the full, unsubsidized cost of policies, contributing to the so-called death spiral caused by too few young enrollees. Employer penalties can be assessed only after workers enroll in a subsidized exchange. No subsidy, no lawful penalty....

It's no wonder that the Left went into full screech when Walker (and 35 other Governors) decided to forfeit a State-run exchange.  It was the death penalty for ObozoCare, as written.

...Obamacare authorizes subsidies for exchanges “established by a State.” Without a federal exchange subsidy, the legislation fails in practice because so few states elected to set up an exchange....

Well, except for this blackrobe-bozo:

...federal Judge Paul Friedman in Halbig v. Sebelius upheld the IRS regulations authorizing the federal exchange subsidy. Judge Friedman admits that “looking only at the language of the statute” the plaintiffs’ argument prohibiting subsidies to the federal exchange “may seem the more intuitive one.” He goes still further: “On its face, the plain language of [the statute], viewed in isolation, appears to support plaintiffs’ interpretation. The federal government, after all, is not a ‘State.’”

No shit, Captain Obvious!  But that's not a bar to his ridiculous 'reasoning':

...According to Judge Friedman, the Obama administration makes “a credible argument” that the federal government can create an exchange “on behalf of that State,” therefore the federal exchange must be viewed as equivalent to a state exchange and therefore the federal exchange is eligible for a subsidy....

Cats and dogs have four legs.  Therefore, cats are dogs!  QED!!!

Heh.

Yes, You Can "Print" a Gun

The technique here is not the same as plastic-printing.

A 3D printing services company has built a fully functioning, semi-automatic pistol and shown that it works just as a traditionally manufactured gun.

Built by Solid Concepts, the pistol is a replica of the storied .45-caliber, M1911 semi-automatic that served as the U.S. military’s standard-issue sidearm for more than 70 years. Solid Concept demonstrated the gun by firing 50 rounds with it.

--quoted at Just One Minute

 

The (R) Establishment Bozos

Nice summary of the Big Spender Pubbies here from Carney.  All of them threw large money at Coburn's opponent, a squish named Humphreys.

...Nickles contributed to Humphreys in the primary, as did Oklahoma's junior senator, Jim Inhofe. Tom Cole was a congressional candidate that year, but he was also the political boss of the Oklahoma GOP, and his campaign contributed to Humphrey in the primary. So did GOP Rep. Wes Watkins of Oklahoma, who had served with Coburn in the House. Coburn’s other Oklahoma colleague in the House, J.C. Watts, endorsed Humphreys.

Meanwhile, the entire Senate leadership also backed Humphreys against Coburn. Majority Leader Bill Frist, Majority Whip Mitch McConnell and Republican Policy Committee Chair Jon Kyl all poured money into Humphreys’ campaign.

Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee also were not thrilled about Coburn coming into the upper chamber and crimping their style. Appropriators Kay Bailey Hutchison, Judd Gregg, Richard Shelby and Ted Stevens all gave PAC money to Humphreys. Republicans John Sununu, Gordon Smith and Saxby Chambliss also spent to keep Coburn out....

Coburn bows out due to illness--but the real cancers are above, in red.

The More We Learn, the Stupider Obozo Looks

This is not exactly the legacy a smart and competent executive wants to leave.  Unless this was The Plan from the get-go, of course.

A document given to the contractor who replaced CGI in December shows how truly desperate is the position of the government.

So what does the document say?

“There is limited time to build this functionality and failure to deliver…by mid-March 2014 will result in financial harm to the government,....

“If this functionality is not complete by mid-March 2014, the government could make erroneous payments to providers and insurers,” it continues. “Additionally, without a Financial Management platform that accounts for enrollments and associated program costs that integrates with the existing CMS Accounting platform, the entire healthcare reform program is jeopardized.”

Oh.  Well.  That's just wonderful.

Many of those who have signed up for ObamaCare are eligible for federal subsidies, which the government pays directly to the insurers. The document says that failure to complete the project by mid-March could result in “inaccurate issuance of payments to health plans which could seriously put them at financial risk; potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers.”  --quoting The Hill

(The semi-literacy of the document's author confirms that it's a FedGov scribble.)

There's even more!!

...the back-end problems extend beyond federal subsidy payments. According to the document, the system is vulnerable to “inaccurate forecasting” of the risk mitigation programs in place to pay insurers who enroll a higher-than-expected number of sick patients with expensive bills, “potentially putting the entire health insurance industry at risk.”

There are a lot of insightful folks (Limbaugh among them) who are convinced that ObozoCare was designed to make private insurers fail.  Given what we see above, there's still no reason to doubt that theory.

The alternative is that Obozo and his HHS Secretary are two of the dumbest examples of homo sapiens ever to have had office in the US.

Which do you prefer?

Warning on GDP

Yah, well.  Remember last quarter's GDP announcement?

It's going to be revised.  Down.  By up to a full point.

Inventory selloff, folks.  See today's Chicago PMI release, and expect more of the same.

Stuff You Don't Know About Scott Walker

Recently had a conversation with a rather pleasant person who told me, in all seriousness, that:

---Scott Walker had sold Devil's Lake State Park to the Koch Brothers, and that

---Scott Walker will raise the Wisconsin sales tax to 13%.  Single-handedly.

I expressed some surprise that the sale of Devil's Lake was not mentioned by any newspapers.  That didn't deter my interlocutor one bit. 

Must be a double secret thing, eh?

ObozoChristie

If you think that Christie is responsible for the acts of his underlings (henchcreeps), fine.

That logic works for me.  I don't defend Christie.

But it's also clear that he and his cabal learned a lot from Obozo.

....the defenders of the Obama administration will claim that there was no presidential involvement, just as they have claimed that the IRS scandal involved low level bureaucrats in Cincinnati, and as they denied responsibility for closing the WW II Memorial during the 17% "shutdown." But the problem is that with bridgegate they are establishing the principle that the atmosphere created at the top is what really matters, so Governor Christie is on the hook for the actions of his staff....

Seems like USDA attacked the children during the "sequester."  And yah, that was an Obozo call.

Why Vote (R), Indeed!

Jeff Lord was in the Reagan Administration.  He asks a good question, preceded by this:

...three different people at three different times had their own description of the problems so many see with moderate Republicans. Buckley called them “an identifiable team of Fabian operators is bent on controlling both our major political parties (under the sanction of such fatuous and unreasoned slogans as “national unity,” “middle-of-the-road,” “progressivism,” and “bipartisanship”). Thatcher’s disdainful terms for British moderate Conservatives was the “wets” or “consensus politicians,” while Reagan scorned the same people as “fraternal order” Republicans....

("Fraternal Order" of high-school class presidents.....heh.)

To the point:  Christie-type "moderates" are a waste of oxygen (and votes.)

Screw 'em.

And yes, I know that the high-school class president (R) flunky will show up and have the usual comment.

Take Your Pick, Mr. SCOAMF

Li'l Obozo was all disturbed with the generals during Afghanistan.

Do they think because I’m young that I don’t see what they’re doing?”

Moe Lane tries to help:

Youth, inexperience, epistemic closure, ideology, indifference, unconscious prejudice, misplaced sense of superiority, lack of training, lack of ability, lack of self awareness: pick one, Mr. President.  I can make a case for each.

There are probably a few more that Lane didn't bother to iterate.

Ten Million "Disappeared" Workers

Nice job, Obozo!!

...The number of working age Americans that do not have a job has increased by nearly 10 million since Barack Obama first entered the White House. In January 2009, the number of “officially unemployed” workers plus the number of Americans “not in the labor force” was sitting at a grand total of 92.6 million. Today, that number has risen to 102.2 million....Economic Collapse quoted at MoonBattery

$10 million is about what the US taxpayer has paid for Obozo vacations in the same time period.

Truer Words Were Never Spoken

Part of a short essay on education in America....

....Mann extolled the Prussian model in his seventh annual report. This met with some resistance, as critics accused him of wanting to establish a “Prussian-style tyranny” in the schools, arguing that the Prussian model was based on a presumption that the government was wiser than the citizenry, while in America the presumption was the reverse. There was considerable basis for this complaint. Prussian theorists regarded public education, and higher education as well, as an institution of “police” and a way of making students “useful as future tools,” — but Mann’s idea ultimately caught on for the most part....

There is no small irony in the fact that Catholic (and Lutheran) schools were established specifically to keep those children out of the Prussian model.

That's something that Abp Listecki's little "education" dictator doesn't bother with.

The rest of the essay--which includes an excellent description of Frau Diktator's friends and thought-pattern--is worth the read, particularly the withering criticism from Allan Bloom, an atheist who gets it.

HT:  Paco

Wisconsin Tax Reform? It's the SPENDING

You won't hear much about this from Madistan, of course.

...In order to keep the sales tax rate low, Berry said the state would need to follow Washington State in levying taxes on things like food and real estate sales, both currently tax free in Wisconsin. He said the state would also need to decide to reduce spending.

"If you look at the states that don't have an income tax, they all spend less per capita than we do," Berry said.

According to Berry, the state property and income taxes are around 25 percent higher than the national average, while the sales tax is 15 percent lower. He said the state could work to balance the two.

"There's no question that there's a need for tax reform," Berry said. "We haven't had a comprehensive discussion in decades."...

Notice Berry's emphasis on SPENDING?  That'll be in the memory-hole tomorrow.

A separate news report indicates that someone suggests dropping the income tax altogether and replacing it with the sales tax.  That's an interesting possibility--jt's akin to the 'fair tax' which we favor.  But unless spending controls--tight ones--are in place and virtually immobile, taxes will continue to escalate.

The Lying Liar Lied About Benghazi

The Lying Liar Obozo lied about Benghazi.  Yah, you're shocked.

There was NEVER a doubt that it was a terrorist attack, no matter the fantasy concocted by Lying Liar and his BumbleQueen.

But Lying Liar had a campaign event the very next day and he needed his beauty rest.

So that ended that.

Missed By THAAAT Much!

Agent Smart....

...In Wisconsin, 40,752 people signed up for health insurance on the federal exchange. The original expectation was that 277,000 people would sign up in Wisconsin....

Only off by 86% so far!

HT: Sykes

Press: Transcribing Obama's Big Book of Lies

What passes for "reporting" in the 25-y-o 'minds' at the Washington Post....

...The impact of cancellations in the small-group market is expected to be less dramatic than in the individual market, partly because a higher percentage of small-business policies provide more generous benefits. Still, the changes being made by the insurance industry are leaving some small-business owners confused and disillusioned about the law — whether it is directly to blame for the changes or not....

"Changes being made"?  Really?  Forty percent premium increases and 'here's the bennie schedule, take it or leave it'?  Those are "changes", alright.

The 'reporter' here transcribes, slobbering fluids all over the keyboard, what The Regime dictates (between heavy sighs...)

...But many are related only indirectly to the law; insurers are trying to move customers to new plans designed to offset the financial and administrative risks associated with the health-care overhaul. As part of that, they are consolidating their plan offerings to maximize profits and streamline how they manage them....

"Indirectly"?  Insurers who are forced to LOSE money due to ObozoCare (that's a direct relationship) are scrambling to regain black ink before they go BK.  Nothing "indirect" about that at all.

It's The Plan.

HT:  AOSHQ

Inane Name-Calling v. The Actual Problem

Jay Nordlinger in NRO:

...Lately, I have been more and more impatient with 100-percenters — people who have to agree with someone 100 percent in order to consider him any good. There is very little room for 100-percentism in politics. In other spheres of life, maybe, but not this one.

Occasionally, I will quote someone favorably in my column. And someone will e-mail me, “Yeah, but do you recall what he said on September 8, 1999? Traitor!” That word could refer to me or the fellow I had originally quoted.

Sometimes it seems that no one is ever good enough for us: not 41, not Dole, not 43, not anybody. In the summer of 2012, people said that Mitt Romney would be a sell-out commie squish if he picked anyone but Paul Ryan as his running mate. If he picked Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty or Kelly Ayotte, that would be proof positive of his sell-out commie squishdom. He picked the sainted Ryan — so “Mittens” got a reprieve for a while.....

Well, Jay, lately I've been disappointed with people who are inane name-callers.  Usually, they are (R) Party establishment figures just drooling for more power.  Or--if they are editorialists--a nice speech-writing job or sub-Cabinet level position in a sprawling, stultifying, Federal Agency with excellent retirement bennies.

Let's look back.......ooohhhh......really, really far back, (maybe into your infancy years, Jay), to 1988.  Did 41 get any votes?  Maybe that's a hard question for you, Jay, so let's get a little closer in time, say 2004.  Was 43 re-elected?  Did McPain get votes a few years later?  (Take a few minutes to Google the answer, Jay.)

See, Jay, the "100 percenters" that you yap about don't exist.  They vote for turkeys like 43, McPain, and Dole.  They vote for them, even if the vote is really against outright Marxists like Obozo or Fascists like Gore.  They vote for them even though these candidates are by and large married to their own power-madness and dream only of getting their butts into the Oval Office's big chair so they or their minions--like Christie and his--can destroy their enemies, "public good" be damned.  Or--just as bad--so they can impose their own view of "the public good" on the tattered remains of this country as was the case with 41, 43, and Romney.

Let's contrast with this from Domenech:

In the year since President Barack Obama’s re-election, a handful of advocates for compassionate conservatism have re-emerged to push back against limited government conservatives with the same agenda they’ve been peddling for nearly 15 years. Built around a message of governance in favor of the public good, they have chided the Tea Party and its limited government allies for ignoring the plight of the poor, heartlessly pursuing libertarian ends, and adopting a view of government’s proper role which is unrealistic and ahistorical.

... they fail to recognize the inherent weakness of their message, which confuses a political slogan with a coherent philosophy of governance and would allow for sweeping expansions of the state.

Yes, Jay, the not-really-"100 percenters" vote for incoherent, inarticulate, largely un-principled oafs who could not spell "subsidiarity" nor be able to distill that principle of governance from the Bill of Rights, when in reality, the entire Bill of Rights is a paean to that very principle.

(And Jay:  Ryan actually 'gets' subsidiarity.  It remains to be seen if he will work toward implementing it.)

ObozoCare: Better, But Really Worse

Some reassurance from an insurance industry strategic consultant:

....HealthCare.Gov on the front-end is in pretty good shape. It’s where it should’ve been at launch. The back-end is still highly problematic. Clearly the administration put its emphasis on the consumer side. Insurers are still seeing errors in probably 5 percent of the files coming through. That’s compounded by the issue of all the people enrolling in the last few weeks. That’s a huge surge that would create customer-service problems in the best of circumstances, So I think it’ll take until about the end of January till everyone is straightened out and where they should be....

Well, sorta, kinda, maybe, if all you're looking at is the operational issues.  But there are other matters.

Such as, umnnnhhhh, underwriting issues.

...There’s a big misconception that this is about young people. That’s baloney. It’s about healthy people. A healthy 20-year-old might only pay a $100 premium. You want healthy 40 and 50-year-olds. The big problem right now is really total enrollment. We only have about 10 percent of the uninsured in here. Insurers think you need more like 70 percent of a pool of people to sign up....

If they don't sign up, the insurance lobby covered its ass with Gummint money, of course.

But the real problem?  The one that'll last beyond 2014?

...If an entrepreneur had crafted Obamacare he would’ve gone to a middle class family. A family of four make $54,000 a year has to pay $400 in premiums net of subsidy and for that the standard silver plan has an average deductible around $2,500 and a narrow network. They’re going to pay almost $5,000 for that?

So the entrepreneur would say I’ve got $5,000 in premium and all this deductible, what do they want for that? And they probably would’ve said we want office visits and lab tests because the kids need to go in occasionally and then we want catastrophic care. The problem with Obamacare is it’s product driven and not market driven. They didn’t ask the customer what they wanted. And I think that’s the fundamental problem with Obamacare. It meets the needs of very poor people because you’re giving them health insurance for free. But it doesn’t really meet the needs of healthy people and middle-class people....

Yah.  But hey, Obozo prefers to dictate.  Who needs the assent of the peons?

Tax-Funded by Sen. Fitzgerald

Remember that Sen. Fitzgerald forces Wisconsin taxpayers to provide abortions.

...because to some Pubbies, getting re-elected is far more important than principles.

HT:  Moonbattery

Moore & Kind Oppose ObozoCare Security

So when your ID gets ripped off, or your neighbor gets your ObozoCare mail, who d'ya sue?

Not ObozoCare, according to Gwen Moore and Ron Kind.  Just eat the s*&^ sandwich.

Ron Kind wants to be a "moderate" Democrat.  To them, ID theft is no big deal, I guess.

Titanic? or Edmund Fitzgerald?

As you know, the difference between the two was simple:  the Titanic took quite some time to sink.  The Edmund Fitzgerald hit bottom in only a few minutes.

So which one is ObozoCare?  Or is it "Neither.  This IS The Plan, Sucka!"

Four separate items:

1)  This week, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R.) filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing members of Congress, and their staffers, from receiving subsidized health insurance through Obamacare’s exchanges

2)  “The House passed a bill Friday that requires the federal government to notify consumers within two days if their personal data has been breached on online-based insurance markets tied to the new health care law.”

3)  Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not

4)  Health insurer Humana Inc said on Thursday that it projected its enrollment mix in private plans through the exchanges created by President Barack Obama’s healthcare law will be, “more adverse than previously expected.”

 5)  ....none of these provisions will fully offset health plan losses….. Now we’ll have some hard numbers, courtesy of Humana. The company announced in an 8-K late Thursday that it expects its Medicare revenue to be substantially higher in 2014. But any revenue gains from this additional business will be fully offset by its bad experience in Obamacare. As a result, its earnings will remain flat for the year...

(All quoted at AEI Ideas)

Have You Driven a Ford Lately? Yah. We Know

This makes Chris Christie's crap seem like patty-cake.

By the way, GM uses the same devices.  Just like Chrysler.

Feel good now?

40 Million Guns in Two Years

Interesting numbers in a nation of 310 million.

The total number of background checks conducted for gun sales last year add up to 21,093,273, beating the previous 2012 record of 19,592,303 by 1,500,970.

That's ~40 million guns in 2 years.  Add another 16.5 million from 2011 and that .......unpleasant rebellion stuff.......is not all that far-fetched.

We are grateful to President Obama for his success in stimulating the gun industry, too!!

"SQUIRREL!!" (R) Politics

The guy's heart may be in the right place.  But he should re-examine the fundamentals.

Proposed sales tax holidays on school supplies and certain appliances could deliver increased tax revenue, says Sen. Rick Gudex.
"People who are inclined to go out and buy items on that particular weekend may be inclined to buy other things that are taxable," the Fond du Lac Republican told "UpFront with Mike Gousha," produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com .
 
...Under Gudex's proposal, the first weekend in August would see a suspension of taxes on school-related supplies, including computers and apparel.

During a November tax holiday, purchases of energy efficient appliances and winterization materials would be tax-free.

"...we are seeing excess sales tax revenue," said Gudex. "When we start to see that kind of revenue come in, we start to think of ways we can help people in the state of Wisconsin."

"Tax holidays" are the "SQUIRREL!!" for politicians.  "Look, over there!!  We spend way too much money, but you can save 5% of 2% of your budget here!!  One-Time-Only!! This Weekend!!"

If you really want to "help," Senator, cut State spending by about 15%.  Then cut both income AND sales taxes.

Barnum may be right, of course.  But you can't fool everybody, Senator.

Senselessbrenner Goes All-DC-All-The-Time

We've mentioned a few times that Jim Senselessbrenner is way past his sell-by date (which was around 2000.)  He wrote the legislation which authorized NSA's privacy intrusions--and now claims that it was "misinterpreted."  He has never taken a meaningful vote against ObozoCare, and has always had his nose rammed safely up the behind of 'Suntan John' Boehner on critical issues.

His utter inutility to actual Conservatives is demonstrated once again as he defends breaking "the law of the land" as written in ObozoCare:

Senator Johnson’s lawsuit is an unfortunate political stunt. I am committed to repealing Obamacare, but the employer contribution he’s attacking is nothing more than a standard benefit that most private and all federal employees receive – including the President.

Here's a suggestion, Jimbo:  pay for your aides' insurance out of your own Kotex-lined pockets.  Not ours.

Who Said It?

This week's mystery quotes:

“The basic effect of an increase in the minimum wage … would be to intensify the cruel competition among the poor for scarce jobs....Minimum wage legislation has no place in a strategy to eliminate poverty.”

Here's another clue.  Same source:

"There’s a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed,” ... “Raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers and few will be hired,” ....“The idea of using a minimum wage to overcome poverty is old, honorable — and fundamentally flawed. It’s time to put this hoary debate behind us, and find a better way to improve the lives of people who work very hard for very little.”

Koch Bros?  Scott Walker?  Ron Reagan?  Barry Goldwater?  Cruella deVille?  Sykes? Marquis deSade?

Nah.  Go to this link.  It's delicious.

New World Record Sniper Shot?

One point seven-eight miles, 6 seconds in the air, Barrett .50.

Sweet.

HT:  Paco

Who Cares About "Past Performance"? Not Sebelius!

Six hundred million dollars into a rathole.

Reported by POGO:

Specifically, what CMS contracting officials overlooked and/or downplayed was that more than 100 of CGI’s employees came from Virginia-based IT company American Management Systems (AMS), which CGI acquired in 2004. According to the Post, AMS had mishandled at least 20 government IT projects, including one particularly well-publicized fiasco involving the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board’s $36 million overhaul of its recordkeeping system.

AMS’s questionable past performance on government contracts should have set off alarms in 2007, when CMS awarded CGI and 15 other companies an umbrella contract allowing them to bid on future CMS projects. In fact, a former CMS official told the Post that AMS’s track record “could well have knocked [CGI Federal] out of the competition, and probably should have.”

...the admission from those former CMS officials that the government shirks its regulatory duty to screen contractors really surprised us. The government should not have such a blasé attitude regarding the past performance of contractors to which it entrusts billions of dollars for projects and programs that are literally a matter of life and death. We hope the epic embarrassment of the HealthCare.gov rollout—and its troubling backstory—will do for federal contracting what the Edward Snowden revelations are doing for federal surveillance programs: spark a vigorous public debate and get the ball rolling on long-term fixes.

Don't hold your breath.  DC is irretrievably broken.

Fitzgerald: Gutless Wonder Running for Governor

Oh, yes, he IS running for Governor; he expects Walker to bail out for the '16 Presidential.

Meantime, he's just being a gutless wonder.

On New Year’s Eve, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican leader of the state Senate, suggested that he would abort two pro-life bills in the 2014 session. One bill deals with mandated contraception coverage in health insurance plans, the other bans sex-selective abortions....

When Dale Schultz backs a bill--and Fitzgerald won't bring it up--you know little Fitzie has no balls.

Fitzie:  it takes balls to be Governor, too.  It seems that you're not qualified.

The Six Hundred Million Dollar Stupids

The taxpayer shipped over $600 million to the morons who wrote these programs.

There’s another quirk in the Obama administration’s new health insurance system: It lacks a way for consumers to quickly and easily update their coverage for the birth of a baby and other common life changes.

"Common life changes" such as what?

It can’t deal with marriages, or divorces, or deaths in the family, or income changes, or moving to new houses, according to Yahoo’s Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. In fact, it looks like the new system just assumes that everything will remain static from the enrollment period until … eternity.

Perhaps the contractor (and HHS stone-heads) who designed and wrote this should experience a "common life change" like permanent unemployment with no pension.

Oh, yah--tbey will be allowed to sign up for ObozoCare.

You Can Keep Your Hospital? Maybe

Seems like Obozo's no-bid Medicare contractor is another FAIL.

$3 million short, no payroll money.......pretty soon, no hospital!

GE: "We Bring Our Profits to Light!!"

You've known for a long time that what GE wants, GE gets--usually by writing regulations that Congress passes for it.  See, e.g., the company's self-written "zero tax" IRS regs.

And yes, with Fred "Lightbulb" Upton--an (R) assclown from Michigan--GE and a few co-conspirators managed to increase your cost of living while bringing more profit to light!  Yes, GWBush signed the bill.  He, too, was an assclown in a lot of ways.

...The 2007 Energy Bill, a stew of regulations and subsidies, set mandatory efficiency standards for most light bulbs. Any bulbs that couldn't produce a given brightness at the specified energy input would be illegal. That meant the 25-cent bulbs most Americans used in nearly every socket of their home would be outlawed.

People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the plant. That’s rarely the case, and it wasn't here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents)....

One could use the term "corrupt" to describe thievery-by-legislation.  But "extortion" is more accurate.

Trainwreck ObozoCare, Day One

The Leviathan begins to fall down the staircase.

My wife just returned from Kroger, and she had a freaky tale to tell: she attempted to have a prescription filled at the Kroger pharmacy, but our MedCo rejected payment. They were informed that Kroger was no longer a provider. All of the pharmacy employees looked spooked out of their wits. The head pharmacist was trembling. It has been going on like this all day. They admitted that Medicare was doing the same thing, and for odd reasons such as the absence or presence of middle initials, or Ln versus Lane in the address. Other insurers reported systems down and network problems.  --quoted at American Thinker

Got popcorn??

John Roberts, Hero of Conservatism?

Well, here's a different take on Roberts' ObozoCare decision.

....When the Supreme Court ruling came down, a shocked conservative historian, Paul Rahe, cited as a cause the PR pressure that President Barack Obama had been exerting on the Court in the fevered weeks leading up to the decision.  It was "an act of judicial cowardice," he fumed.  But then he added, "There is, I am confident, more to it than this."


What that "more" consists of has been growing more apparent by the day -- with the ongoing and painfully obvious parade of disasters, and the accelerated emergence of government by decree....

That text follows this quote:

The Pyrrhic victory Democrats secured for themselves [when President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law] may prove not to have been a victory at all but rather an ever-roiling, ongoing, and recurring act of political and ideological self-destruction.  --Tevi Troy, Commentary

IOW, Roberts decided to let Obozo/Pelosi/Reid have their way, which will result in the demolition of the Democrat Party.

Huh.

Two More Bullets into ObozoCare

Pretty soon, it'll just be a fetid corpse.  It's fetid now.  Corpse-ification to follow shortly.

Here's the first:

The Obama administration was temporarily blocked by a U.S. Supreme Court justice from forcing an order of Catholic nuns to comply with a federal requirement to provide free contraceptive coverage for employees.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s two-sentence order will last at least until Jan. 3, the deadline she gave the administration to respond to a bid by the Denver and Baltimore chapters of the Little Sisters of the Poor...

and here's the second:

...A federal appeals court issued a similar ruling yesterday in a separate case. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, in a 2-1 ruling, granted a request by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington and the Catholic University of America among other plaintiffs for an order barring the federal government from imposing the contraceptive services requirement...

If that doesn't effect death, then there may be other means, IYKWIMAITYD

HT:  Gateway