Communism Killed 94M in 20th Century, Feels Need to Kill Again
According to a disturbingly pleasant graphic from Information is Beautiful entitled simply 20th Century Death, communism was the leading ideological cause of death between 1900 and 2000. The 94 million that perished in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe easily (and tragically) trump the 28 million that died under fascist regimes during the same period.
During the century measured, more people died as a result of communism than from homicide (58 million) and genocide (30 million) put together. The combined death tolls of WWI (37 million) and WWII (66 million) exceed communism’s total by only 9 million....
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Venezuela announces new 'people's parliament' as the country's elite face mounting drug charges
Venezuela’s government has found an ingenious way to cling on to power in their rapidly-unravelling state: announcing the creation of a new, parallel parliament which will run as a “people’s assembly,” beside the National Assembly they no longer control....
...Reports in America in the early hours of Wednesday suggested that a New York prosecutor was preparing to charge the head of the country’s border agency with drug trafficking – a highly significant move, which would be the first time a sitting official has been charged on narcotics offences. Nestor Reverol, a high-ranking ally of the late president Hugo Chavez and head of the National Guard, has used his social media account to champion his team’s work in detecting drug shipments from Colombia. But he and his deputy are likely to face charges later this month of collusion with cartels....
Venezuela’s government has found an ingenious way to cling on to power in their rapidly-unravelling state: announcing the creation of a new, parallel parliament which will run as a “people’s assembly,” beside the National Assembly they no longer control....
...Reports in America in the early hours of Wednesday suggested that a New York prosecutor was preparing to charge the head of the country’s border agency with drug trafficking – a highly significant move, which would be the first time a sitting official has been charged on narcotics offences. Nestor Reverol, a high-ranking ally of the late president Hugo Chavez and head of the National Guard, has used his social media account to champion his team’s work in detecting drug shipments from Colombia. But he and his deputy are likely to face charges later this month of collusion with cartels....
NOAA Fiddles With Climate Data To Erase The 15-Year Global Warming ‘Hiatus’
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year “pause” in global warming: They “adjusted” the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record.
New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years.
“Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,'” wrote NOAA scientists in their study presenting newly adjusted climate data....
...To increase the rate in warming, NOAA scientists put more weight on certain ocean buoy arrays, adjusted ship-based temperature readings upward, and slightly raised land-based temperatures as well....
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have found a solution to the 15-year “pause” in global warming: They “adjusted” the hiatus in warming out of the temperature record.
New climate data by NOAA scientists doubles the warming trend since the late 1990s by adjusting pre-hiatus temperatures downward and inflating temperatures in more recent years.
“Newly corrected and updated global surface temperature data from NOAA’s [National Centers for Environmental Information] do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus,'” wrote NOAA scientists in their study presenting newly adjusted climate data....
...To increase the rate in warming, NOAA scientists put more weight on certain ocean buoy arrays, adjusted ship-based temperature readings upward, and slightly raised land-based temperatures as well....
NBC News: Obama administration knew millions could not keep their health insurance
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years. [This article was written in 2013]
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered....
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years. [This article was written in 2013]
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered....
The Democrats’ Theme for 2016 Is Totalitarianism
The Democrats’ Theme for 2016 Is Totalitarianism Hillary Clinton and John Kerry share a laugh in September 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty) SHARE ARTICLE ON FACEBOOKSHARE TWEET ARTICLETWEET PLUS ONE ARTICLE ON GOOGLE PLUS+1At the beginning of December, Rolling Stone writer Jeff Goodell asked Secretary of State John Kerry whether Charles and David Koch, two libertarian political activists, should be considered — his remarkable words — “an enemy of the state.” He posed the same question about Exxon, and John Kerry, who could have been president of these United States, said that he looked forward to the seizure of Exxon’s assets for the crime of “proselytizing” impermissibly about the question of global warming.
An enemy of the state? That’s the Democrats’ theme for the New Year: totalitarianism.
Donald Trump may talk like a brownshirt, but the Democrats mean business. For those of you keeping track, the Democrats and their allies on the left have now: voted in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, proposed imprisoning people for holding the wrong views on global warming, sought to prohibit the showing of a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton, proposed banning politically unpopular academic research, demanded that funding politically unpopular organizations and causes be made a crime and that the RICO organized-crime statute be used as a weapon against targeted political groups. They have filed felony charges against a Republican governor for vetoing a piece of legislation, engaged in naked political persecutions of members of Congress, and used the IRS and the ATF as weapons against political critics....
Jerry Brown Touts 'Coercive Power of the State' on Climate Change
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) raised some eyebrows while attending the United Nations Climate Summit in Paris, proclaiming the "coercive power of the central state" is needed to promote good public policy, specifically when it comes to a cleaner environment.
Taking part in an onstage presentation with billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer, Brown said government regulations force companies to adopt clean technologies.
After Steyer mentioned business frameworks, Brown said, "Tom, you used the phrase 'policy.' Good policy. But I want to unpack that term a little bit. Inside the policy, you need a law. You need a rule. You need the coercive power of government to say, 'Do this.' ...
The Democrats’ Theme for 2016 Is Totalitarianism Hillary Clinton and John Kerry share a laugh in September 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty) SHARE ARTICLE ON FACEBOOKSHARE TWEET ARTICLETWEET PLUS ONE ARTICLE ON GOOGLE PLUS+1At the beginning of December, Rolling Stone writer Jeff Goodell asked Secretary of State John Kerry whether Charles and David Koch, two libertarian political activists, should be considered — his remarkable words — “an enemy of the state.” He posed the same question about Exxon, and John Kerry, who could have been president of these United States, said that he looked forward to the seizure of Exxon’s assets for the crime of “proselytizing” impermissibly about the question of global warming.
An enemy of the state? That’s the Democrats’ theme for the New Year: totalitarianism.
Donald Trump may talk like a brownshirt, but the Democrats mean business. For those of you keeping track, the Democrats and their allies on the left have now: voted in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, proposed imprisoning people for holding the wrong views on global warming, sought to prohibit the showing of a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton, proposed banning politically unpopular academic research, demanded that funding politically unpopular organizations and causes be made a crime and that the RICO organized-crime statute be used as a weapon against targeted political groups. They have filed felony charges against a Republican governor for vetoing a piece of legislation, engaged in naked political persecutions of members of Congress, and used the IRS and the ATF as weapons against political critics....
Jerry Brown Touts 'Coercive Power of the State' on Climate Change
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) raised some eyebrows while attending the United Nations Climate Summit in Paris, proclaiming the "coercive power of the central state" is needed to promote good public policy, specifically when it comes to a cleaner environment.
Taking part in an onstage presentation with billionaire and climate activist Tom Steyer, Brown said government regulations force companies to adopt clean technologies.
After Steyer mentioned business frameworks, Brown said, "Tom, you used the phrase 'policy.' Good policy. But I want to unpack that term a little bit. Inside the policy, you need a law. You need a rule. You need the coercive power of government to say, 'Do this.' ...
Denmark defends plans to strip migrants of their jewellery and valuables after comparisons to Nazi Germany, saying: 'You must pay for yourself before you get benefits'
New policies to search newly arrived refugees for valuables criticised
International outrage saw Denmark compared to Nazi Germany
Government defends policy, saying it's same rules for refugees and Danes
Unemployed Danes must sell valuables above £976 to get social benefits
Fights, fury and the Ku Klux Klan: Finland faces wave of vigilante mobs targeting migrants as arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker for rape of 14-year-old schoolgirl pushes one town to the brink
...In Kempele, the rape of the schoolgirl, just a fortnight after the centre for young migrants opened, sent shockwaves through the community.
Rumours quickly spread around the town that two asylum seekers from Afghanistan had been arrested over the assault.
It has since emerged that police have arrested a 17-year-old boy at the centre, who is in custody awaiting trial.
It was the spark needed for those who had opposed the centre in the first place to take to the streets - as hundreds turned out for a protest march demanding it be closed immediately.
'Finland for the Finns! Close down the centre!’ they chanted....
...The day after the schoolgirl sex attack in Kempele, another 14-year-old girl was attacked in the southern town of Raisio. This time, the man arrested was a 19-year-old asylum seeker.
Two days later, Afghan Ramin Azimi was jailed for life for raping a 17-year-old Finnish girl from Pori and burning her alive....
'I was gang-raped by ISIS thugs until I blacked out': Yazidi woman held as sex slave for three months breaks down during speech at UN as she begs world leaders to wipe out the Islamist group
21-year-old Yazidi woman described three months of torture as ISIS victim
She was abducted from her home in Iraq by ISIS militants last August
She described being held in a fighter's home, being raped until she fainted
ISIS trades women and children from minority Yazidi people as 'war booty'
UN described ISIS's treatment of the Yazidi people as a possible genocide
Norway now offering formal instruction to refugees that rape is wrong
...A course manual sets out a simple rule that all asylum seekers need to learn and follow: “To force someone into sex is not permitted in Norway, even when you are married to that person.”…
The first such program to teach immigrants about local norms and how to avoid misreading social signals was initiated in Stavanger, the center of Norway’s oil industry and a magnet for migrants, after a series of rapes from 2009 to 2011.
Henry Ove Berg, who was Stavanger’s police chief during the spike in rape cases, said he supported providing migrants sex education because “people from some parts of the world have never seen a girl in a miniskirt, only in a burqa.” When they get to Norway, he added, “something happens in their heads.”…
“Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” [Muslim refugee Abdu Osman] Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police....
Riot police fire warning shots as THOUSANDS of protesters storm the site of a planned asylum centre for 1,500 migrants in Holland
Demonstrators went on the rampage in town of Geldermalsen last night
They smashed through fence surrounding asylum camp, attacked police
The angry crowd yelled 'No n****** here!' and 'foreign scum keep away'
Town hall left looking like a 'battlefield' and councillors were forced to flee
At least 14 people were arrested, several policemen were injured in melee
...A planned discussion about the imminent arrival of the migrants, staged by the town council, was abandoned in the chaos as the mob outside tried to storm the building. Councillors were forced to flee out of rear exits into police vans....
Rotherham Witness Says Police Covered Up Child Abuse By Muslim Men
...In February, the then Communities Secretary Eric Pickles sent a team of five commissioners to take over the executive functions of Rotherham Borough Council, saying it was suffering from “institutionalised political correctness”.
In August last year, the Jay Report found that 1,400 children had been groomed, trafficked and raped by Asian men in the town but police had failed to intervene due to fears of appearing racist....
...A member of staff gave Mr Hussain permission to take the girls away in his car as long as they were back by 11pm. He took them to a restaurant and then on the drive back pulled over and made her “perform a sex act” on him and his friends....
...She said she first met the men when she was living at a children’s home and had informed staff of their behaviour but, as with the first woman, “they just didn’t seem to want to know.”...
New policies to search newly arrived refugees for valuables criticised
International outrage saw Denmark compared to Nazi Germany
Government defends policy, saying it's same rules for refugees and Danes
Unemployed Danes must sell valuables above £976 to get social benefits
Fights, fury and the Ku Klux Klan: Finland faces wave of vigilante mobs targeting migrants as arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker for rape of 14-year-old schoolgirl pushes one town to the brink
...In Kempele, the rape of the schoolgirl, just a fortnight after the centre for young migrants opened, sent shockwaves through the community.
Rumours quickly spread around the town that two asylum seekers from Afghanistan had been arrested over the assault.
It has since emerged that police have arrested a 17-year-old boy at the centre, who is in custody awaiting trial.
It was the spark needed for those who had opposed the centre in the first place to take to the streets - as hundreds turned out for a protest march demanding it be closed immediately.
'Finland for the Finns! Close down the centre!’ they chanted....
...The day after the schoolgirl sex attack in Kempele, another 14-year-old girl was attacked in the southern town of Raisio. This time, the man arrested was a 19-year-old asylum seeker.
Two days later, Afghan Ramin Azimi was jailed for life for raping a 17-year-old Finnish girl from Pori and burning her alive....
'I was gang-raped by ISIS thugs until I blacked out': Yazidi woman held as sex slave for three months breaks down during speech at UN as she begs world leaders to wipe out the Islamist group
21-year-old Yazidi woman described three months of torture as ISIS victim
She was abducted from her home in Iraq by ISIS militants last August
She described being held in a fighter's home, being raped until she fainted
ISIS trades women and children from minority Yazidi people as 'war booty'
UN described ISIS's treatment of the Yazidi people as a possible genocide
Norway now offering formal instruction to refugees that rape is wrong
...A course manual sets out a simple rule that all asylum seekers need to learn and follow: “To force someone into sex is not permitted in Norway, even when you are married to that person.”…
The first such program to teach immigrants about local norms and how to avoid misreading social signals was initiated in Stavanger, the center of Norway’s oil industry and a magnet for migrants, after a series of rapes from 2009 to 2011.
Henry Ove Berg, who was Stavanger’s police chief during the spike in rape cases, said he supported providing migrants sex education because “people from some parts of the world have never seen a girl in a miniskirt, only in a burqa.” When they get to Norway, he added, “something happens in their heads.”…
“Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” [Muslim refugee Abdu Osman] Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police....
Riot police fire warning shots as THOUSANDS of protesters storm the site of a planned asylum centre for 1,500 migrants in Holland
Demonstrators went on the rampage in town of Geldermalsen last night
They smashed through fence surrounding asylum camp, attacked police
The angry crowd yelled 'No n****** here!' and 'foreign scum keep away'
Town hall left looking like a 'battlefield' and councillors were forced to flee
At least 14 people were arrested, several policemen were injured in melee
...A planned discussion about the imminent arrival of the migrants, staged by the town council, was abandoned in the chaos as the mob outside tried to storm the building. Councillors were forced to flee out of rear exits into police vans....
Rotherham Witness Says Police Covered Up Child Abuse By Muslim Men
...In February, the then Communities Secretary Eric Pickles sent a team of five commissioners to take over the executive functions of Rotherham Borough Council, saying it was suffering from “institutionalised political correctness”.
In August last year, the Jay Report found that 1,400 children had been groomed, trafficked and raped by Asian men in the town but police had failed to intervene due to fears of appearing racist....
...A member of staff gave Mr Hussain permission to take the girls away in his car as long as they were back by 11pm. He took them to a restaurant and then on the drive back pulled over and made her “perform a sex act” on him and his friends....
...She said she first met the men when she was living at a children’s home and had informed staff of their behaviour but, as with the first woman, “they just didn’t seem to want to know.”...
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Hillary Clinton Knew All Along Benghazi Attack Had "Nothing To Do With The Film," Documents Reveal
According to documents revealed as part of the ongoing Congressional hearings on Benghazi, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil in a phone call the day after the attack on the U.S. consulate, "We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest."
The film Clinton refers to is the 10 minute Youtube trailer for the ultra-low budget anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims," which she and other senior Obama administration officials, including President Obama himself, almost immediately began casting as a scapegoat for the attacks. Those attacks, however, were already understood by senior administration officials to be a planned and coordinated attack, and very much not what then-ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called a "a spontaneous reaction to a video."
Clinton also reportedly emailed her daughter Chelsea, who used the pseudonym Diane Reynolds when communicating with her mother via her private email account, on the night of the attacks, telling her that the consulate had been attacked by an "Al Queda-like group." (sic)...
According to documents revealed as part of the ongoing Congressional hearings on Benghazi, then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil in a phone call the day after the attack on the U.S. consulate, "We know that the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack—not a protest."
The film Clinton refers to is the 10 minute Youtube trailer for the ultra-low budget anti-Islam movie "Innocence of Muslims," which she and other senior Obama administration officials, including President Obama himself, almost immediately began casting as a scapegoat for the attacks. Those attacks, however, were already understood by senior administration officials to be a planned and coordinated attack, and very much not what then-ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called a "a spontaneous reaction to a video."
Clinton also reportedly emailed her daughter Chelsea, who used the pseudonym Diane Reynolds when communicating with her mother via her private email account, on the night of the attacks, telling her that the consulate had been attacked by an "Al Queda-like group." (sic)...
The Certainty of Uncertainty
"A Disgrace to the Profession": The World's Scientists on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science
Nine years ago self-proclaimed "climate hawk" David Roberts was contemplating Nuremberg trials for deniers:
When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.
But in his latest piece, at Vox.com, he's singing a rather different tune:
Basically, it's difficult to predict anything, especially regarding sprawling systems like the global economy and atmosphere, because everything depends on everything else. There's no fixed point of reference....
"A Disgrace to the Profession": The World's Scientists on Michael E Mann, his Hockey Stick and their Damage to Science
Nine years ago self-proclaimed "climate hawk" David Roberts was contemplating Nuremberg trials for deniers:
When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.
But in his latest piece, at Vox.com, he's singing a rather different tune:
Basically, it's difficult to predict anything, especially regarding sprawling systems like the global economy and atmosphere, because everything depends on everything else. There's no fixed point of reference....
EXCLUSIVE: Authorities Ignored Woman’s Rape Allegations Against Illegal Immigrant Who Later Raped Her Again
Authorities didn’t act on a woman’s rape allegations against a Honduran man in the U.S. illegally until after he came back months later to kidnap and rape her again in front of their 2-year-old child.
Jose Amaya-Vasquez, a Honduran man that has entered the U.S. three times illegally, was scheduled to appear in court Monday after allegedly kidnapping and raping his ex-girlfriend during a four-day drive in May from Kansas City, Mo., to Camden, N.J....
Authorities didn’t act on a woman’s rape allegations against a Honduran man in the U.S. illegally until after he came back months later to kidnap and rape her again in front of their 2-year-old child.
Jose Amaya-Vasquez, a Honduran man that has entered the U.S. three times illegally, was scheduled to appear in court Monday after allegedly kidnapping and raping his ex-girlfriend during a four-day drive in May from Kansas City, Mo., to Camden, N.J....
The Big Three Villains — Laziness, Stupidity, Corruption — and the Gun-Control Debate
...The Democratic party’s dramatic slide into naked authoritarianism — voting in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, trying to lock up governors for vetoing legislation, and seeking to jail political opponents for holding unpopular views on global warming, etc. — has been both worrisome and dramatic. The Democrats even have a new position on the ancient civil-rights issue of due process, and that position is: “F— you.”...
The purpose of a list is, lest we forget, to be cleared. If Jim Bob is on your list of terrorist suspects, what do you do? Just sit on the list forever and think up new things that Jim Bob should not be allowed to do. (Exercise his First Amendment rights? Protest? Write a letter to the editor? Go to church?) No. You can: 1) Investigate until you have evidence of a crime and hand down an indictment; 2) clear him from the list after investigation; 3) come up with a specific rationale for continued surveillance. But that’s not what we’re doing. We’re just making eternal lists, which the Democrats intend to use for eternal harassment of their political rivals. It hasn’t occurred to them to wonder what a President Cruz or, God save the Republic, a President Trump might do with the sort of executive power they contemplate....
...Conservatives are naturally inclined to indulge the police, but the fact is that the run of them are specimens of what you get when you take the same lazy unionized public-teat-suckling lumps over at the DMV and put guns on their hips and tell them that they are “at war” with the people they serve. Our intelligence guys aren’t in the main Blackford Oakes or James Bond: They’re drones compiling Excel reports until their pensions kick in. That cow-eyed young TSA gate agent with the “GANGSTER” neck tattoo grabbing your nozzle at the airport isn’t the best and brightest, and the guy he works for only has to be one step up. The distance between the guy staring dumbly into your traveler-sized tube of shaving cream and the guy making policy about staring dumbly into traveler-sized tubes of shaving cream is about 300 points on the SAT....
...It is time for Americans to grow up and to sober up. It may push your soy-latte buttons every time Bubba down in Muleshoe, Texas, buys a scary-looking black gun and declares war upon a row of defenseless Budweiser cans, but inconveniencing Bubba isn’t going to get the job done. Laziness, stupidity, corruption: The U.S. government exists for the sole purpose of protecting the rights of U.S. citizens, but somehow the fine minds at the New York Times conclude that the federal government should do more to burden the citizens to whom it owes every duty than, say, so-called refugees from Syria to whom the U.S. government has no duty whatsoever. Why? Because the alternative is expecting the employees of our federal, state, and local governments to do their duties, and that is just too much work.
...The Democratic party’s dramatic slide into naked authoritarianism — voting in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, trying to lock up governors for vetoing legislation, and seeking to jail political opponents for holding unpopular views on global warming, etc. — has been both worrisome and dramatic. The Democrats even have a new position on the ancient civil-rights issue of due process, and that position is: “F— you.”...
The purpose of a list is, lest we forget, to be cleared. If Jim Bob is on your list of terrorist suspects, what do you do? Just sit on the list forever and think up new things that Jim Bob should not be allowed to do. (Exercise his First Amendment rights? Protest? Write a letter to the editor? Go to church?) No. You can: 1) Investigate until you have evidence of a crime and hand down an indictment; 2) clear him from the list after investigation; 3) come up with a specific rationale for continued surveillance. But that’s not what we’re doing. We’re just making eternal lists, which the Democrats intend to use for eternal harassment of their political rivals. It hasn’t occurred to them to wonder what a President Cruz or, God save the Republic, a President Trump might do with the sort of executive power they contemplate....
...Conservatives are naturally inclined to indulge the police, but the fact is that the run of them are specimens of what you get when you take the same lazy unionized public-teat-suckling lumps over at the DMV and put guns on their hips and tell them that they are “at war” with the people they serve. Our intelligence guys aren’t in the main Blackford Oakes or James Bond: They’re drones compiling Excel reports until their pensions kick in. That cow-eyed young TSA gate agent with the “GANGSTER” neck tattoo grabbing your nozzle at the airport isn’t the best and brightest, and the guy he works for only has to be one step up. The distance between the guy staring dumbly into your traveler-sized tube of shaving cream and the guy making policy about staring dumbly into traveler-sized tubes of shaving cream is about 300 points on the SAT....
...It is time for Americans to grow up and to sober up. It may push your soy-latte buttons every time Bubba down in Muleshoe, Texas, buys a scary-looking black gun and declares war upon a row of defenseless Budweiser cans, but inconveniencing Bubba isn’t going to get the job done. Laziness, stupidity, corruption: The U.S. government exists for the sole purpose of protecting the rights of U.S. citizens, but somehow the fine minds at the New York Times conclude that the federal government should do more to burden the citizens to whom it owes every duty than, say, so-called refugees from Syria to whom the U.S. government has no duty whatsoever. Why? Because the alternative is expecting the employees of our federal, state, and local governments to do their duties, and that is just too much work.
The Bipartisan Push Back Against Obama’s Retirement Attack
...The coalition is being led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The goal is to stop what is known as the fiduciary rule implemented by the Obama administration. The rule restricts investment choices for retirement and savings plans. The Department of Labor (DOL) says most Americans are just not knowledgeable enough to make good investments. Arguing it hurts retirement planning and liberty, the coalition letter is urging Congress to defund the rule.
“Under the fiduciary rule, the DOL claims authority never granted by Congress to greatly restrict investment choices for 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and other saving vehicles,” the letter states. “The DOL doesn’t even bother to hide its contempt for the intelligence of American savers.”...
...The coalition is being led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The goal is to stop what is known as the fiduciary rule implemented by the Obama administration. The rule restricts investment choices for retirement and savings plans. The Department of Labor (DOL) says most Americans are just not knowledgeable enough to make good investments. Arguing it hurts retirement planning and liberty, the coalition letter is urging Congress to defund the rule.
“Under the fiduciary rule, the DOL claims authority never granted by Congress to greatly restrict investment choices for 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and other saving vehicles,” the letter states. “The DOL doesn’t even bother to hide its contempt for the intelligence of American savers.”...
Meet The Mizzou Media Professor Who’s Trying To Ban Media Coverage
...“You need to get out, you need to get out,” Melissa Click demanded of the person filming the protest. “You need to get out,” she continued before trying to grab the camera out of the videographer’s hands.
“I actually don’t,” the journalist told Click.
“Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here,” the media professor then hysterically exclaimed to the assembled mob. “I need some muscle over here!”...
Unsafe space: Fascist Missouri protesters physically remove reporter from public demonstrations
The woman who tells cameraman he can’t be there & asks for “muscle” to remove him is Mizzou Assistant Professor of Mass Media @melissaclick
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) November 10, 2015
Meet The Sick Mizzou Media Professor Who Threatened A Reporter With MOB VIOLENCE
...Her current research includes studying readers of the tour de smut “50 [sic] Shades of Grey.” She also studies Lady Gaga, “class and food in reality television programming” and “messages about work in children’s television programs.”
Critics of Click have taken to Rate My Professors today to portray as “an insufferable human being” and in other negative ways.
The last time Click was published in any serious academic publication was in 2013. The topic was Lady Gaga....
...“You need to get out, you need to get out,” Melissa Click demanded of the person filming the protest. “You need to get out,” she continued before trying to grab the camera out of the videographer’s hands.
“I actually don’t,” the journalist told Click.
“Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here,” the media professor then hysterically exclaimed to the assembled mob. “I need some muscle over here!”...
Unsafe space: Fascist Missouri protesters physically remove reporter from public demonstrations
The woman who tells cameraman he can’t be there & asks for “muscle” to remove him is Mizzou Assistant Professor of Mass Media @melissaclick
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) November 10, 2015
Meet The Sick Mizzou Media Professor Who Threatened A Reporter With MOB VIOLENCE
...Her current research includes studying readers of the tour de smut “50 [sic] Shades of Grey.” She also studies Lady Gaga, “class and food in reality television programming” and “messages about work in children’s television programs.”
Critics of Click have taken to Rate My Professors today to portray as “an insufferable human being” and in other negative ways.
The last time Click was published in any serious academic publication was in 2013. The topic was Lady Gaga....
New report: In tough times, police start seizing a lot more stuff from people
In tough times, police start seizing a lot more stuff from people
One possible explanation for the recent rise is that "the years 2008 to 2014 were some lean economic years," said report co-author Dick Carpenter in an interview. "Forfeiture is an attractive way to keep revenue streams flowing when budgets are tight."
Law enforcement officers generally acknowledged this factor, according a Washington Post investigation last year: "All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book in 2011.
Critics of the system also say that the increase in forfeiture activity is due largely to the profit motive created by laws which allow police to keep some or all of the assets they seize.
In tough times, police start seizing a lot more stuff from people
One possible explanation for the recent rise is that "the years 2008 to 2014 were some lean economic years," said report co-author Dick Carpenter in an interview. "Forfeiture is an attractive way to keep revenue streams flowing when budgets are tight."
Law enforcement officers generally acknowledged this factor, according a Washington Post investigation last year: "All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine,” Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Ill., wrote in a self-published book in 2011.
Critics of the system also say that the increase in forfeiture activity is due largely to the profit motive created by laws which allow police to keep some or all of the assets they seize.
New ObamaCare angst as top insurer threatens to bail
A threat by the nation’s largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry’s growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say.
UnitedHealthcare’s warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers, whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president’s signature law.
In the last month alone, insurers have learned that the Obama administration has significantly lowered its expectations for new customers and will have far fewer federal dollars to help cushion insurer losses....
ObamaCare’s imploding even without repeal
It’s looking like ObamaCare won’t survive even if Congress can’t manage to repeal it.
The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, said last week that it’s losing too much — $425 million — from policies sold on the health exchanges, and may have to pull out by 2017.
The company admits it’s “a potentially huge blow” to the new system: “If a major publicly traded insurer bows out, others may follow and destabilize the entire individual market.”
Game over for ObamaCare?
UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley seems to imply just that: “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”
Mind you, UnitedHealth was a huge backer of the 2009 law. One of its top execs, Andrew Slavitt, then joined the administration to run the health exchanges.
What’s going on here? Basically, the long-feared “death spiral”: Not enough young, healthy folks are signing up for these plans, so insurers are losing money despite the hefty federal subsidies for the coverage. They’re raising premiums to even things out — but that drives even more folks away, so that only older, less-healthy customers remain, driving new losses . . ....
NYT: High Obamacare deductibles make mandated insurance practically useless
...Deductibles in the thousands of dollars are not uncommon. In fact, “in many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more.” Once you add in several hundred dollars per month for your plan premium, a rate that may or may not be lower than it used to be and add in a $3,000 or more deductible, the average individual could be paying over $5,000 out of pocket in a year before their “affordable” insurance kicks in. This is true for employer sponsored plans as well....
Many Obamacare Co-Ops Are Leaving Patients, Doctors In The Cold
...For the moment, New York customers are simply trying to find replacement coverage. But most don’t realize that without guaranty protection, there may be no money to cover their past medical bills.
Patients and medical providers will get “pennies on the dollar,” John Maldonado, president of the Medical Society of New York, told TheDCNF. “What you now have is an absolute fiasco.”
He said many doctors caring for Health Republic patients are not being paid for past medical services, and some have found the co-op’s checks are bouncing.
“As of two weeks ago, I know that two practices that had (Health Republic) checks that bounced,” Maldonado told TheDCNF....
A threat by the nation’s largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry’s growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say.
UnitedHealthcare’s warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers, whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president’s signature law.
In the last month alone, insurers have learned that the Obama administration has significantly lowered its expectations for new customers and will have far fewer federal dollars to help cushion insurer losses....
ObamaCare’s imploding even without repeal
It’s looking like ObamaCare won’t survive even if Congress can’t manage to repeal it.
The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, said last week that it’s losing too much — $425 million — from policies sold on the health exchanges, and may have to pull out by 2017.
The company admits it’s “a potentially huge blow” to the new system: “If a major publicly traded insurer bows out, others may follow and destabilize the entire individual market.”
Game over for ObamaCare?
UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley seems to imply just that: “We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”
Mind you, UnitedHealth was a huge backer of the 2009 law. One of its top execs, Andrew Slavitt, then joined the administration to run the health exchanges.
What’s going on here? Basically, the long-feared “death spiral”: Not enough young, healthy folks are signing up for these plans, so insurers are losing money despite the hefty federal subsidies for the coverage. They’re raising premiums to even things out — but that drives even more folks away, so that only older, less-healthy customers remain, driving new losses . . ....
NYT: High Obamacare deductibles make mandated insurance practically useless
...Deductibles in the thousands of dollars are not uncommon. In fact, “in many states, more than half the plans offered for sale through HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace, have a deductible of $3,000 or more.” Once you add in several hundred dollars per month for your plan premium, a rate that may or may not be lower than it used to be and add in a $3,000 or more deductible, the average individual could be paying over $5,000 out of pocket in a year before their “affordable” insurance kicks in. This is true for employer sponsored plans as well....
Many Obamacare Co-Ops Are Leaving Patients, Doctors In The Cold
...For the moment, New York customers are simply trying to find replacement coverage. But most don’t realize that without guaranty protection, there may be no money to cover their past medical bills.
Patients and medical providers will get “pennies on the dollar,” John Maldonado, president of the Medical Society of New York, told TheDCNF. “What you now have is an absolute fiasco.”
He said many doctors caring for Health Republic patients are not being paid for past medical services, and some have found the co-op’s checks are bouncing.
“As of two weeks ago, I know that two practices that had (Health Republic) checks that bounced,” Maldonado told TheDCNF....
Here’s An Inside Look At China’s Frightening New Move To Control Social Behavior
...As the name implies, the system holds a score on every citizen and business based on their social behavior. The things you buy and people you socialize with are subject for review. Every word typed and posted on the Internet will decide whether a person is “raising the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society.”...
...As the name implies, the system holds a score on every citizen and business based on their social behavior. The things you buy and people you socialize with are subject for review. Every word typed and posted on the Internet will decide whether a person is “raising the honest mentality and credit levels of the entire society.”...
The women who haven't had sex for more than a decade: What it's like to be celibate and why it's all men's fault
...This was certainly true for thrice-divorced Shirley Yanez, 59, who has been celibate for 15 years....
HuffPo: 'I Left My Husband For Him, But He Didn't Return The Favor'
...A year ago, I was THAT mom -- the one who seemed to have it all together, who had it all in some ways: two beautiful boys, a nice home, a good man and father to our kids. I cooked the meals and coordinated professional family photos, planned vacations, sent out Christmas cards, etc. I had a rigid schedule but made time to run and managed to be in decent physical shape.
But something was missing. In my marriage, I felt alone. Why wasn't I happy?...
...He thought my tattoos were cool when my husband did not, we shared an appreciation for swear words, his sweet tooth was just as terrible as mine and we shared a Starbucks addiction. One day, I looked at him in a different light and realized that I loved him as more than a friend. He knew more about me than anyone, made me feel beautiful, embraced my quirkiness... I knew at that moment he was the love of my life and my heart belonged to him. There was a problem: He was married and so was I....
Scalia: Supreme Court Is ‘Liberal,’ Destroying ‘Our Democratic System’
...According to SFGate.com, the conservative judge took particular issue with how some of his fellow justices imagine the country is guided by a “living Constitution.” In Scalia’s opinion, this translates to: “the meaning of this document shall be whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is.”...
...According to SFGate.com, the conservative judge took particular issue with how some of his fellow justices imagine the country is guided by a “living Constitution.” In Scalia’s opinion, this translates to: “the meaning of this document shall be whatever a majority of the Supreme Court says it is.”...
Scientists cheering for NOAA chief to not be “bullied” into showing their work on climate data
...But on a far more basic level, we’re talking about the scientific process here. Since when is the process for critically examining data and arriving at substantive conclusions some sort of clandestine, secret process? We’re not talking about an agency that’s guarding sensitive national security secrets. This is allegedly science. The entire concept of solid research involves extensive peer reviews where other experts can put your theories and conclusions to the test and see if they can either replicate or repudiate your results. What do these scientists have to hide from the public even if they weren’t being funded on the taxpayer’s dime?...
...But on a far more basic level, we’re talking about the scientific process here. Since when is the process for critically examining data and arriving at substantive conclusions some sort of clandestine, secret process? We’re not talking about an agency that’s guarding sensitive national security secrets. This is allegedly science. The entire concept of solid research involves extensive peer reviews where other experts can put your theories and conclusions to the test and see if they can either replicate or repudiate your results. What do these scientists have to hide from the public even if they weren’t being funded on the taxpayer’s dime?...
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