Health Care

House passes bill allowing insurance companies to keep and sell existing policies that don't meet Obamacare requirements for another year. Thirty-nine democrats joined Republicans supporting the bill, but this bill is a political stunt. Why would insurance companies do this for just one year?

"Senior Democrats criticized the Upton legislation as a ploy that could unravel the entire health care law."

If it does that, that would be wonderful, but I'm skeptical. It would be fun to see the Senate pass it and Obama be forced to veto it.

"Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, was one of the first Democrats to break with the White House and offer her own plan, which would allow people to keep their current plans indefinitely."

Now that would make sense and it would undo Obamacare. The only problem is people who lost their plans wouldn't be able to get them back, especially people with pre-existing conditions that had been covered until Obamacare canceled those plans.

Great analysis of this sham.

"Yes, the fix is in. Parsed, the president’s advice to the millions who’ve lost coverage is, essentially, “I’ll let you keep your already canceled policies through 2014. Feel free to take it up with your insurance company.”"

Nicely said. When the insurance companies balk, Obama will blame them, not Obamacare or himself.

"As wrecking balls go, Obama and “W” are tied in ignominy. Christopher Conover of Duke University estimates that “129 million, or 68 percent of Americans, may not be able to keep their current health-care plans once Obamacare is fully implemented. [Conover's] study also suggests that 18 to 50 million people will lose their plans altogether.”"

It just keeps getting worse.

"“If you read the bill, that just isn’t so,” Price said. “For starters, within five years, every health-care plan will have to meet a new federal definition for coverage, one that your current plan might not match, even if you like it.”"

So the grandfathering was always temporary, and that time is run out. But it hasn't run out yet.

"What is more obscene: the idea that one can apologize for the hubris and deceit that is Obama and his health care, or the actual need some have for an apology from an entity so evil that he would toy with the lives of millions as though they were insects and he God? This is hard to tell."

Well said again.

Of course internal emails reveal everybody knew healthcare.gov wasn't ready. I still think Sebelius will get fired.

Police State

Court orders DHS to disclose its internet kill switch, which DHS wants to keep secret. I don't want it to have one. Talk about betraying the internet and the people. I bet they claim they have to destroy the internet to save it.

Google says it rebuffs more data requests as governments get more aggressive about spying.

Media

NSA wants to release information before Snowden does so it can better control the narrative.

War

Military robots projected to outnumber troops by 2023. So instead of having stormtroopers break down our doors, the government will use Terminators.

Syrian rebels funded and armed by the US apologize for beheading a fellow fighter. Beheading others is OK though.

Misc

Hotel tychoon foolishly looks to the FAA and UN to grant property rights on the moon. He should homestead his property and establish law and order based on property rights and the non-aggression principle himself.

Economy

Two ways NSA is harming the American economy.

US crushes six tons of blood ivory showing that government has no clue how to solve the problem of poaching elephants. All it can do is destroy wealth.

Local

Number of people seeking food assistance jumps 10 percent, but we're supposed to believe the economy is recovering.

The war on drugs ruins 49 more lives in Shelby County.

Video of crash of RTA bus carrying one passenger into FedEx building.

"An RTA spokesperson said the driver is on leave as they review the video and continue to investigate the incident."

Imagine if you had done this. You'd have been arrested, drug and alcohol tested, anal probed, and anything else they can think of. But bus drivers are socialists, so they're privileged. The law doesn't apply equally to them.

Why would a headline read "Flu Season Off to Slow Start"? A slow start generally implies something bad. Of course this is bad for the CDC and medical establishment the DDN works for.

Misc

Pope becomes target for mafia for taking on Church corruption.

Foreign Policy

Thanks to the US foreign policy of aggression, Christians around the world face extinction.

Media

Top people also fleeing Politico.

Socialism

Despite losing millions of taxpayer dollars on food and beverage sales, Amtrak gives away free wine.

Global Warming and Energy

Solar farms killing birds.

When you give the government the power to fight animal cruelty, it naturally uses it to slaughter animals. Every power you give to government, it turns upside down and makes things worse.

Climate scientists more concerned with their personal interests than the interests of their subject kill world's oldest creature to determine its age.

Regulations to shut eight more coal plants.

Economy

In the mean time, stocks hit record high.

Health Care

Obama originally promised people who were happy with their health care plans could keep them. We were told the law grandfathered in old plans. HHS just wrote regulations that canceled the grandfathering clause if any change, however minor, was made to the plan. Obama is now promising to change those regulations, but suddenly everybody calls that illegal. They can't have it both ways. If HHS could write the regulations one way, they can write the regulations the other.  If they couldn't disallow the grandfathered plans to begin with, then they were lawless to begin with and Obama is being lawful now. The problem is many plans have already been canceled. You can't go back. This creates more chaos and uncertainty, and that works in Obama's favor since his goal is to create so many problems that people will beg for the government to implement full-blown socialized medicine. This is just a phony stopgap to the next election anyway since it only lasts one year. Obama's now going to run around and blame everybody else for not following his order. It's be funny if it wasn't so destructive.

"“We put a grandfather clause into the law, but it was insufficient,” the president said at a news conference Thursday, explaining his move.
Under the loophole, Mr. Obama will leave it up to state health insurance commissioners to decide which substandard plans still can be offered by insurance companies, and he has pledged that his administration won’t penalize them for offering those plans even though they violate the Affordable Care Act.
The extension will last one year."

What a farce.

Now we're supposed to be very afraid and allow more of our money to be stolen because a woman caught bird flu.

"A strain of bird flu that scientists thought could not infect people has shown up in a Taiwanese woman, a nasty surprise that shows scientists must do more to spot worrisome flu strains before they ignite a global outbreak, doctors say."

Save me.

Police State

Government shared the personal information of people with nearly 30 agencies including the IRS, CIA, NSA and FDA. So much for keeping that info secret and compartmentalized.

"The constant surveillance creates a pall of neurosis over the entire country. This is perhaps the hardest to explain or quantify unless you’ve traveled to countries outside the US, UK, and Western Europe. The first thing you notice  is that people seem happier and freer in their actions. Then you notice the lack of street cameras, shoplifting cameras, and lobby cameras everywhere. Coincidence? Maybe it’s my imagination, colored by some sort of confirmation bias. Then again, maybe not."

Maybe it's the economy.

CIA collecting bulk records on money transfers.

"The Central Intelligence Agency is secretly collecting bulk records of international money transfers handled by companies like Western Union — including transactions into and out of the United States — under the same law that the National Security Agency uses for its huge database of Americans’ phone records, according to current and former government officials. "

It just keeps getting worse.

FBI claims cyber-attacks are a bigger threat than terrorist attacks. This has long been true, but he's saying it just to push for more government controls of the internet.

Seattle PD claims to have disabled the DHS white box sensors after public backlash, and we're just supposed to believe them. They call it a "gesture of good will".

Local

Framework for Dayton Racino completed, funded with bonds issued by Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authorities, whatever that is. Where is Dayton's port? Taxpayers are on the hook for this somehow.

Homeless sex offenders may be sleeping by your home, or not, but you're supposed to be very afraid. That way you'll allow the city to steal your money ostensibly to track homeless sex offenders.

War on Drugs

Police create another of thousands of programs, this one to combat retail theft to support drug addicts.

Education

Man arrested for carrying pellet gun into school.

Foreign Policy

TPP is government's attempt to implement SOPA without having to pass a law.

Economy

SEIU plans to protest at airports to slow holiday travel. The power of coercion corrupts people.