Uncategorized No Internet 16:43
Been internet challenge the last few days, hence the lack of posts.
I shall remedy that right short like.
My phone was inoperative, for a week, but still had internet access. Had Verizon come out to fix it finally, which they did. After they fixed the phone line, no internet. Aarrrgghh!
Now it is back up.
Economics and Health Care and Politics and Republicans and Truth Economics, Health Care, Republicans, Truth 10:41
If you want real heath care reform, try this on for size. The douche bag Democrats will never do it; it wasn’t their idea, and it doesn’t spend everyone’s great grandchildren’s money.
Small-Bill Proposal for Sensible Health-Care Reform
To make health insurance more accessible, affordable, and portable — without increasing government control, jeopardizing the quality of care, or breaking the bank:
1. Cut costs by preventing runaway malpractice lawsuits. Relieve doctors from having to practice costly defensive medicine, by capping noneconomic and punitive damages, while continuing to allow unlimited economic damages to compensate for financial loss. (No increase in government spending. Savings: $53 billion to the federal government, and billions in additional savings to private citizens.*)
2. Cut costs by allowing Americans to buy insurance across state lines. Allow Americans to shop for coverage from coast to coast — whether from lower-mandate states at lower prices, or from higher-mandate (additional-coverage) states at higher prices. Allow plans bought in one state to be transported to another. (No increase in government spending.*)
3. Cut costs by allowing lower premiums for healthier lifestyles. Federal regulations ban companies from offering more than a 20 percent discount to those who eat and drink in moderation, exercise, or don’t smoke. Such regulations handcuff private cost-cutting efforts and should be eliminated. (No increase in government spending.*)
4. Increase access to health insurance by ending the unfair tax on the uninsured (and self-insured), giving them a tax-break similar to that which is already available to those with employer-provided insurance. Provide refundable annual tax-credits of $2,500 per person or $5,000 per family — directly to the American people, not to insurers. Leave employer-provided insurance, its tax-exempt status, and the rest of the tax code, intact. (Increase in government spending: approximately $80 billion (for credits beyond taxes paid). Reduced revenues: approximately $120 billion (for refunds of taxes paid).*)
5. Provide further help for those who are uninsured and have expensive preexisting conditions, by increasing federal support for state-run or state-organized high-risk pools. Thirty-four states already have pools to help those who can’t get affordable coverage because of expensive preexisting conditions. We should help all 50 states to establish or organize such pools. (Increase in government spending: $100 billion.*) (See ** below.)
6. Convert some federal funds into block grants to states, and reallocate the savings resulting from reducing the number of uninsured. Disproportionate Share Hospital (or DSH (“dish”)) payments reimburse hospitals for treating the uninsured in emergency rooms. With fewer uninsured, some of these funds can be allocated more efficiently, helping to fund the above proposals. Start the block grants at 75% of each state’s current federal DSH funding level, reduce them by 5 percent annually until they reach 50% in year-6, and then index them to the consumer price index minus one percentage point. (No increase in government spending. Savings: approximately $180 billion.*)
7. Implement additional reforms from the House Republican health bill. Adopt regulatory reforms in the small group and non-group markets, standards for electronic administration, an abbreviated approval pathway for follow-on biological products, and HSA reforms). (Increase in government spending: $0. Savings: $20 billion.*)
*Tallies are estimates for 2011 to 2020, based largely on previously published Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections. Additionally, an estimated $50 billion would be saved through associated effects on revenues and outlays, based on CBO scoring of the House GOP bill.
**A federal survey cited by the CBO indicates that 1-1.5 million Americans are uninsured because of preexisting conditions. Safely assuming twice that many (2-3 million), each person would get $3,333-5,000, plus a tax credit of $2,000, for a total of $5,333-$7,000 in yearly federal relief.
www.smallbill.org
| Senate Bill* | Small Bill | ||
| Spending Increases | $2.5 trillion | $180 billion | |
| Tax Increases | $1.0 trillion | $0 | |
| Medicare Cuts** | $800 billion | $0 | |
| Medicare Advantage Cuts | $214 billion | $0 | |
| Deficit Spending | $217 billion*** | $0 | |
| Number of Newly Insured per $20 Billion Spent | 260,000 | 1.1 million |
*According to CBO projections for the Senate bill from 2014 to 2023
**Excluding DSH;
***Unless doctors’ pay under Medicare is cut by 21%
Axis of Idiots and Guns and Police Officer/Sheriff and Police State and Second Amendment and WTF Files Axis of Idiots, Police, Police State, Second Amendment 16:54
Another boneheaded cop letting his mouth overload his ass. Well, Detective, idiots like you are why we have the Second Amendment. We need to be able to protect ourselves from self righteous assholes like you. Your badge does not give you more rights than anyone else douche bag. Your job is to enforce the law, not make it up as you go, or to use what authority you’ve been given by the PEOPLE to suit your whims. Idiot.
East Palo Alto cop: Shoot a gun owner, get ’2 weeks off!!!’
David Codrea
There’s a disturbing, infuriating story in the Daily News about open carriers–or more accurately, about comments East Palo Alto police detective Rod Tuason allegedly made about them on his Facebook page:
“Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!” Tuason wrote. “Should’ve pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement … 2 weeks off!!!”
Tuason even took the opportunity to ridicule the fact that “law-abiding” gun owners can’t get concealed carry permits. From the screenshot on the “Oaklander” blog”:
Haha that’s when you attend one of their meetings and laugh at them cuz they can only dream to have a ccw…
We’ve seen the “Only One” attitude at its most ridiculous–I developed the meme in response to DEA agent Lee Paige: “I’m the only one in this room professional enough that I know of to carry this Glock .40,” he told a roomful of school kids in an anti-gun/drug lecture, then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot trying to holster the weapon.
Military and Uncategorized Military 16:51
I read them both, the one at Salon made me leery, considering the source, but I did it anyway. It is well written, and doesn’t bash the military, but does speak volumes about Ms. Cook.
My first wife was similar in that she couldn’t go without the sex for the six months that I was gone in Desert Storm, so I get it in a different way, I guess.
Go read this:
How to leave a soldier
By Courtney Cook
Then come back here, and then go read this:
Interesting piece at Salon
By The Armorer
Military and Politics and US Navy Military 19:18
Some news on the SEAL case.
Posted By Crush
Originally published at The US Report
The military has canceled the deposition of an alleged terrorist mastermind who claimed that he was assaulted by the military following his capture last year. The law firm Puckett and Faraj, representing Navy SEAL Matthew McCabe, made the announcement on Sunday.
Major General Charles Cleveland, the convening authority for the upcoming special courts-martial for three of the Navy SEALs involved in the operation, has decided to cancel the trip to Iraq to depose Ahmed Hashim Abed. Since the SEALs have a Constitutional right to confront their accuser in court, the alleged terrorist’s statements won’t be used as evidence for the case.
Axis of Idiots and Buyers' Remorse and Comarade Obama and Congress and Democrats and Government and Politics and Republicans Axis of Idiots, Comrade Obama, Congress, Democrats, Republicans 15:53
And old cows beware. The Senate is ripe for plucking. I think that the Senate may revert back into Republican hands in 2010, if not, it will be a close call for the Dems. The House will definitely switch back to a Republican held entity. The people are sick of the Democrats and their progressive bullshit. This is America, not Europe. For whom the bell tolls…
The Running of the Bulls: Is Harry Reid the Next Scott Lucas?
By Jeffrey Lord
Senator George Norris was stunned.
“Why should people be so mad at me?” he wondered in amazement to a reporter for the New York Times.
It was November, 1942. And Senator Norris, one of the most famous and powerful American progressives in the land, one of the Senate’s “Old Bulls” (he was, among other things, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the “father” of the Tennessee Valley Authority ), had just lost his longtime Nebraska Senate seat in a landslide. Said the angry and depressed Senator, tears filling his eyes: “The more I think of it, the more I get bewildered. I can’t understand it. I simply can’t understand it.”
And then it surfaced.
The Old Bull viewed himself as a righteous man. And without a trace of irony, even the smallest sense of recognition that his ego had perhaps gotten a wee bit out of control, he insisted that “in my view, righteousness has been crucified.” Crucified. Just like, well, Christ.
Yes, he acknowledged reluctantly, every Nebraska voter had a right to vote “as he saw fit.” But? “But I think sometimes in a democracy, in the excitement and on the spur of the moment, that it [rewarding the faithful servant like George Norris] is not observed.”
Well, there wasn’t much to choose from. But, Betty White and Abe Vigoda get my vote for the best commercial.
“That’s not what your girlfriend says!”
Friggin’ classic.
