What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Fast and Furious was bad. This might be worse. And I also find it interesting that the same admin calling for further restrictions on folks with possible mental issues, is the same admin who is arming people with mental issues to prove their point about the necessity of such restrictions. Create the solution and then create the problem.
From HotAir “Twitter went crazy last night after an NYT editor teased a story they were working on for the a.m. as “very unusual” and “groundbreaking.” The result didn’t live up to the hype — it’s good, but not the world-rocking expose you’d expect when the Times braintrust is buzzing. This, on the other hand, is world-rocking. Not because it’s surprising to find the ATF engaged in dubious tactics, but because the tactics they used were so dubious even though the stakes were so, so small. If you strain very hard, you can semi-defend Fast & Furious as an idiotic response borne of desperation in trying to solve a serious problem. What’s the defense, though, when desperate and idiotic methods are used to catch penny-ante criminals, some of them profoundly mentally disabled?
I don’t often tell you to read the whole thing, especially when it’s as long as this, but I’m telling you now. The ATF’s M.O. was to open some sort of store, be it a pawn shop or a tattoo parlor, in a poor neighborhood and then try to bait the locals into committing drug or gun crimes. If some of those locals were handicapped, hey — that just makes reaching the monthly quota of guilty pleas and convictions easier. There’s no way to do it justice via excerpt, but here’s a taste of one instance where they recruited a guy with an IQ in the mid-50s to buy guns for them in the community:”
“That’s not all, but I’ll leave you to read about the ATF teaching people how to make sawed-off shotguns and fire machine guns. At least one machine gun went missing during these operations; in other cases, convicted felons were allowed to leave the store with guns they had just bought. But then, losing track of dangerous armed men is par for the course in ATF stings these days. Two exit questions for you. One: How soon before Darrell Issa holds hearings? And two, for legal eagles: How is there no entrapment in any of this? They might not have explicitly suggested the crime in each case but they clearly created incentives for committing the crime. The point of an entrapment defense, I thought, is to discourage overzealous cops from encouraging otherwise law-abiding people into wrongdoing. “Encouraging” can mean a lot of things, especially with a defendant who’s disabled.”
The report from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is here.
It’s very long, and it’s infuriating. They preyed on these poor people, while creating the problem in the first place.
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2. Grinch Alert!
Or as some like to call him, Mikey Whinestein.
From FoxNews “The Baby Jesus has been kicked off Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, according to an organization who relishes any opportunity to eradicate Christianity from the U.S. military.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation praised officials at Shaw Air Force Base for removing a Nativity scene located near Memorial Lake on Friday. The traditional Nativity included plastic statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and an assortment of animals.
Apparently, an undisclosed number of Airmen were so emotionally troubled by the sight of a manger scene that they immediately notified the MRFF.”
“Loebe swiftly alerted MRFF President Mikey Weinstein who then called his BFF’s at the Pentagon. That led to an immediate investigation and more than two hours later, the Nativity had been removed.”
Of course it was. 🙄
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3. Yet another ObamaCare lie.
From InvestorsBudinessDaily “The people most threatened by ObamaCare have pre-existing conditions, meaning health problems that make it hard to get insurance. To sell ObamaCare, the president actually lied, claiming he would protect these people.”
“The pre-existing conditions problem affects about 2 million people in the individual market. The best options for these sick people are being closed because of ObamaCare.
In 35 states, they currently get coverage through high-risk pools, where premiums are subsidized to help keep them within reach. Most of these pools have long waiting lists. But high-risk pools must close on Dec. 31, 2013, or shortly after, because the Affordable Care Act directs ill patients to enroll in ObamaCare exchange plans.
The problem is, most exchange plans severely limit their choice of hospitals and doctors, excluding academic hospitals and specialty cancer centers. State insurance commissioners are scrambling to delay closing the high-risk pools.”
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4. And yet another unintended consequences of ObamaCare. They never think this stuff thru. They were in too much of a hurry to get it passed.
From TheDailyMail “Volunteer fire departments all across the U.S. could find themselves out of money and unable to operate unless Congress or the Obama Administration exempts them from the Affordable Care Act.”
“Since the Obamacare law doesn’t specifically carve out an exemption for them, fire departments where 50 or more people work – either as volunteers or real employees – are expected to provide health insurance for every one of them.
In towns with more than one volunteer fire department, all the staffers will likely be lumped together for tax purposes, pushing many above the 50-worker threshold.
That could cost department of life-savers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Those that dump their volunteers into the federal insurance exchanges would still have to pay an annual $2,000 fine for each ’employee’ after the first 30.”
There’s a cynical part of me that wonders if it’s an attempt to rid towns of these fire depts. to bring in unionized govt. employees paid for with taxes.
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5. The official loss to taxpayers on the GM bailout is $10 billion.
From HotAir “And with that, it’s “Government Motors” no more. At least, not officially.
U.S. taxpayers no longer own any of automaker General Motors. The Treasury sold the last of its remaining 31.1 million GM shares today.
The taxpayer loss on the GM bailout finishes at $10.5 billion. The Treasury department said it recovered $39 billion from selling its GM stock, and had put $49.5 billion of taxpayer money into the GM bailout. …
GM and Chrysler both went through government-scripted Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations. Treasury put $12.3 billion into Chrysler and recovered $11.13 billion of that.”
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Wandering Views 
#1 It doesn’t matter what you do if you own the Attorney General.
And the MSM.
This is what happens when a relatively benign agency goes political.
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Has Obama directed the MSM to suppress stories about the continued failure of the web site because he declared that it is “fixed?”
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A good Breakpoint piece this morning on America’s growing anger epidemic and on how Christians ought to respond:
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/24047
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Interesting real estate meeting today. It devolved into a discussion of health insurance.
20 something year old male said his fine for not having insurance would only be $20 per month so he is healthy and would rather pay the fine than the expensive insurance. Under Obamacare if he gets sick he will go online and get some insurance, they can’t deny him because of a pre-existing condition.
30 something year old mother said her family of four’s insurance is going up over 100% per month. She and her husband have decided to chance it.
40 something year old man said his wife has 20 years health insurance experience and they are confused about what to do.
40 something year old single woman said she has added up the cost out of pocket for medical care and then what it would have been to carry insurance and she was better off with a “disaster” policy and paying cash for everything.
60 Something year old man said he and his wife were excited to once again have maternity and birth control coverage they didn’t need.
Me? I kept my mouth shut and listened for the most part.
Concierge type medical practices are springing up. There is a group of doctors in Mobile who have started a non-profit to provide medical, dental, and vision coverage. You can make up to 4 times the poverty level for your family and qualify for their services.
Intersting times indeed.
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I’d go for the non-profit, Kim. 🙂 I figure this is the last year any of us will have anything like a standard health plan (and by that I don’t mean that things will get better — what we have isn’t perfect or that affordable; actually, the system clearly does need reform; but compared to what’s coming, I’m suddenly counting my blessings for my existing-but-often-hated-and-too-pricey PPO).
This is interesting, there’s a tug-of-war ongoing in the Dem party:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/fight-fight-on-the-left-an-update.php
Best line: ” … the intolerant left (but I repeat myself) … “
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A friend of ours sells insurance and will be getting out of the health insurance business as soon as he can. For processing a CA health exchange plan, he is paid a flat $15, no matter how long it takes for him to help his clients–basically going on the website for them. He can’t afford to stay in the health insurance business.
A real shame; he was very helpful for us when one of our kids graduated from college. He got him a $100 a month individual plan (which paid for until he got a job with insurance). That, apparently, is a thing of the past. 😦
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Elections have consequences.
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Kim mentioned a “disaster policy”. I thought those would no longer exist with Obamacare. If I’m wrong, somebody tell me how we can get one, please.
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