What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Here we go again. 🙄
And to my friends in the south and their children I have two words of advice.
Stay Home.
From AccuWeather “Rounds of snow and ice will severely impact travel and daily routines across the interior South through this week before a major winter storm attempts to take a run at the Northeast.
The same storm that brought record snow to Seattle on Saturday will cause some snow and an icy mix to drop southward to northern Texas and the Tennessee Valley Monday and Monday night.
Initially through Monday night, the ice and snow will not be substantial. However, that does not mean residents and travelers should let their guard down.”
“According to Senior Meteorologist Mark Mancuso, “There is the potential for a major ice storm from northern Georgia to central and upstate South Carolina to central North Carolina Tuesday night and Wednesday.”
We’re expecting up to a foot Wed. night thru Thurs.. Yay. Not.
________________________________________
2. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…..
From FoxNews “The glitches and other problems with the ObamaCare website that sparked a national firestorm are similar to those military veterans using the federal government’s online benefits system have routinely faced for about the past 18 months.
Eric Jenkins, a veteran and American Federation of Government Employees representative, recently told Congress that during January the Veterans Benefits Management System crashed about once a week with downtimes ranging from one hour to multiple days.
The $537 million system went online in fall 2012 at a Department of Veterans Affairs office in New England and is now in all 56 regional offices.”
_________________________________________
3. A Republican alternative to ObamaCare?
From TheWeeklyStandard “Obamacare is failing. Faced with this unpleasant reality, President Obama offered up during his State of the Union address his only remaining defense of his eponymous program: There is no alternative. “[M]y Republican friends…if you have specific plans…tell America what you’d do differently….We all owe it to the American people to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against.”
“We accept the challenge. The 2017 Project, with which we’re associated, has developed an alternative to Obama’s 2,700 pages of federal largess. The proposal builds upon prior efforts by conservative policymakers and thinkers, including recent proposals from the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) and a trio of senior GOP senators (Tom Coburn, Richard Burr, and Orrin Hatch). It would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs. In providing politically attractive and substantively sound solutions to these three core concerns, it would justify bringing an end to Obamacare, and thus would pave the way for full repeal.
Just as important as what our proposal would do is what it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it.”
________________________________________
4. Just like the last change, this one is illegal according to their own law.
From CNSNews “President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department issued a new regulation today that for the second time directly violates the plain and unambiguous text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by allowing some businesses to avoid the law’s Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to provide health insurance coverage to their employees.
Initially, on July 2, 2013, the administration unilaterally delayed the deadline for the employer mandate until 2015. Now, the administration is unilaterally delaying it for some businesses until 2016.”
“The final words in the section of PPACA mandating that employers with more than 50 full-time employees provide their employees with “minimum essential coverage” imposes a specific statutory deadline for doing so. It says: “EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”
” Last summer, the administration unilaterally moved this hard statutory deadline back one year to 2015 for all employers with more than 50 full-time employees. Now, without any action by Congress, the administration is moving it back again for some employers—despite the plain language of the law.”
It’s good to be the king I guess. Laws don’t apply to you, you just sign them.
________________________________________
5. This is taking N.I.M.B.Y. to whole new levels. 🙂
From USNews “The National Security Agency’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., will go dark if a cohort of Maryland lawmakers has its way.
Eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced legislation Thursday that would deny the electronic spy agency “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts.
The bill would deprive NSA facilities water and electricity carried over public utilities, ban the use of NSA-derived evidence in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research.”
“State or local officials ignoring the NSA sanctions would be fired, local governments refusing to comply would lose state grant funds and companies would be forever barred from state contracts.”
________________________________________
6. An effort to “professionalize”, or to ensure the flow of only approved propaganda, while limiting free speech?
From MarineCorpsTimes “Marine Corps leaders have ordered the independent Marine Corps Times newspaper removed from its prominent newsstand location at base exchange stores worldwide and placed instead in areas away from checkout lines, where it is harder to find and fewer copies are available.
The move raises troubling questions about motive and closely follows a directive prohibiting commanders from using budget funds to buy Marine Corps Times and a number of other publications.
Marine Corps Times is widely recognized for its comprehensive coverage of the Corps, focusing on everything from career tracks, to pay and benefits, family and spouse issues, and employment after leaving the military.”
“Throughout much of the past year, the paper has published dozens of articles as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations the service’s commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, abused his authority to ensure Marines were punished for an embarrassing war-zone scandal. Numerous reports have captured the attention of mainstream media outlets, including NPR, CNN and Time magazine, among several others.”
Ummmm….. B. Final answer.
________________________________________
7. One of the men responsible for the murder of border agent Brian Terry has been sentenced. The criminals (DoJ, ATF) who supplied the guns to the murderer however still walk free and hold positions of power in D.C..
From MSNNews “A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government’s botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison.
Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border.
U.S. District Court judge David C. Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.”
“Two rifles bought by a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation were found at the scene of the firefight, though authorities have declined to say whether the murder weapon in Terry’s death was linked to a purchase from the investigation.”
Declined to say…. isn’t a denial that it was one of those weapons. If one wasn’t involved, they’d have been clear that it wasn’t.
________________________________________
Wandering Views 
#1. We are staying home. It’s snowing again. This time the temp. is 30.6 and it’s sticking on the roads. Elvera’s WMU is cancelled for today. Doesn’t matter, she wasn’t going anyhow.
LikeLike
I think Alabama will get skipped this time, though the schools are closed today. So, far nothing but rain.
LikeLike
My SIL had his flight from Alaska cancelled. He has only a short time to be home in between jobs. Praying he will be able to fly soon!
We were well below -20 again. The wind chills have been wicked. It will warm up a bit, but then the snow will come. Spring is sounding better and better.
LikeLike
Stay warm back there. We had fog this morning but are getting lots of sunshine, highs in the 60s or low 70s and headed upward beyond that by the weekend. No rain in the forecast, from what I can tell. 😦
Pass the water.
LikeLike
Not sure how extensively this was discussed here recently, but the questioning of a conservative activist during a committee hearing last week highlights a few things that are sickening about some of our politicians and how they’re not the cream of the crop, but refuse from the landfill. There’s the basic posture of contempt so unbecoming of an elected public official, there’s the boilerplate racism allegation, and there’s reference to a biased “study” by clowns masquerading as important people.
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-shocking-interrogation-of-catherine-engelbrecht
LikeLike
AJ, do you realize you have two #5s up there?
LikeLike
Solar: I saw that and found it disgusting. I cannot believe the obtuseness of believing all those agencies ‘just happened’ to all come during the same time frame. The racism charge is getting beyond tiresome.
LikeLike
😳 Sorry,
I fixed it.
LikeLike