by

News/Politics 5-30-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The sad state of American politics. This is part of the reason good people don’t waste their time with politics. Why bother, when this is what you get for your troubles?

From BizPacReview  “Annette Bosworth, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in South Dakota, held an adults only press conference on Tuesday due to the graphic matter that served as a backdrop.

According to the local NBC affiliate KDLT, the physician asked graffiti artists to paint her campaign signs with the same graphic names she said she has been called since entering the race, which she then displayed on the walls around her. “What you see around you are the words which have been written about me on blogs, on the internet, throughout this campaign,” she told shocked attendees, KDLT reported.

A tearful Bosworth also spoke about her 10 year old son, and how this “filth” shows up “when he Google’s his mom’s name.”

“The Democrats talk about a war on women, but much of what you see here is written by the supposedly tolerant liberals, Bosworth said. “They are hateful, they are hurtful and no person should have to endure it.” “It is its own form of abuse,” she added.

_____________________________________________

2. A new tool in the fight against abortion. This one targeting the country’s abortion leader.

More here, from HotAir

______________________________________________

3. While vets die from a lack of timely care, some VA employees do nothing for vets. Their work in no way benefits vets, yet taxpayers pay for their full-time union activities.

From NationalReview  “In 2012, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs paid at least $11.4 million to 174 nurses, mental-health specialists, therapists, and other health-care professionals who, instead of caring for veterans, worked full-time doing union business.

The list of these taxpayer-funded union representatives at VA offices around the nation and their salaries was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by Georgia representative Phil Gingrey’s staff and provided to National Review Online.

“So many health-care providers were on that list — nurses or physical therapists or whatever they may be — when so many veterans are falling through the cracks,” a Gingrey aide tells me. “It’s kind of shocking that these paid employees wouldn’t be fully dedicated to patient care.”

In total, the VA spent at least $13.77 million on 251 salaried employees performing full-time union work. Others, who were not included on the list provided by the VA, work part-time for unions at the taxpayer expense. In fiscal year 2011, the latest on record, the VA used 998,483 hours of this “official time,” costing taxpayers more than $42 million.”

Disgraceful.

______________________________________________

4. It seems the VA and ObamaCare aren’t the only govt run healthcare debacles.

From GreatFallsTribune  “Misdiagnosed illnesses, denied payments and a shortage of trained medical personnel in government-run clinics are wrecking the federal health care system for Native Americans, tribal leaders said Tuesday as they pressed officials to overhaul a system beset with problems.

With the head of the Indian Health Service listening on, representatives of seven Montana and Wyoming reservations delivered a litany of health care woes suffered by their members during a U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee field hearing in Billings. They described an agency compromised by a bloated bureaucracy and unable to fulfill its core duty to provide health care for more than 2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“All too often, tribal members complain of ailments but get sent home from the Indian Health Service with cough medicine or pain killers. Later we learn the situation is much more serious, like cancer,” said A.T. “Rusty” Stafne, chairman of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of northeast Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation. “We have lost fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and future leaders because they were unable to get the health care they need,” he said.”

______________________________________________

5. Here comes the pain for millions more Americans.

From USAToday  “More employees are getting hit with higher health insurance premiums and co-payments, and many don’t have the money to cover unexpected medical expenses, a new report finds.

More than half of companies (56%) increased employees’ share of health care premiums or co-payments for doctors’ visits in 2013, and 59% of employers say they intend to do the same in 2014, according to the annual Aflac WorkForces Report. It’s based on a survey of 1,856 employers and 5,209 employees at small, medium and large-size companies.

In 2013, 19% of companies implemented a major medical plan with a high deductible (more than $1,000) and Health Savings Accounts as an alternative to a traditional medical plan, the study finds.”

That $2500 savings for a family thing the President talked about was yet another lie.

______________________________________________

6. A problem of their own making. And amnesty doesn’t fix this, that’s part of the problem, not the solution.

From Reuters  “Tens of thousands of children unaccompanied by parents or relatives are flooding across the southern U.S. border illegally, forcing the Obama administration and Congress to grapple with both a humanitarian crisis and a budget dilemma.

An estimated 60,000 such children will pour into the United States this year, according to the administration, up from about 6,000 in 2011. Now, Washington is trying to figure out how to pay for their food, housing and transportation once they are taken into custody.

The flow is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrants who are under 18 will likely double in 2015 to nearly 130,000 and cost U.S. taxpayers $2 billion, up from $868 million this year, according to administration estimates.”

______________________________________________

7. Things have gotten so bad in some places that federal authorities are flying them, and then releasing them elsewhere.

What do we call this? Illegal alien redistribution maybe? Everybody gets their fair share I guess.

From AZCentral  “Scores of undocumented immigrants from Central America have been released at Greyhound Lines Inc. bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix over the past several days after they were flown to Arizona from south Texas, officials acknowledged.

Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, confirmed that over the weekend federal officials flew about 400 migrants apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to Tucson to be processed. He said the migrants were flown to Arizona because the Border Patrol does not have enough manpower to handle a surge in illegal immigrants in south Texas.

The release has drawn criticism from those on both sides of the immigration issue.

Border enforcement groups are concerned that the migrants will now disappear into the U.S., spurring even more to come illegally.”

Gee, ya think? 🙄

______________________________________________

24 thoughts on “News/Politics 5-30-14”

  1. I have been hard on the “scientific community” lately, but we have finally found a liberal myth that the scientists will not YET back.

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/170753/americans-views-origins-homosexuality-remain-split.aspx

    Ignore the polling data. The interesting part is that the “scientific community remains “agnostic” on the issue. Of course the scientific community had very definite ideas on the subject until it was pressured into silence in the early 1970s. Still, their agnosticism is very interesting. The first “scientist” to back the Born that Way myth is certain to win the Nobel Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom and be asked to head Harvard’s Science Dept. Of course we know why no scientist would now dare speak the truth. I think the scientists are just waiting for leadership from their old friend, Al Gore. I see a sequel on the way: A Convenient Myth 2.

    Like

    Reply

  4. Janice, I like all I have heard about Dr. Carson. I am not optimistic about 2016. The press has their marching orders. I am afraid that Carson would have a better chance of defeating Putin in Russia than Hillary in the US.

    Like

    Reply

  6. We have a guy running for office here in Alabama and his entire campaign is about fighting Obama and the EPA. The last sentence in the commercial is an older woman saying “If you will fight Obama, I will vote for you”. I find the whole thing uncomfortable. There are more issues than just “fighting Obama”. I don’t like him and I didn’t vote for him, but REALLY????? It is just making this bozo look bad.

    Like

    Reply

  7. I also like everything I know about Ben Carson.
    Kim, at this point, beating Obama is a valid objective. In the primary, the person I voted to run for senator was the guy I thought could beat Kay Hagen. It isn’t that these people are incompetent, it is that they are actively ruining the country.

    Like

    Reply

  8. A word of advice from an outsider: An excellent brain surgeon does not necessarily make a good politician. Ben Carson is an honourable physician, I would be grieved to see him suffer dishonour in the political arena. Quite honestly, the ‘Run, Ben, run” campaign reminds me of Israel’s demand to Samuel for a king. Do not try to thrust Carson, or any other good Christian – like Metaxas – into becoming a political saviour. It may go horribly awry – Saul was a good honest man before he became king.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Nor does being an excellent brain surgeon disqualify him from running. He has a lot of good ideas, and perhaps a better understanding of the health needs of the people than a guy who was a professional…um…uh….what exactly was he in his working career? Anyway, his views on many things are a lot more in line with mine than some others, and if he has the time and inclination to run, it could be a good thing. One of the great things about the U S of A.

    Like

    Reply

  11. Running for President has become a completely degrading experience. When I saw that Little Bush had appeared on Oprah’s show and The View, I concluded that no decent, self-respecting person should ever be asked to run for President of the United States.

    Like

    Reply

  13. From Ricky’s link just above:

    “Transgender people receiving Medicare may no longer be automatically denied coverage for sex reassignment surgeries, a U.S. Department of Health and Services review board ruled Friday in a groundbreaking decision that recognizes the procedures as a medically necessary and effective treatment for individuals who do not identify with their biological sex.”

    medically necessary. Wow.

    Like

    Reply

  14. I now “identify” as a horse. Let’s hope Medicare will pay for the surgeries that are medically necessary for me to run in next year’s Kentucky Derby. Yea or Nay!

    Like

    Reply

  20. Pretty lame ad, Kim, for Jimmy Bob Joe John Frank Oden,Oh No!

    Thanks to all who gave thoughts about Ben Carson. Someone at church said she would like to see him as VP with Huckaby. If he did get to the top of the primary and surpassed the Dem in the general election then he could draw from the many who have solid experience to serve our country wisely unlike the Obama tzars (is that short for tazers against the USA?). Just thinking and gathering wise counsel from in and outside the fifty.

    Like

    Reply

  21. Kim, Thanks for posting. The ad takes me back more than thirty years to another lifetime. Some things haven’t changed. That ad was designed by a pollster/consultant.
    1. It is aimed at Republican primary voters. The Pollster told the candidate that dislike for Obama is the strongest feeling of such voters.
    2. His job is probably one that most voters don’t understand, but he had the young lady talk about utility rates which is probably the primary public focus of his job.
    3. It is a “down the ballot”‘ race so name ID alone will be important. That is why there was the focus on misstating his name and saying it several times.
    4. He is targeting the women’s vote- particularly the older women’s vote. That’s why the older lady was the focus of the ad and that’s why he was seen walking with his family. Older white women are probably a big chunk of Alabama Republican primary voters, and I suspect most (like my own mother) really don’t like Obama.
    I am curious what sort of ads his primary opponent is running. She is probably saying that old Jeremy would be too soft on Obama.

    Like

    Reply

  22. I love what I know about Ben Carson, but the fact that he doesn’t have any elected public office experience is a concern.

    Although it shouldn’t automatically rule him out either.

    But maybe as VP or a cabinet post?

    Like

    Reply

  24. Ricky, Thank you for pointing out the things you did. I didn’t get everything out of the commercial that you did, but it gives me a better understanding of the ad. I just find it offensive and I think it makes the people of Alabama look stupid.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment