What’s interesting in the news today?
1. Useless is what you call insurance like this.
From TheAP ” They have health insurance, but still no peace of mind. Overall, 1 in 4 privately insured adults say they doubt they could pay for a major unexpected illness or injury.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research may help explain why President Barack Obama faces such strong headwinds in trying to persuade the public that his health care law is holding down costs.”
“Edward Frank of Reynoldsville, Pennsylvania, said he bought a plan with a $6,000 deductible last year through HealthCare.gov. That’s in the high range, since deductibles for popular silver plans on the insurance exchanges average about $3,100 — still a lot.
“Unless you get desperately ill and in the hospital for weeks, it’s going to cost you more to have this plan and pay the premiums than to pay the bill just outright,” said Frank, who ended up paying $4,000 of his own money for treatment of shoulder pain.
“The deductibles are so high, you don’t get much of anything out of it,” said Frank, who is in 50s and looking for a new job.”
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2. ACORN is up to its old tricks again.
From WatchDog.org “A lawsuit filed by an organizer for Battleground Texas accuses a labor group established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke of instructing an Obamacare navigator to spend time recruiting union members.
The complaint echoes decades-old criticisms of Rathke and ACORN: They use federal money meant for services to the poor in pursuit of their own labor organizing activities.
Cedric Anthony, who went to work for the Democratic Party’s Texas recruitment operation, filed a wage-and-hour lawsuit in June against two groups he says jointly employed him as a “federal navigator assisting people with the Affordable Care Act” – Southern United Neighborhoods and Local 100 United Labor Unions.”
“Anthony says he was hired by SUN, which holds the navigator contract, and later directed to enroll union members for ULU. Although he worked for both groups, he said his instructions came from the same person. His complaint depicts blurred lines between the two groups, which “shared the same offices in Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Little Rock.”
The lone attorney for both defendants denies SUN and ULU acted jointly; he says the labor group was Anthony’s sole employer. He also denies the two “shared the same offices,” although he admits they each “have offices located in the same building in each of the five cities.””
Isn’t it nice that the President has no problem using taxpayer monies to fund union activities?
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3. Nice to see Democrats looking out for minorities and seniors. Oh wait…..
From HotAir “In June, as you may recall, the EPA announced their new “Clean Power Plan” which was, for all intents and purposes, another shot across the bow in the war on coal. In their mission statement, while paying lip service to the fact that the needs and resources of each of the states are different, they also cite “the important role of states as full partners with the federal government in cutting pollution.” This is matched with the built in assumption of the need to “address the risks of climate change.” (Apparently nobody bothered to ask the states exactly how much of an “equal partnership” they were interested in.)
Now that the new rules are moving forward in the process and people have begun to take notice of what this will mean in the real world, one wonders precisely whose side the Obama administration is on. You’d think that the Democrats – long the champions of the poor and oppressed – would have their best interests at heart… particularly with an election coming up. But as Jim Martin noted at Town Hall recently, one of the most heavily affected groups will be senior citizens.
Energy, like food and housing, is an indispensable necessity of life. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, electricity prices have jumped more than 6 percent in the Mid-Atlantic States last year alone. Yet, instead of alleviating the heavy financial burden of energy prices for seniors, President Obama is exacerbating the problem. He is proposing to reduce our nation’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030, and the impact would be devastating for our nation’s seniors.”
“But it’s not just seniors. Some of the hardest hit by rising energy costs are America’s minorities. The Pacific Research Institute reports that annual electricity spending for an African-American household in Ohio will rise from 4.5 percent of their income to 5.8 percent of their income due to the EPA’s plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants — an increase of $408 annually in energy costs.”
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4. This would be funny if they weren’t serious. Since they are, it’s an unfunny, pathetic joke at best.
From TheLATimes “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel addressed the Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas on Monday, unveiling a comprehensive plan for how the U.S. military will address the effects of climate change.
Rising global temperatures, increasing sea levels and intensifying weather events will challenge global stability, he said, and could lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease and disputes over refugees and resources.
The Pentagon’s “2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap” describes how global warming will bring new demands on the military. Among the report’s conclusions: Coastal military installations that are vulnerable to flooding will need to be altered; humanitarian assistance missions will be more frequent in the face of more intense natural disasters; weapons and other critical military equipment will need to work under more severe weather conditions.
“This road map shows how we are identifying — with tangible and specific metrics, and using the best available science — the effects of climate change on the department’s missions and responsibilities,” Hagel said. “Drawing on these assessments, we will integrate climate change considerations into our planning, operations, and training.””
So basically a total bastardization of the military’s legitimate defense role.
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5. Nice. So now taxpayers are helping fund China’s disgusting forced abortion policy. They’d do it here too, if they could.
From CNSNews “Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday that despite his and other congressmens’ efforts to hold Communist China accountable for its one-child, forced abortion policy, President Barack Obama and his administration are not only ignoring the policy but are advancing the “brutal program.”
“I respectfully submit that not only is the Obama administration turning a blind eye to the atrocities being committed under the one-child policy, but it is even contributing financial support–contrary to U.S. law–to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),” Smith said in a keynote address at the event.
“Under Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush, Mr. Obama, unlike them, has thus far provided $227 million in tax payer funds–grant money–to the UNFPA, an organization that supports, plans, implements, defends–and maybe for international audiences this is most important–whitewashes the Chinese government’s brutal program.”
“Smith, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairs its subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization, was referring to his and other Republicans’ 1984 legislation that became law as a part of a foreign aid bill that prohibits funding organizations like UNFPA that support China’s one-child and forced abortion policy.”
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Wandering Views 
Where did the money for UNFPA come from?
I know, the taxpayer.
But it has to be allocated from something. The president doesn’t just have $227m.
Except in campaign funds.
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From the Times-News.
ATLANTIC CITY. N.J.
“Just two days after a convicted murderer had been released from prison, he was arrested and charged in the beating death of his 64-year old mother, authorities said.”
He is held on $1million bond. They should also put the people who released him in jail.
“A neighbor of the victim said Pratt’s family threw him a large welcome home party after he was released from prison.”
I wonder if he will get the death penalty. That’s the only solution for this sort of thing
I know. Mental illness. We must seek a cure.
I know one.
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#4. Hagel isn’t stupid.
He thinks everyone else is.
He’s partly correct.
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Chas,
The State Dept, laundered thru the UN.
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We were at an energy conference last week. Do you realize that one year ago, when the speaker was an expert on OPEC, a gallon of oil cost $105?
Today it fell to $82. It’s been going down all year long owing, in part, to US fracking.
The US sold more oil last month than Saudi Arabia.
The US is bombing oil capacity in Iraq in order to cripple ISIS financially. Libya is pumping oil as fast as they can, meaning the price of oil, today, is in free fall. OPEC will not meet until the end of November–despite member nations demanding a response. Saudi says no.
Most of the Middle Eastern nations pay off their citizens; without oil revenues, they become vulnerable to social unrest.
The most stable nation in the Middle East right now is Egypt.
The only country in the Middle East that is sitting on a large bed of natural gas is Israel.
When I asked the young gas expert what he thought of Vladamir Putin, he looked confused. “We don’t touch politics. I have no idea.”
(To be fair, he is a north American expert on gas).
The answer, though, turned out to be it doesn’t matter–Putin’s power will wane because he’s going to lose the natural gas market in Europe.
The economies in Europe and Asia are flat. China doesn’t have energy resources. The only one that’s doing well in this field is the USA. There are 2000 wells drilled in parts of NY, PA, WV that are waiting for the gas pipelines to be built before they can go into production. There will be plenty of gas to heat New England’s homes for a very long time, once those wells are exploited.
In the long run, the Keystone Pipeline project to move oil to New Orleans, is meaningless in comparison to the amount of natural gas available in the US.
Do you need any more information? These energy people were bullish and very excited.
In CA, which is requiring 20% of energy to be from renewables by 2020, the percentage of renewal energy last year was 8%; this year it’s 11%. The big energy companies are putting in solar all over the place. 3% in a state this big is a big deal.
Solar panels, however, are built in China whose carbon footprint is 70% higher than California’s. They’re trashing their nation to build us solar panels. Over the long haul, the amount of energy spent to produce those Chinese solar panels will not recoup what they generate once erected on US homes. Something to think about. US government incentives go away in 2016, so if you’re going to do it (the only way to make it financially feasible) act now.
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Thanks for the information, Michelle. Now how will you fit all that into a story??
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Here we go.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/
6arrows, The Houston story is stunning! Anyone who thinks the US is still “the land of the free” has NOT been paying attention. The US is the land of the perverted and the home of the cowed.
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Saw that same story come across the Religion News Service today.
Stunning is the word.
I suspect the objections and pushback will be immediate and pretty universal. But it will be interesting to see if any (or how many) people express support for the mayor’s action.
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Definitely stunning. And what might be even scarier to contemplate is the possibility somewhere down the road that this sort of thing won’t be stunning anymore, but commonplace. The Overton window at work, as I think Chas would say.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. 😦 Certainly we need to pray.
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No one should be deceived. The US values perversion more than it values freedom of speech or freedom of religion!
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From Dr. Russell D. Moore:
http://www.russellmoore.com/2014/10/14/houston-we-have-a-constitution/
“…The separation of church and state means that we will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and we will. But the preaching of the church of God does not belong to Caesar, and we will not hand it over to him. Not now. Not ever. ..”
Amen.
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