At the end of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services had granted some 222 temporary waivers to businesses small and large, insurers, labor, and other organizations that offer affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits. On Wednesday, the agency quietly updated its online list, which now reveals a whopping total of 729 Obamacare escapees – in addition to four states Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee – who collectively cover 2.1 million enrollees.Congressional republicans plan to investigate the Obamacare waiver process. One hopes they will take a close hard look at the HHS reporting process as well.
Most noteworthy: One-fourth of all the waivers (182) have gone to Big Labor groups across the country so far.
Without the HHS-approved exemptions, these health providers would have been forced to drop low-cost coverage for seasonal, part-time, and low-wage workers due to skyrocketing premiums. The only way they are keeping their health care is by successfully begging the feds to spare them from Obamacare. The Democrats’ law seeks to eliminate the low-cost plans (known as “mini-med” plans) under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing. The ultimate goal, as I’ve reported before: forcing a massive shift from private to public insurance designed by government-knows-best bureaucrats.
Last year, the HHS website was very efficient posting a list of ObamaCare waivers that had been granted. Usually by the 3rd of the month the list was updated to included waivers that had been approved in the previous month. But something happened in January ... no new waivers (were) posted (until after the State of the Union speech)..Crap like this is just one more reason to unass that fool and his cronies ASAP. The blatant contradictions, hypocrisy, and outright lying by the loser-in-chief, aided and abetted by his lapdogs in the mainstream media, nauseates anyone who truly cares about the future of this country. Why the sudden lag in reporting waivers? Could it have something to do with efforts underway in congress to repeal obabacare? Or the timing of the SOTU address? Or both?
... the day after the President’s State of the Union, the new waivers are up. You may recall that there were 222 such waivers approved in November. That number has now jumped to 729 through the end of December. The total number of people covered by the waivers has gone from 1.5M to just under 2.2M.
Breaking wind is set to be made a crime in an African country.
The government of Malawi plan to punish persistent offenders 'who foul the air' in a bid to 'mould responsible and disciplined citizens.'
But locals fear that pinning responsibility on the crime will be difficult - and may lead to miscarriages of justice as 'criminals' attempt to blame others for their offence.
One Malawian told the website Africanews.com: 'My goodness. What happens in a public place where a group is gathered. Do they lock up half a minibus?
'And how about at meetings where it is difficult to pinpoint 'culprits'?
'Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing,' she said.If 'fouling the air' does indeed become a criminal act, Britain's Prince Phillip stands to be convicted on circumstantial evidence. (Thanks to BMEWS.)
“How much are students actually learning in contemporary higher education? The answer for many undergraduates, we have concluded, is not much”The above comes from a study that measured critical thinking, analytic reasoning, and other “higher level” skills (link here).
36 percent of students “did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning” over four years of college.
Those students who do show improvements tend to show only modest improvements.
For most of the past 20 years I have served on selection committees for the Rhodes Scholarship. In general, the experience is an annual reminder of the tremendous promise of America's next generation. We interview the best graduates of U.S. universities for one of the most prestigious honors that can be bestowed on young scholars.
I have, however, become increasingly concerned in recent years - not about the talent of the applicants but about the education American universities are providing. Even from America's great liberal arts colleges, transcripts reflect an undergraduate specialization that would have been unthinkably narrow just a generation ago.
As a result, high-achieving students seem less able to grapple with issues that require them to think across disciplines or reflect on difficult questions about what matters and why.
An outstanding biochemistry major wants to be a doctor and supports the president's health-care bill but doesn't really know why. A student who started a chapter of Global Zero at his university hasn't really thought about whether a world in which great powers have divested themselves of nuclear weapons would be more stable or less so, or whether nuclear deterrence can ever be moral. A young service academy cadet who is likely to be serving in a war zone within the year believes there are things worth dying for but doesn't seem to have thought much about what is worth killing for. A student who wants to study comparative government doesn't seem to know much about the important features and limitations of America's Constitution.
I wish I could say that this is a single, anomalous group of students, but the trend is unmistakable. Our great universities seem to have redefined what it means to be an exceptional student. They are producing top students who have given very little thought to matters beyond their impressive grasp of an intense area of study.In other words, they know "what" but not "why." They lack the ability to analyze, integrate, synthesize - to think critically. My own experience with students reinforces this.
The group faulted (a number of) schools, including Yale, Brown, Cornell, Amherst and the University of California at Berkeley, for failing to require students to take courses in more than one of seven core academic subjects: math, science, history, economics, foreign language, literature and composition.This has far-reaching ramifications, not only for the students, but for society at large. How can future voters understand the complex problems and potential solutions facing this country if they lack the basic grounding and skills to comprehend, evaluate, and analyze competing claims and arguments? This may also be a contributing factor to the chasm between American political groups. Some people participating in the national debate may be ill-equipped to rationally consider positions advocated by the other side. Their clamor drowns out any meaningful exchange of ideas. Don't agree? Just read the letters to the editor of your local paper.
“At Stanford, you can fulfill the American cultures requirement by taking a class on a Japanese drum,” said Anne Neal, president of the trustees group.
“It is quite possible to avoid American history, or Plato or science,” she said. “Many colleges don’t even require their English majors to take a course on Shakespeare.”
“We’re certainly not saying that Harvard or Hopkins or Yale are not good schools, or that their graduates are not smart kids,” said Neal, who attended Harvard and Harvard Law. “What we’re saying is that those schools don’t do a good job at providing their students with a coherent core.”
... deep engagement with complex ideas and texts, difficult and often solitary study, the discipline to write, revise, and write again. What students need most aren't additional social opportunities and elaborate services. They need professors who assign a lot of reading and writing. Professors, in turn, need a structure of compensation and prestige that rewards a commitment to teaching. ... Colleges are responsible for taking the first step toward reaching a newer, higher equilibrium of mutual expectations.
Federal and state lawmakers should stop providing hundreds of billions of dollars in annual subsidies based purely on enrollment, and should start holding colleges accountable for learning.Easier said than done...
In 2008, the Ohio Democrat purchased a sandwich wrap filled with olives at the cafeteria inside the Longworth Office Building. After biting into the wrap, he cracked a tooth, according to the legal complaintThe asshole chipped a tooth (if he even did that much damage) and, like a true democrap, immediately went crying to his lawyer. "It's not my fault. Let's sue someone."
... the sandwich wrap (allegedly) was "unwholesome and unfit for human consumption, in that it was represented to contain pitted olives, yet unknown to plaintiff contained an unpitted olive or olives which plaintiff did not reasonably expect to be present in the food prepared for him, and could not visually detect prior to consumption."
As a result, Kucinich received "serious and permanent dental and oral injuries requiring multiple surgical and dental procedures, and has sustained other damages as well, including significant pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment."
No word yet on what sort of enjoyment was lost.
... if there is one thing we know with an empirical certainty, it is that increasing federal spending will not, on balance, create more jobs. Of course, whenever the government spends money someone is employed, or, at least, gets to cash a check. This is what Obama had in mind when he said--in a moment of supreme cluelessness--"spending equals stimulus." What Obama apparently does not understand is that government spending consumes resources, often inefficiently, that could better be used elsewhere. Whenever the government wastes resources, the country grows poorer and job growth is suppressed. This, in crude terms, is why the ballooning public expenditures of recent years have not caused a boom in the job market. (Text and chart from Power Line.)
The "Cash-for-Clunkers" program cost taxpayers between $20,000 and $45,000 per vehicle purchased.If the past is any indication, when obama starts babbling about 'investments' and other government programs, hide your wallet...
The "Stimulus" program, which cost $787 billion and was rammed through Congress using the premise that, without it, unemployment would not pass 8%, has resulted in persistent 10% unemployment and 17% "under-employment" (U-6). And the tab will be paid for by your children and grandchildren.
The $60 billion bailout of GM and Chrysler -- abrogating bankruptcy law with payoffs to various union bosses -- is an utter and complete failure. The businesses are unsustainable without a massive restructuring, including dramatically retooling union contracts.
"Green jobs" in the form of weatherization programs that have been utter, cash-burning frauds and failures. A series of spot-check audits of the $5 billion program indicates that fraud is rampant -- easily 20% can be chalked up to phantom services, blatant overspending on simple items, and unverifiable expenses. But not to worry -- it's only a billion dollars of wasted money, a pittance for this administration.
The bailout of AIG, orchestrated by the then-head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) Timothy F. Geithner, "wasted billions" of taxpayer money according to the inspector generator of the TARP program. The initial $85 billion rescue failed, forcing the Fed to pay above-market for the swaps it acquired. The result? "There is no question that the effect of the FRBNY's decision - indeed, the very design of the federal assistance to AIG - was that tens of billions of dollars of government money was funneled inexorably and directly to AIG's counterparties," according to the inspector general. In fact, the terms of the plan were so flawed that the Treasury Department had to dole out an additional $40 billion to AIG just weeks later. For his part in the debacle, FRBNY chairman Geithner was rewarded with a Secretary of the Treasury role by President Obama.
Advanced drugs can cure many ills, new technology can revolutionise surgery but sometimes a low-cut, sorry lo-tech, solution is all you need - one dentist has bought herself and her ten nurses tight-fitting, cleavage-maximising dresses to distract worried patients while they work.
Dr Marie-Catherine Klarkowski said: ‘The most important thing is to take away patients’ fear. The sight of cleavages gets patients narcotised and distracted from the pain rather quickly.
‘Some patients’ mouths are already wide open on entering the practice.’Men - so simple, so predictable.
It is unclear if the patients feel less pain but the number of clients going to the Relax & Smile practice in Munich has risen by a third since the change. Yes, they are all men.Beer and cleavage - always a winner.
Dr Klarkowski came up with the fleshy idea at an Oktoberfest event after seeing how men ogled waitresses in their traditionally revealing ‘dirndl’ outfits.
‘I much prefer working in a dirndl, I enjoy looking good at work and it’s a lot more fun since we had the new outfits,’ said employee Larisa Hrustic.Who knows. Pretty soon every visit to the dentist could involve a happy ending.
Wei Jingsheng, the great Chinese democracy leader, exiled in the United States since 1997, wrote a letter to Congress and Secretary of State Clinton. He said, “I listened to that music with a big shock.” Wei explained that the song, “My Country,” or “My Motherland,” comes from “the best-known Communist propaganda movie about the Korean War,” depicting the Chinese army’s fight with the Americans. The movie is called The Battle of Triangle Hill. Wei said that the movie is as well-known in China as Gone with the Wind is here.
The Epoch Times quotes a Chinese psychiatrist living in Philadelphia, Yang Jingduan: “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the U.S. It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating.”
Obama’s hosting of Hu, and what amounts to a celebration of that dictatorship, has been a disaster, from nearly every point of view. George W. Bush did not grant Hu a state visit. Hu settled for a more modest visit — the kind the head of a police state should settle for, in a liberal democracy. Bush gave him a polite lunch and sent him on his way. Obama created the opportunity for a great CCP propaganda victory. The dictatorship is delighted, and the prisoners, dissidents, and democrats feel something else.
It is hard not to compare the press coverage of Jared Loughner's Tucson rampage with that of Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood. Hasan killed and wounded twice as many as Loughner, and the fact that he was an officer in the United States Army would seem to give his attack a particular significance as well as a unique horror. Moreover, Loughner was just a nut, while Hasan was part of a worldwide movement. Yet, for whatever reason, the press has been far more interested in the Tucson shootings and in the fate of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords than in the servicemen and women who were shot by Major Hasan.
It's nice to get daily updates on the condition of Ms. Giffords, but I don't believe I had even heard of Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler until today. Sgt. Zeigler had just finished a tour of duty in Iraq and was at Fort Hood in preparation for beginning Officer Candidate School when he was randomly targeted by Hasan. Hasan shot him four times, once in the head. That shot wiped out twenty percent of his brain and left a large hole in his skull. Eight brain operations later, Sgt. Zeigler has made what some consider a miraculous recovery:
For the past 8 ½ months, Zeigler has looked death in the face and refused to blink. He's battled back from eight brain surgeries and diagnoses that labeled him everything from "comatose" to "permanently disabled."That was in July. A few months later, Zeigler and his fiance, Jessica Hansen, were married. She has maintained a rather remarkable blog since shortly after the shooting. In it, she details Sgt. Zeigler's slow, painful and still incomplete recovery.
Zeigler was one of 32 who was injured on November 5, 2009 when accused gunman Army Major Nidal Hasan opened fire inside the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood.
He was airlifted to Scott and White Hospital in Temple with four gunshot wounds, including one that shattered his skull. The bullet left a hole the size of a softball.
Zeigler's family and fiancée were warned that he may never recover.
He has since fought a battle that he refused to lose. And on Friday, a major victory: Zeigler walked out of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
...it is a little hard to see why Major Hasan's Fort Hood attack, and the havoc it wreaked on Sgt. Zeigler and many others, has been of so little interest to the liberal press.Muslim shoots U.S. soldiers - we are cautioned by the mainstream media against jumping to conclusions and linking the attack to religion.
11. The Most Ethical and Transparent Government In History
Obama promised to deliver the most transparent government the world has ever seen.
10. Lobbyists for me but not for thee…
When Obama was on the campaign trail he had a lot of tough words for evil lobbyists.
9. No interest in Obama’s history, plenty of interest in his “historical significance”
Short of repeating, verbatim, Obama’s two autobiographies (seriously, who writes two autobiographies before the age of 50) the Obama-loving media showed no interest in Obama’s history, Chicago connections, or experience.
8. Occidental College, Columbia College and Harvard grades…still sealed
I can only guess that Obama was a terrible student with all the effort that has gone into sealing his educational records. The press had a field day skewing George W. Bush for getting Cs.
7. The President’s Security Blankie - the teleprompter
President Obama, the man they said was the greatest speaker of all time has a curious quirk.
6. Michelle O No!
Many years ago there lived an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of grand new clothes that he spent all his money upon them, that he might be very fine.
5. Verbal Gaffes
I will never forget when Dan Quayle misspelled “potato” in a school classroom.
4. Excessive Vacations
The press went wild reporting on Bush’s many “vacations.”
3. Encouraging Racism
Far from becoming the Great Uniter between the races.
2. From a Tiny ACORN Grows a Giant Tree of Corruption
This might be the worst of the events linked to Obama that the networks ignored .
1. Dismal Response Time
From the very beginning, Obama has been an absent executive.
Hamilton County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court Judge Ethna Cooper placed Jessica Gamble, 21, of Springfield Township, on two years probation with plans to reunite her with the child.If the judge really felt that way, why not send that miserable excuse of a mother to prison? Gamble was indicted on three felonies – corrupting another with drugs, child endangering and tampering with evidence – that carry a maximum prison sentence of 11½ years.
“The image I can’t get out of my mind,” the judge told Gamble on Friday, “is watching a video of your baby with a blunt, smoking marijuana.”
“I just made a mistake,” Gamble responded, upsetting the judge.
“Just made a mistake’ does not apply to this. You hurt your child, you exploited your child, you drugged your child,” the judge said.
The judge ordered her to spend two more months in the Justice Center where she must complete a program for drug treatment, job readiness and parenting skills.
After that, Gamble must spend three months in an in-patient drug rehabilitation facility followed by outpatient drug treatment.
“I would like to become not just more of a mother but a better person,” Gamble told the judge.Whew, that's a relief. I'm sure the mother will be fully rehabilitated, and the child will grow up in a wholesome, nurturing environment [/sarcasm].
At one point on the 1 minute, 37 second video shot in August, a voice believed to be Gamble’s tells the girl “Don’t blow on” the joint.“It is unbelievable to watch on video a mother teaching her 2-year-old child how to smoke a joint," Prosecutor Joseph Deters said. "There are just some people who should never have children.”
After the child takes a few more puffs, the same voice asks, “What is that?” and then a hand grabs the child’s hand that is holding the joint. The person shooting the video – Gamble, the indictment alleges – takes the joint from the child’s fist and holds it up so it is in the middle of the image frame. Then she laughs.
The singer Barbra Streisand was among the 225 guests who attended the state dinner held in honour of President Hu Jintao of China at the White House.
When asked about her credentials for being invited, Streisand responded: "I worked in a Chinese restaurant."
Billionaire Donald Trump isn’t too happy about the White House dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao held Wednesday night. He thinks China is taking advantage of President Barack Obama, Politico reports.
“For us to be holding state dinners for people who are just totally manipulating their currency ... is hard to believe," says Trump, who called "Fox & Friends" to express his dismay. "You don't give dinners to the enemy and that's what they're doing."
So what would Trump do if he was president? "I would say, 'Get off your plane, come to my office and let's talk.'"
And if that didn’t work? "I would have sent them to McDonalds if we didn't make a deal and said, 'Go home,'” Trump says. “The fact is they're laughing at our leadership, and we're letting them get away with murder.”
Hu was the guest of honor at a White House lunch hosted in April 2006 by President George W. Bush, but the Chinese would have much preferred the cachet of a state dinner, said Anita McBride, former First Lady Laura Bush's chief of staff and a guest at the lunch.
McBride said a dinner was nixed because of China's human rights record.
Twenty five new deepwater rigs came out of shipyards this year (2010) — and another 35 are expected in 2011. A moratorium stopped deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico for five months and new drilling is still slow to get approved. But activity in other parts of the globe continues largely unabated.
Many small regional businesses along the Gulf Coast have largely weathered last year's moratorium on deepwater drilling but could fail if the pace of such drilling doesn't pick up soon, according to a new economic impact study by a non-profit group that studies economic trends.So why is this so difficult for obama and his stooges to understand? Or perhaps they do understand all too well.
President Bush was queried more than 20 times by reporters about gasoline prices. By contrast, President Obama has been asked two questions by reporters about the newest spike in fuel costs. But the President's critics suggest that White House policies may play a larger role in the price rise this time than in the previous administration. The Heritage Foundation's, Rory Cooper says, "Obviously the policies of the White House for the past two years have been designed to raise energy prices. Their desire for alternative fuels is led by the fact that they are so expensive, they need gas prices to go up, so that way they can convince consumers that dollar for dollar, to choose a different energy source."
Indeed, the President's choice for Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, told the Wall Street Journal in a 2008 interview, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."
Today, gasoline prices in Europe range from $7.24 a gallon in France, to $7.98 a gallon in the Netherlands -- prices that some economists fear could halt the economic recovery taking hold across Europe.
Dan Leistikow of the Department of Energy says, "We are continuing in the near term to pursue responsible production of our oil and gas resources at home, while at the same time taking historic action to transition to a clean energy economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil through...vehicle efficiency standards coupled with strategic investments in electric vehicles, bio-fuels and mass transit."
The annual MLK observance at the state house in Columbia SC had an interesting twist this year. The event is held on the north side steps of the statehouse. Prominent at that location is a large bronze statue of George Washington. This year, the NAACP constructed a "box" to conceal the Father of His Country from view so that participants would not be offended by his presence.
When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie put the kibosh on the mega infrastructure project known as the ARC train tunnel last summer he cited billions of dollars in projected cost overruns as the reason. But during a visit to The Wall Street Journal's offices on Wednesday Mr. Christie, a Republican, told us that the overruns were only the final straw. Almost as important was the design of the project, which Mr. Christie called "ridiculous."
The issue is far from over. New Jersey spent $271 million of federal money on the initial stages of the project. He said that the federal government's decision to release that money when ARC did not have final approval and did not have safeguards in place to protect against waste should have been a no-no. "That's my argument of why I don't have to pay the money back."
"ARC" stands for Access to the Region's Core and the tunnel was supposed to enable New Jersey train riders to connect to Penn Station in New York and the east side of the city. But the final design had trains dumping passengers elsewhere. "No one wanted to go into the basement of Macy's, 10 stories underground, come 10 stories back up to Herald Square and walk over to Penn station to get another train." It was not what was promised, he told us.Let's see. A government project that wastes money, is ill-designed, and has political overtones. Not exactly a surprise. But it does serve nicely to illustrate a brilliant metaphor for government from here (via Peter).
New Jersey was also bearing too much of the cost in his view. When he halted the project, he said that "the only phone calls of protest I got were from [New York] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg, [then-New York] Governor [David] Paterson and New York City real estate developers. And I thought to myself, 'Hey, you know, I think I might've stumbled onto something.'" The governor said he started to see the project as "access to New York's core, thanks New Jersey."
Mr. Christie said that he told Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that he could not "justify to New Jerseyans that we are paying 70% of the cost of this project plus the overruns when [the federal government is] building high-speed rail between Orlando and Tampa and paying 80% of the cost." Mr. Christie said he also told Mr. LaHood that he understands that "Florida has more electoral votes than New Jersey and that New Jersey is not competitive and Florida is. But, enough."
So how come a badly designed project was recklessly put in gear, with federal assistance? Mr. Christie cited an inspector general's report that says the plan was hurried "for a ground breaking ceremony in July 2009 in the middle of the [gubernatorial] campaign." There was no final approved plan, he says, but the [department of transportation] allowed the federal money to be spent anyway "because they were trying to help the incumbent governor get re-elected."
No, not the hopper... but the thing on the wall next to it.
It's reported to be a 'Toilet Paper Dispenser', and it appeared one day from the blue. A maintenance man took down the old unit, which had rolls of standard industrial grade sand paper, and installed this..... thing.
As I was seated next to it one day (Roll of REAL toilet paper in hand), I had time to contemplate this.... thing.
With a flash, I realized it's a near perfect metaphor for government (or school administration).
No one knows who decided to put it there, no one was asked if they wanted it, and no one likes it. It looks shiny and promises to do something useful, but in operation actually does nothing but cause frustration. The more one attempts to make it perform it's duty, the more it resists useful operation, and the more frustration it causes. In the end, one must make plans to take care of ones own needs, as the shiny thing which promised to do so merely hangs around in expensive and arrogant impotence, mocking those it reputes to serve.
A military advisory panel on diversity in the armed forces signaled this week that it may recommend that female troops should be able to serve in combat units without any restrictions, calling the current prohibition an out-of-date idea that unnecessarily discriminates against women.The following quote from the story does a pretty good job of capturing my position (with one caveat).
The recommendation, if eventually approved by military officials, would open front-line posts to military women for the first time. Women are now restricted to serving in combat support roles.
“... but as long as you can do the job required — female, gay, white, whatever — as long as it doesn’t hamper the mission, I’m all for it”Caveat: Like many other things in this world, its easy in concept, but the devil's in the details.
In the enlisted group the winner is SGT Sherri Gallagher.I didn't post this to single out SGT Gallagher. I have nothing but respect for her decision to serve her country, and her accomplishments in getting named to the Army Marksmanship Unit. The purpose of this post is to question how well we can expect an organization to integrate gays and women into combat units without impacting their effectiveness, when that same organization names as its "Best Warrior" someone who has never seen combat.
She is assigned to the Army marksmanship unit and is a enlisted to be an 88M or what you civilians call a "truck driver". In her extensive time in the Army she has been deployed exactly zero times.
You read that right. In an army at war in two theaters, the Army Best Warrior cannot in any sense of the word be termed a "warrior". It's not as if there weren't plenty of people to chose from who did have combat experience. Or even a job in a unit that might go to combat someday. Or even a job that had a military purpose.
The Army Marksmanship Unit is a shooting team. They do not deploy to combat. They deploy to Olympics trials and international shooting competitions.
In Washington, one president on a stage is a big deal. Holbrooke merited two. (obama and clinton)There is no word on whether or not t-shirts were handed out.
There were network anchors and admirals, power brokers and influence peddlers, senators and ambassadors.
