Is Obamacare a National Security Risk?

Fuloydo sent me an interesting question:

Let's say you're a state that the US is not on especially friendly terms with.  A state which has a record of cyber-attacks against American servers.  China, perhaps.  Maybe Russia. 

Now, you've learned via testimony in front of a congressional hearing of all places that a website that millions upon millions of American subjects, sorry..., citizens are required by law to to enter all sorts of personal information into is effectively unsecured. 

What would you do?

What indeed?

So we Passed it, but Kathy STILL doesn't know what's in it.

Via HotAir:

She already has insurance as a federal employee, ergo, it’s illegal for her to sign up on the exchanges for a newly minted ObamaCare-approved plan. Wait, what? 

And so we return once again to the central theme of the last month: Knowing lie or simple incompetence?

This is the person running this monstrosity and she doesn't know the basics of it.

I don't have to be in the same boat with you rubes. We don't have to have the same rules for us that we force you into. 

The left is arrogant, elitist, and unintelligent. They are in charge. You got what you voted for, America. Time to reap what we've sown. 

Obamacare Round-up: Pre-Testimony Edition

Looks like 13 Dems also knew you'd lose your insurance but parroted Obama anyway.

Still Obama was the one who led that charge and we have a superclip to prove it. Yet this wasn't just an incompetence thing. They knew people would lose their coverage. The left's holy grail has always been socialized medicine and this was a way to blame insurance companies and get people to come to mama government. While we're at it, we'll blame the private contractors who built the site and take a swipe at anything private sector that we can.

How bad is the ACA? Just try and enroll. Oh wait, right now you can't, just before Sebelius's testimony.

I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

Guest Post and an Answer to my Question

From my bestest friend in the world, Fuloydo:

Progressivism in a nutshell.
Forget everything you ever heard about how they are for helping people.  It's bullshit, plain and simple.   

It's about power.  Power over everyone else. 

Leave people to do what they think is right for themselves and you don't have any power over them. 

Any time a politician says "It's for the <insert minority here>" what they are really saying is "If we let them act on their own we won't have any power over their choices!" 

Note that the 'minority' inserted above is almost always 'children'.  (Fuck that.  It's ALWAYS 'children') 

But, when you get down to it, and this is the important bit,  the left consider everyone who is not an elected leftist politician or government employee a child. 

That right there is the end-all-be-all of progressivism.  If you're not one of them, you're a child who needs to be looked after by them.  You're not allowed to have an opinion that differs from the prog bible and if you do it's just proof that you're a child who needs looking after by them. 

QED. 

To their thinking there is no other possibility. 

Jesus, Lefties, What the Heck are you Fighting FOR?

I mean really, what motivates you? NBC shows that the president did indeed make false promises. Whether by choice or by incompetence is not clear but really, neither works for me.

After this pushback, NBC deleted paragraph 3 without noting why they had done so.Now, after what I imagine was a furious bout of lobbying by Lisa Meyer, NBC has restored paragraph 3 (or at least close enough to the original). The new story does indeed recapitulate Meyers' reporting:

None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered.

Emphasis added again. And to emphasize yet again, those employees writing regulations for HHS do so at Obama's discretion. 

But why was it deleted in the first place? Why did NBC decide to trust the Obama Administration on this -- obviously a party that stinks of self-interest and potential deceit -- over its own reporter, who got it right? 

I really want to stress this to everybody, because no one seems to get this yet: 

These regulations, being a creature of the Executive branch, can be rewritten by the executive branch at any time. We don't need a law for this (though one would be useful, to force Obama to do the right thing).

Ace's point is how the political hacks protect Obama, whether it be NBC or apologists in the government. But here's my question, at what point does one who might have some involvement in this mess start to take a step back and really question what's going on here?

We know that people are getting hurt by Obamacare. We know the premiums are getting doubled and tripled, sometimes even more. We know people's insurance is getting cancelled. The very people who this is supposed to help are getting hurt.

As conservatives, we are fully aware that this would be the result. These government help programs always have the opposite effect they are intended. Every conservative and GOP member was against it. The democrats were mostly for it. It got rammed through. The press and the left have been crowing and telling us how good it would be ever since.

But it's not. We are seeing this. NBC is seeing this, the prime supporters of the president. The left is seeing this. And yet, all of this is somehow a talking point, somehow the right's fault.

There must be something in at least some of these people who see this and realize that this was a mistake. How do you on the left, keep fighting for this? Is it just so goddamn important that the right loses? Are you so twisted that hurting the poor is a better choice than the possibility of the right helping it?

NBC redacts something they know is damaging to the president. Why? Yes you backed the wrong pony but anyone who has come out and honestly admitted a mistake can gain a lot of respect. MSNBC could use a little of that. Sure the wonks will hate them and the cocktail parties will dry up but if that's what you're fighting for... well is it?

There has to be those in the administration having an "oh shit" moment. There HAS to be. But if they aren't and they see this, what the hell are they fighting for anymore? Helping the poor was your issue. We conservatives knew you were failures at it, but is your self-awareness that bad? These problems just really don't register with you at all?

At this point, it has to be that hatred for the other side trumps all. It's the only explanation I can see anymore. They hate us more than they want to help people. It's just never been so brazen before.

So I ask again, we know what you're fighting against. What the heck are fighting FOR?

Left: You need to work with us to improve the law! Goldberg: Go eff Yourselves, you own it now.

I really have very little to add. Jonah Goldberg sums it all up quite nicely.

I’m not arguing that the GOP shouldn’t capitulate to the law simply out of spite (though spite is underrated in this circumstance if you ask me). But I fail to see why Republicans should simply accept that the law is here to stay and get into wonky discussions about how to improve it at the margins at the exact moment the wheels are coming off the bus. The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law. The right opposed the law on principle. A single party — the Democrats — own this law in a way that no party has had complete ownership of any major social legislation in a century. They bought this legislation with deceit and the GOP said so.   Now that it is going into effect, the facts on the ground are confirming that deceit. Moreover,  the same haughty condescending bureaucrats and politicians who told us they were smart enough and tech-savvy enough to do just about anything are being exposed as incompetent political hacks. And this is the moment when Sargent thinks the GOP should simply throw in the towel and work with the Democrats to make Obamacare bipartisan?

Yeah, own it Dems. You wanted it, you got it. Prepare for the masses to show their appreciation.

America Still Too Busy Watching "Honey Boo Boo" to become Informed and Stuff

From National Review

I have been increasingly frustrated with the average American simply too bored to be informed about what's happening in their lives. The democrats understand this and are able to tailor a candidate based on sound bites. This is Barack Obama.

So now Obamacare is finally coming into play, three years after getting put in place and a year from the last election we could've done something about it, and John Q Public is finally poking his head up from Dancing with the Stars to see what's going on. I'm quite certain once it hits his pocketbook, he'll be very upset. Well dumb ass, welcome to the party. Unfortunately the party is over.

Uninsured Americans are eager to learn more about Obamacare, if they could just figure out where to start looking. 

Even though the health insurance exchanges opened about a month ago and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent promoting them, almost half (47 percent) of uninsured Americans still do not know where they can get information on how the Affordable Care Act will affect them, according to a new Bankrate.com report. 

Gee, if only someone, somewhere, had written something about Obamacare! If only the rollout of Obamacare had gotten some coverage in newspapers, or magazines, or web sites, or television or radio!

Indeed. If only.

Race Hustling: Reasons for it, Recognizing it, and Fighting it

Thomas Sowell's article on race hustling left me particularly disturbed today. His points are ones I've made countless times but his example left me speechless for a moment. Understand that this subject is deeply personal to me as both my children are of mixed race.

Today's race relations are worse than ever in many respects. But it's really about the backlash against whites for past crimes than it is institutionalized racism by whites. Sowell's point is that there isn't any real white racism anymore, that it is all white guilt and black vengeance, and I believe that this is true.

White's can't even use the "n-word" in context anymore, let alone as a pejorative. (Nor should they but if we are truly equal, neither should blacks. If racial epithets are wrong, why are they not wrong for everyone? If you disagree, then you are tacitly admitting that the races are different, an opinion I categorically reject.) Blacks however are free to use racial epithets not only on whites, but on each other and various other races as well. The only backlash I have ever seen on any black using an epithet is when they use any homosexual ones. Eddie Murphy's Delirious album, once a pinnacle of humor, is now met with winces at the shots he takes at homosexuality. Current black comedians have no such restrictions on the n-word or any other racial insult.

Any crime perpetrated on a black by a white will be covered with the usual dollop of white guilt and race hustlers who will invariable create racism where is did not exist or at best was irrelevant to the situation. This perception of whites still running around America as if it was 1950's Alabama is dishonest and creating a situation where blacks are actually committing these crimes on whites. Says Sowell:

 More dangerous than these highly publicized episodes over the years are innumerable organized and unprovoked physical attacks on whites by young black gangs in shopping malls, on beaches and in other public places all across the country today. 

While some of these attacks make it into the media as isolated incidents, the nationwide pattern of organized black on white attacks by thugs remains invisible in the mainstream media, with the notable exception of Bill O'Reilly on the Fox News Channel. 

Even when these attacks are accompanied by shouts of anti-white rhetoric and exultant laughter at the carnage, the racial makeup of the attackers and their victims is usually ignored by the media, and public officials often deny that race has anything to do with what happened. 

These attacks have sent many people to the hospital, and some have died, but the attacks are often carried out in a festive atmosphere. What are called "troubled youths," in this and other contexts, are often in fact young people enjoying themselves greatly by creating big trouble for others. 

Some of these many attacks are covered in detail in a book titled "White Girl Bleed A Lot" by Colin Flaherty. It was a phrase that I recognized immediately, from my own previous research. 

That phrase was uttered by one of a group of black attackers who descended on a group of whites at a July 4th fireworks show in Milwaukee. But what happened there was not unique, either in itself or in the efforts of police and political authorities to play down what happened -- and to say that race had nothing to do with it.

This is true and I have documented several of these incidences here that happened even in the very short time this blog has been around. There is now a danger that white backlash is beginning to build. Sowell writes of Paul Kersey, coincidentally the name of the vigilante in the Death Wish movies. For those who are unaware, the movie character was rightfully motivated but wrong in action: committing violent crimes. The character was wrong but his motivations were understandable. In the end, no good came of his brand of vigilante justice. The sequels were action porn garbage but the first one may have had a point to make, though the book made it far more clear that vigilantism was destructive.

This Paul Kersey writes a book decrying the black takeover of cities and how they bad they become. I was immediately reminded of Chris Rock's joke about the two types of shopping malls, the "white mall" and the "mall white people used to go to." Sowell and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and myself attribute the decline of these cities to liberal policies but Kersey attributes this to race. He even takes Sowell to task on it:

Perhaps the most clearly backlash books are those written by Paul Kersey, whose central theme is that whites have created thriving cities, which blacks subsequently took over and ruined. Examples include his books about Birmingham ("The Tragic City") and Detroit ("Escape from Detroit"). 

Kersey even takes a swing at Rush Limbaugh (and at yours truly) for saying that liberal policies destroyed these cities. He says that San Francisco and other cities with liberal policies, but without black demographic and political takeovers, have not been ruined. His books are poorly written, but raise tough questions. 

It would be easy to simply dismiss Kersey as a racist. But denouncing him or ignoring him is not refuting him.

Agreed, but it is in NOT refuting him where Sowell ends his article. Refute him we must as any racism must be understood and rebuked wherever we find it. The truth is that racial differences do not imply success or failure but the reasons behind why blacks do so poorly is still the fault of many white democrats as it has been in the past. The method used is far more insidious even as the average liberal does not want blacks to be in a bad place or treated differently, they do not realize that the holding on to the past, enabling the likes of Al Sharpton, and putting in standards solely based on race are in fact a completely new form of racism that is not only holding the black community back but building up an animus that creates smaller sub-societies built on nothing but rage.

The reason why they are built on this is that blacks have formed a cultural identity based completely on their skin color. Whites have done this of course in the past and it led to the Klan. It was complete nonsense for us yet is lauded by liberals when the black community does it. They have successfully used the past sins of whites to create an enemy that long ago realized the error of its ways. This has created generation after generation of angry blacks to the point that in their minds, anything not black is wrong.

They shun education as being "too white." Speaking well is trying to "be white." Playing by the rules is playing a "white man's game." Any black caught doing any of these things will be labeled as an Uncle Tom. Check out what they've said of Don Lemon, Bill Cosby, or Clarence Thomas for not acting black, whatever that means.

Creating a culture based solely off a physical trait is not based on anything substantive. We know this, it's the basis for Martin Luther King's speech:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Continuing to make skin color the predominant trait of your culture is doomed to failure and destruction. There is no doubt the initial sin was created by whites, first with slavery and then with segregation. But in a very short time, whites have changed their attitudes. Racists whites are few and far between and are shunned in today's society. Rightly so. But we have entered in a weird post racism that still marginalizes blacks but also degrades whites for simply being white as well. Progress is now defined as both races being treated badly. Terrific.

White liberals see everything still through the prism of color but now are attempting to make things fair for past wrongs. These past wrongs were very real and that becomes difficult to fight against. Because if someone puts in a program to do something that is harmful but in the name of anti-racism, those who would oppose such a program therefore must be racist. And who wants to be that?

So now we have affirmative action to give blacks admission to schools simply for the color of their skin. We have media excusing black crime on white that is clearly racist, something they would pounce on if it were the other way around. We have welfare programs that degrade and annihilate the black family in the name of social justice and fairness, giving the average black citizen who depends on them a life that is anything but fair.

But to Kersey's point, why doesn't the same liberal programs destroy San Francisco the same way it destroyed Detroit? I believe the answer comes from not being black but from the black culture that has now sprung out of the anger of the past.

The past wrongs are real, as I said, but these wrongs are not continuing. A great portion of the people who engaged in those wrongs are dead and buried and a great majority of blacks alive today never experienced that injustice. Yet the anger was passed down and in doing so becomes twisted. A person who was unjustly discriminated against will pass down that biased opinion to his son, who may never have had experienced any real discrimination in his life. Never saw a whites only drinking fountain, never saw a segregated lunch counter, never had to ride in the back of the bus. But he carries the same rage passed to him from one who did.

This rage now taints everything he does in his life and every rejection or problem is now easily blamed on whites. If you're angry all the time and believe that everything wrong in your life is another person's fault, or worse, another race's fault, you will be destructive.

Now add on to that the white liberals who pretty much control the media, fostering that rage. Stoking it with every story, pouring gas on the fire, keeping the rage alive. Meanwhile government programs which are doomed to fail by their very nature do what they do. But while places like rural america, San Francisco, and Indian reservations are also getting destroyed by these programs, blacks also get the media and each other to fuel a rage based on a unique history that others minorities in this country simply didn't experience.

It's made for an explosive combination. With every black on white crime getting non-reported, with every media outlet refusing to change their attitude on race relations and with Al Sharpton and various other race hustlers successfully getting people angered over things that turn out to be false (Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case, etc.) we have whites like Kersey falsely attributing racial characteristics to destruction. White backlash is the last thing we need and as Sowell rightly points out, a race war is one no one wins.

No the problem is more complex: Liberalism and the black culture so completely wrapping up their cultural identity in their skin color combined with a pop-culture (media, comedians, movies, cable news) so willing to quickly blame all the problems on racism without looking deeper. Truth and accepting the truth is the only way things will change.

It's a vicious circle, and it's only going to get more vicious if all of us don't change our attitudes and our perceptions on race real quick.

David Axelrod still believes in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and that most people get to keep their health care.

From Hot Air:

That depends on how one defines “most.” Most Americans get their insurance through employer group plans, and those are largely intact, although they’ll be more expensive now, thanks to the mandates insurers have to carry now.  But for those who bought their own insurance — which is the apples-to-apples comparison — half or more will find their old plans cancelled.  That estimate comes from a UCLA academic who supports the ACA, by the way.  That means around 7 million or more Americans will have lost their old insurance plans, and will have to pay higher premiums and clear higher deductibles from now on.

Colburn does a good job with him and there's a longer clip at the link. I love the quote that there's been private web disasters as well. Hey, Axelrod, those websites didn't forcibly take my money from me to create such a monstrosity. Do you not get the effing difference?

Wait, of course he doesn't. What am I thinking?

Obama: If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.. go eff yourself.

Millions are losing their health insurance that they were promised they could keep. 

“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” Obama said at one rally in July 2009. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan.  Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”   

But the president's promise is turning out to be false for millions of Americans who have had their health insurance policies canceled because they don't meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. 

According to health policy expert Bob Laszewski, roughly 16 million Americans will lose their current plans because of Obamacare...

Yeah, you know what's the worst part about this? Those of you who actually pay attention at all didn't believe this. We have been banging the drum that this will turn out to be bullpaddies and tried to scream it from the mountaintops. Those getting the cancellation notices will be darn surprised.

It's amazing to me how these libs always are totally and completely surprised when a new bloated government wasteful program blows up in their faces as a failure. I guess I need to stop being surprised at their level of denial anymore.

500 millions lines of code for Healthcare.gov?

They must've charged by the line.

Small Government versus Less Government

DrewM at Ace of Spades hits it out of the park again and illustrates the fundamental divide between the GOP and Tea Party.

The Republican wing of the GOP (Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Senator Susan Collins, and Senator Bob Corker, etc) is interested not in “small government” but “smaller government”. “Smaller” than what? The answer to that is the key. Most often it’s not “smaller than we have now” it’s “smaller than the Democrats want it to be in the future but bigger than now”.

Indeed and the is the crux of the matter. Now he takes it through the differences between the establishment GOP and the Tea Party but I'd like to take it further to the democrats and leftists.

What is a conservative? What is the fundamental difference between a conservative an a liberal? If you do not believe that government is duty bound nor capable of providing for the people, then you are a conservative. The lesson is Obamacare. I don't need to link to the myriad of stories of how badly this thing is going. When you lose Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, ya got problems. But this is not an outlier, this is typical. Government is simply not an organization that can handle things like this because of the way it is set up. Congressmen, Senators, and Presidents all are political positions and their self-interests are all about getting votes. Promising freebies is the easiest and most cowardly way to get those votes.

A conservatives does not want freebies. He wants to take care of himself and have enough left over to enjoy life and help where he can. In essence, most everyone wants to redistribute wealth. A rich person giving to charity is indeed redistributing his wealth to the less fortunate. When he buys things, even yachts, he is helping those who work in that industry and a ton of other industries. (Remember my ketchup example.) No one sits and hoards his money and does nothing with it. The money would be worthless to them if they did. They purchase, they give.

A liberal wants someone else to decide where that money goes. He wants to take away that choice from you. If you are getting 30-50% of your salary taken by taxes, where does it go? Do you have a say on how it gets spent? And do you really, truly think that it is being spent competently? May I remind you of our brand new 290 million dollar website that can't even create a flat file correctly?

I believe most liberals (rank and file, not the far left) and conservatives want the same thing. But liberals will take away freedom to get it. And history shows that by putting the government in charge, you get much further away from the overall goal: prosperity for everyone.

Which brings me back to Drew's point. That the tea party understands this. The GOP does not. In fact I would not classify anyone who believes that "not as much government as what they want" is still in fact a liberal. The GOP is not conservative, only a few elected members can actually boast that label. The rest are liberal. Creating a program that takes away choice and spends only 100 billion is just as liberal as creating one that spends 900 billion. Now we are just haggling on price.

Until we as a people realize that we really don't need the government, we will continue to have these problems. As more and more people are dependent on the government for their very survival, it will be ugly and tough to get them off. For their betterment as human beings, we have to continue to fight.

There were no slaves in all my research that I can find who didn't want to be free. But we have a slave state again today. These slaves willingly stay that way. They are not required to work but in fact required NOT to. Their only requirement is to vote their masters into power. For this, they will be given public housing, food stamps, and an education that will tell them how much they owe to the government and how little hope they have because the rest of society will always be against them. Only the government can take care of you. No go out there and vote.

Their neighborhoods are awful. Their families are non-existent. They know that their lives are not right but they do not know why. They have no concept of freedom because they also have no concept of responsibility. We have effectively placed the shackles of fear and ignorance on them. It is not limited to inner city; indian reservations and poor rural communities all have the same problems.

The GOP is trying to keep these same ideas and programs in place that are the problem, not just simply how much money we spend, though that is a huge problem. These programs are sapping the souls of us as a people. Until they realize that, they are no better than the democrats.

Just do it!

Nancy Pelosi says just fix it! Thy will be done, I guess.

“I think somebody should fix it. Coming from where I do in California, I have great confidence in technology and its ability to bring fresh eyes to the subject and fix it so that we can go forward,” Pelosi told reporters. “Just fix it, just fix it.”

 This is just typical of her mindset. Just do it. People should have care just cause we passed a law. Guns will no longer hurt people cause we passed a law. Technology will magically work cause we passed a law. Global warming will stop cause we passed a law. We say it, so then magically it all works.

Hey Nancy, let me break it to you. You spent 290 million on a website that doesn't work. This is beyond failure, beyond incompetence. This is catastrophic. No one should spend that kind of money and not be able to get something to work. It goes beyond mere stupidity. There is only one word for this kind of horrible execution: Standard Government Practice.

I don't know how to understand a mindset that so willingly gives over their lives to a government that cannot do a simple task of making a website without completely effing things up. "Please, you screwed that up, please be in charge of my open-heart surgery now."

Obama: Shhh... Don't Tell People We Suck. Insurance Companies: I Think They Already Figured it Out

From National Review:

The Obama administration is not just refusing to release Obamacare’s signup numbers, a report from North Dakota suggests, they’re pressuring insurance companies not to release them. Per InForum, “North Dakota’s #1 news website”:

The Obama administration asked North Dakota’s largest health insurer not to publicize how many people have signed up for health insurance through a new online exchange, a company official says.

Obama in February: 

  “This is the most transparent administration in history,” Obama said during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout.

Today: Pffff whatEVs. We'll say whatever we wanna say.

Flashback to Ignorance

A quick reminder of how the media controls the message and why Obama gets elected. When we talk about low information voters, this is what we mean. This was just after the 2008 election. Republicans didn't take over the house until 2010 and hadn't had control of congress since 2006. Not so coincidentally, the economy went into the tank less than 2 years later.

Everything about liberals and democrats are not based in anything other than emotion and the media and democrats do a great job of tapping into that emotion. If you can boil down everything to fit on a bumper sticker, you are going to beat those that require you to get a little knowledge. Cause news and reading is like, boring and stuff.

Democrats Believe We Should String Up Ted Cruz by his Unmentionables for Daring to Question our Dear Leader

Or something like that.  I may be paraphrasing but only slightly.

On the activist website MoveOn.org, there are multiple petitions calling for Cruz and others to be charged with sedition. In one, the petition writer adopted a very broad and somewhat fuzzy standard under which Cruz should be sent to jail: "Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order," the petition says. "Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power." Another petition adds "insurrection" to Cruz's indictment.

Yup that's right. For doing what he is perfectly within his rights to do as a Senator, whether you agree with the tactic or not, he should be jailed and possibly put to death. Remember this is the party that cheered this:

No Hilary, not any administration. Just the Republican ones. Disagree with Democrat ones will get you jailed, if the party has its way. (It won't, by the way.)

*Update* I changed the title when re-reading the article, I could not find an actual number of 30,000 mentioned anywhere, even though the original tweet published that number. Still if anyone would like to go to the leftist web swamp and confirm that number, go right ahead. I personally try to stay away from sewage.

More Downers, or should I say Decline?

From Ace. 

This recession is going on and on. We can say it isn't, because there hasn't been negative growth. But there isn't exactly positive growth either. Stagnant is the best we can say about this economy. He is quite pessimistic:

Previous generations of politicians could reach agreements on taxing and spending by punting their differences to the next generation -- that is to say, where they could not agree, they could agree to borrow the difference, and expect the next generation to pick up the tab. 

This was never moral nor responsible but it was workable so long as each generation was wealthier than the last, so that the next generation would have the money to pay for the previous one's profligacy and irresponsibility. 

What happens when that is no longer true? 

We are about to enter a truly brutal phase of American politics, in which we will less and less be able to call in the wealth of the next generation as a way of papering over differences between segments of the population. For a long time to come, a Winner today will not make a Loser some time down the road (who cannot complain too much, as his loss will register in the future). 

Government-Mandated Winners will come at the expense of Government-Selected Losers in the here and now, people who can and will object. Passionately, and even, possibly, violently.

The United States has been, thusfar, exceptional in a fairly low level of social disorder and political violence. Such things plague most of the rest of the world, but the United States has mostly avoided such things.

But we avoided such things because we were always becoming richer, and could afford to float a certain amount of keep-the-peace debt.

But we've lost that exceptional advantage. The last big innovation in American industry was the internet, and while this does provide certain improvements in informational efficiency, it has nothing like the game-changing effects of the rise of mass production, or the rise of the steam engine and then the gas-powered engine, or the rise of electrification, the explosion in agricultural productivity, and so on.

 He goes on to say:

There will not be another big gain in American productivity, and hence American prosperity, until there is a similarly large breakthrough in a technology with wide economic implications.
Or a change in government policy. Which seems increasingly unlikely. 

Or a change in the national character, away from entitlement and sloth and towards self-reliance, hustle, and industry. Which seems increasingly... impossible.

I really want to take exception to this. In the 1930's we had the worst economy this nation ever faced but we recovered. The problem with the depression was the government policies of  make work programs instead were make worse programs. 

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943.

Typically the government in an attempt to help the little guy will put in policies that seem to help but actually work against the very thing they attempt to do. Minimum wage laws hurt teens and low wage workers by pricing them out of jobs for instance.

But in the thirties, the generation of people who then went through a World War were not the sort that wanted to sit around. "I ain't lookin' for charity." It was shameful to take handouts, they wanted work.

There was always a slothful percentage of the population, that will never change. We are humans. But several things have increased that percentage into the realm of unsustainable.

For the first time in American history, more of the population is receiving some sort of government money than is not. Nearly half of all Americans do not pay taxes. How many people demand.. not ask.. not request.. DEMAND something from the government? No dollar gets to the government without someone working and paying it and yet so many people think absolutely nothing of living off of other people's hard work. Many don't even know where the money comes from. If they don't get it, they riot.

Now less and less people are working as a percentage of the population. There are incentives to make it more attractive if the government suddenly starts endorsing personal responsibility. In this climate, that is not likely.

So it really comes down to my faith in the American people. Are we the type of people who define success and dignity as running out to the mailbox to get our government checks?

I sincerely hope not. But we have so many people that are unaware of how things work and why successful people are successful. There are more of them now than those that work.

And they vote. No one is going to vote against their own interests. Once on the dole, they aren't going to vote people who want to kick them off. Whether it's student loans or paying for your home loan or welfare checks, so many people will not vote to for that kind of change.

So I get where Ace is coming from. Detroit is in ruins, having been run exclusively by democrats for the last 50-60 years and yet any person in that city will blame republicans. The press will blame republicans even though there hasn't been anything remotely resembling a conservative in that city for years. Hey, the left runs the schools, why should we be surprised?

One wonders how this country is sustainable as more and more fall under the government spell. The constitution is our last bulwark against this.

I think we have farther to fall. But I also think that there is enough free press out there, enough expectations for a better life that when we hit bottom, there will be a change. Or rather a change back.

For most of history of this world, man lived under some sort of oppressive and powerful government, from the Pharaohs to King George. The odds of creating a free society in 1776 was astronomical but it happened. The taste of self reliance and freedom has been given to too many people. I don't know what will happen. Perhaps we kick the blue states out of the union. Perhaps a new generation will say enough. Perhaps it will slowly over time just become more free, law by law, regulation by regulation.

But it will happen. There are still many of us who want freedom. We want the responsibility that comes with it, indeed is the root of freedom for without it, there isn't any freedom. We will have it.

Even if we have to let the country fall on its face to make it happen.

The Petulant Ungrateful Liberal (but I repeat myself)

So I've had this story on the back burner for a couple of days and I want to get into it.

EBT card users are threatening to stage Rodney King-style riots in Los Angeles if the electronic food stamp system crashes again, following Saturday’s failure which prompted looting at several Walmart stores. 

An EBT card user interviewed ... comments, “They better resolve something because if it stays like this there’s gonna be an uproar in the city of L.A.” When the man is asked to clarify, he respond, “A Rodney King baby!” 

The man is referring to the 1992 L.A. riots, spurred by the Rodney King beating, which resulted in 53 deaths, 2,000 injuries and over $1 billion dollars in property damages.

Let me ask you liberals something. How many of you turn your nose up at the rich kid who's daddy or family gets them everything? (Unless they are a Kennedy.)  Usually the mostly accurate stereotype is they are ungrateful spoiled brats. But it has nothing to do with the amount of money they have, it's that they never had to EARN it.

So money handed out by the government results in the same spoiled brat behavior. At least the rich kid gets to dress well.

And take it away and they throw a fit. This is one of the essences of conservatism, learn how to take care of yourself. Don't be dependent on anyone as much as possible for your well-being. Earning your own way through life by making yourself valuable, through whatever skill you have to offer, doesn't just earn you a better paycheck. It gives you a sense a self worth that is impossible to receive through government dependency.

People who succeed and do well are more likely to give back. They don't have to be forced to do it. Conversely those who don't earn are not grateful when they take from those that do. They are nasty, awful people. Perpetually unhappy and the tragedy is that don't even know why. Of course they blame everyone else. And why not? They given the responsibility of their very well being over to others. And yet, somehow, the left believes that those politicians who are elected care about those people's well being.

I know, you will hit me with the usual buzzwords about corporations. Greedy, in it for profit, etc etc. All people, no matter public sector or private sector are in it for themselves. Please find me these angels in the government. In the DMV? Perhaps the zero tolerance school officials who punish students for trying to do the right thing and then send their lawyer in to lie about it? How about Mayors of big cities who grope their employees while preaching women's rights?

In the private sector, you have choices. There is no chance you will not run into bad people. But if you get screwed by the government, what is your option? Go to the government down the street? If they are looting social security, who do you call? In the private sector, there are always options, if you're willing to take some risk, if you've made yourself valuable.

Liberals are petulant children. It amazes me the supposed "free spirit" people who love to "express themselves" and don't want to be preached to are so quick to hand over everything important in their lives to an all-powerful authority. Take care of me! I just want to play Xbox and have all the sex I want with no consequences! Pay for health care? Whatever!

Children need to be taken care of. Adults take care of themselves.

50% of this nation are children. They look like adults but take away their allowance that they did nothing to earn and they will throw a tantrum. Just like a rich, spoiled brat. Riot, looting, it doesn't matter. They value nothing because they don't value themselves. And those in power have successfully devalued an entire generation of human beings.

The only person hurt by the rich spoiled brat is the parents blowing money on him. Spoiled recipients of the government hurt all of us, including themselves. The parents at least chose to spoil their brat. I have no choice as a taxpayer.

It's our fault, we didn't want to grow up and we willingly have given up our responsibilities cause stuff is hard. And with no responsibilities, there is no freedom.

But at least the health care is free, right?

Oh.

The Stupid! It Burns!

Wow. I've rolled out websites in the past and I can tell you that for something this massive, a two day test is .... well "woefully inadequate" is a woefully inadequate description.

As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said… 

“Normally a system this size would need 4-6 months of testing and performance tuning, not 4-6 days,” the individual said. 

The source said there were “ever-changing, conflicting and exceedingly late project directions. The actual system requirements for Oct. 1 were changing up until the week before,” the individual said.

Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg on this story.

Gregg Collett -- Idaho Tea Party Candidate with 10 Kids on Medicaid. Hypocrite, right?

**Update** I say he is a candidate, he WAS in 2012 and lost the primary. If he's running 2014 for anything, I don't see any official announcement. Still, this really changes nothing I wrote below. **

Well that's the headline from far-left website Addicting Info. Still, this does seem pretty damning on the surface. While I have little use for hypocrites, I do toss the term on the left quite a bit. Of course we aren't going to give the people we disagree with any slack, human nature. We excuse those we agree with and slaughter those we disagree with. Those that are "not us" are the enemy, as Ace once so eloquently opined.

But I also don't really trust those on the left to be fair minded. I have many times disagreed with Newsbusters in getting real nitpicky about those on the left being .. well leftist. Of course they are. You may not like it, I certainly don't agree with their opinions but we shouldn't be surprised about it. But I've never seen any leftist be anything but cutthroat to those they disagree with.

So that all being said, I take this as an opportunity to test someone who I agree with on a number of issues but may be perceived as a hypocrite for taking government money.

First Addicting Info:

Collett discusses his philosophy regarding health insurance 

A number of sites have highlighted Greg Collett’s story over the past few days. Apparently enough attention has been pointed in his direction that he felt it necessary to respond. His campaign website has a notice on the home page directing the curious to a page containing his response. 

Regarding why he does not carry health insurance: 

If government is properly left out of the equation, individuals are to take responsibility for their own situations. If they cannot meet their obligations, they should turn to their families for support. If families are not able to help, they should go to churches or other charitable organizations for assistance. Government should not be involved, period. 

Collett stresses that he pays his medical bills, and offers the following observation: 

I want to make it very clear that the only reason taxpayers pick up the bill for those that do not pay is strictly due to government mandates to health care providers that violate the proper role of government. 

Is he saying what he seems to be saying? Because what he seems to be saying is that the government should not require that hospitals treat patients who cannot afford their treatment. This echoes the sentiment of the crowd members who yelled “let him die!” at a 2011 Republican debate.

Jeez where do I begin? First off, the "Let him die!" myth. No one ever yelled that:

One problem: No one shouted "Let him die" at the Republican debate televised on CNN and hosted by Wolf Blitzer. As Times Watch reported back on September 23, 2011 after the paper first forwarded this falsity as fact: "It was debate moderator Wolf Blitzer who actually used the words 'let him die,' when asking candidate Ron Paul a loaded question about letting a hypothetical man die for lack of health insurance. There is no auditory evidence anyone at all in the crowd shouted such a thing...."

So this yahoo has to use a lie to make his point. I now treat everything written as suspect information. Let's start with the claim that he wants the government to not require hospitals to treat patients. Here's the expanded quote and his entire rebuttal can be found here.

I want to make it very clear that the only reason taxpayers pick up the bill for those that do not pay is strictly due to government mandates to health care providers that violate the proper role of government. Those who are worried about taxpayers picking up the tab should direct their energies into changing public policy rather than attacking individuals who make the decision to not carry insurance. As much as some might want to believe otherwise, it is the public policy that is absolutely wrong, not the decision of the individual. The public has been socialized into accepting many falsehoods over time, leading to our current mess of government policies regarding health, medicine, health care, and insurance. 

Those who insist that the taxpayer will end up footing the bill have also just inadvertently lost all standing for arguing the need for a public welfare program for health care. If uninsured individuals just end up getting bailed out by taxpayers, why do we need programs like Medicaid or "Obamacare"?

What Gregg is talking about here is not "Health Care" but the payment of services. Is he saying that hospitals should be allowed to turn people away that need care? I don't believe so, he is saying that the system of public programs that have been pushed on to the American people, whether we want them or not has colored our idea of how health care should work. The heart of it is that the left thinks that without the government, hospitals would be some sort of ticket taking, check your credit before you can enter type of place. Instead of the institutionalized, hours long in the waiting room like it is in Canada now.

The best and most long lived charitable and social organizations in this country started in the late 1800's, during a time the left would have you believe the "robber barons" stole everything from this country. The Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army to name but two. You know what? The Salvation Army is still helping people but the EBT program went on the fritz during the shutdown. The government programs are all controlled by people whose primary interest is their political future. The Salvation Army is controlled by people whose primary interest is helping people. So a government charity will always have problems, will always have corruption and will always be less helpful to the people it's supposed to help than to the people that run it.

And that's what I believe Gregg is trying to convey, that the government as a system of charity will always hurt more people than it helps. That it's up to us to do these things on our own. Nature abhors a vacuum. We will as a people try to help whenever we can. These there is always someone who will start philanthropic organizations to help people in a variety of ways. And it's usually those evil rich people who made tons of money who do it. Jerry Lewis with the MDA. Bill Gates has tons of them. Yes, even far left Susan Sarandon has a lot charities she does with the money she made as an actress. Passionate people are always more effective than government.

Now let's talk about the attacks on the man's personal life. He has too many kids and he uses government programs he himself opposes. Let's look at two opinions on the matter:

First off, if you think a person has too many or too few kids, go screw yourself. It is not your business.

Secondly, if you use the government programs to support those kids, you make it everyone's business because taxpayers have to foot the bill.

I would say that both of those statements are true in the current system we live in. The first statement is basic human rights that can't be changed but the second involves tax and spend policies that we can change. If there weren't government programs, the taxes wouldn't be so high. And then a person pursuing his happiness on a software developer's salary would have a much easier time doing so because the government wouldn't be taking so much of his salary.

Now let's follow the dominos as they fall. If everyone was taking care of themselves and had more money in their pockets, the economy would be in better shape. If the economy was in better shape, companies would be expanding. When companies expand, they require more workers. More jobs mean workers are at a premium which means salaries go up. So now Mr. Gregg has more money from a higher salary and from government taking less.

And government would win too since the pie is bigger and more revenue is coming in. But it must restrain itself in creating these well-meaning but ultimately failing programs so that it does not spend more than what comes in. Instead, it helps the organizations like the Salvation Army through tax deductions and such.

Milton Freedman and Adam Smith spoke of the invisible hand going through a free society making everything better as time goes on. Not every single person benefited because those who make bad choices will have consequences happen but facing those consequences reduced the amount of bad choices. If you have government handing out money with no requirements, people can stay on drugs and alcohol without facing those consequences of those bad choice. But the rest of us will find ways to succeed through hard work and innovation. More often than not, everyone benefits from the innovator's success.

I've never worked for Microsoft but I owe a lot to Bill Gates. I have worked hard thanks to his company's products and will be able to support my family and myself comfortably because of it, much better than I ever would living off the government.

Gregg's point is that the system that's in place forces him to take money. I have also adopted two children, I know what he's talking about. I was fortunate in not having to go through the foster system to do it but I do remember what the process was if I had chosen that route and it wasn't pretty. With the way the government has wrecked the economy, how it's keeping people from getting ahead with it's punitive tax system and providing services poorly but at a cost that gives people really NO CHOICE (I thought the left loved choice?) but take those services, Gregg feels trapped in a system that derides him for his choices to try to provide homes for children.

This is a man who wants to adopt and give children a loving home. The government has put him in a no-win situation. If he doesn't take the kids, they get no home but he gets to keep his principles of not taking government money. If he takes the kids, they have set the playing field and the rules so in order to make sure the kids are cared for, he has to take taxpayers money.

So the left rigs the game and then derides those who would like to change it because once forced into it, they realize how bad it is? And now he's a hypocrite?

No. He's not. He appears to me someone who has dealt with the bureaucracy and has had enough. He wants to change it. He freely and openly admits to using what he feels is a bad system. He is transparent and honest about his desire for change.

My advice to Mr Collett: You speak well in various academic tones about the concepts of freedom and government overreach. Make it personal. Show why your desire for change is so fierce. Show how frustrated you are with the system. Show how if the taxes weren't so bad and if the market was running the health care system, how much easier it would be. How you could be free of bureaucrats telling you what forms you have to fill out, what rules you have to follow. How bad the foster care system is to the kids and how much better off the ones you adopted are without it.

Repeat and repeat and repeat some more. Good luck to you sir.

Boooooooosh!!!!

These are voters, folks.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz climbs out of the bunny hole for a rare moment of reality.

From Hot air. Listen Debbie, you have a country of 300 million people and you basically sold them on this health care debacle. Even if it was the tens of millions you say are uninsured and need this, IT people should have designed this better.

And I'm willing to bet that they did but were overruled by political hacks who run these departments for one reason or another. Incompetence is a resume enhancement in the government.

Wow, more people than thought would clamor for what they perceived would be free health care? You are surprised by this?

Check out the Chicago Tribune, Debs. They outline this pretty well. Surprising too for them.

Moderate = Reasonable?

One of the guys I really respect is Bernard Goldberg. But there are times we disagree and today's column is one of those times. 

Bernard calls the conservative wing of the GOP the suicide party. To be fair, he does call the moderate wing the "establishment" once, a term that has become derogatory in the conservative circles. But really, the labeling is out of control on this column. What does all this come down to? Let's tear into this.

The majority – sometimes known as the establishment — can’t trust the populist wing of the party – sometimes known as the suicide wing – to do what’s best for the GOP’s prospects … and they can’t nuke them either.  It’s never smart to go to war with your base. 

According to two new polls, Republicans are taking most of the blame for the partial government shutdown. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 70 percent of American adults disapprove of the way congressional Republicans are handling budget negotiations.  Sixty-one percent disapprove of Democrats. As for President Obama, his approval rating actually went up, to 45 percent, from 41 percent at the end of September.

So what? The election is a year away. These daily polls are silly and stupid. People do not keep up a level of emotion about this all the way to election time. Anyone remember the last budget battle? Or more specifically, does anyone think the budget battles are what got Barack Obama elected? Low information voters got Barack Obama elected and that's who's getting polled.

Do these people even know what the battle is about? What are the stakes? What's a CR? Why does the debt ceiling affect us? Why does a government shut down affect you? And should it? There are basic fundamental questions about the role of government in our lives that people don't understand. If they are coming from a place of ignorance, what the hell good are an approval poll's numbers?

Yet the suicide wing of the party says “We did the right thing.  We stood up for our principles.”  That’s usually a good thing.  But in politics you have to have a plan.  And Senator Ted Cruz and the House populists didn’t.  They're a minority in the GOP, but a loud and at times menacing minority.  And so the more moderate (read that “reasonable”) Republicans went along with their silly scheme first to repeal ObamaCare  and when that didn't work, to defund it.  Memo to the suicide wing:  Don’t go to war without a plan.  Don't enter a conflict without an endgame.  Don't pick a fight you can't win.

Here's the thing, we know what works and what doesn't. Anyone who knows basic economics history or who has read anything Thomas Sowell has written will understand what causes some of the issues that we are having right now, regulations and taxes. Ted Cruz and the tea party GOP knows these things as well. I agree that there should be a plan. But at this time, their power is limited. The only fight they can pick is one they cannot win.

Now when democrats go into rallies or when the crazy Texas state senator filibusters the right to kill the unborn, she may have lost but she "raised awareness," a phrase I am so utterly disgusted with anymore. If you're not aware of what's going on in age of 24 hour cable news and an internet with so much information at your fingertips the likes of which has never been seen in the history of humanity, you aren't trying. In fact you are actively and purposely trying to be stupid.

So why when a democrat cause fights a losing battle, they are raising awareness and when a republican does it, they are part of the suicide wing? The moderates allowing Obamacare, a policy we KNOW will fail and cause damage, are reasonable? It's reasonable to allow damage and destruction of the health care system? It's reasonable to double premiums on the poor? It's reasonable to blow 94 million on a website that doesn't work?  Why are these moderates, who keep retreating and capitulating to these failed policies, reasonable?

The good news scenario for Republicans is that the American people may yet turn on the president. They may at some point see him as uncompromising and obstinate and start to shift blame over to him for the mess in Washington. 

The bad news scenario is that this won’t happen, that the GOP brand is so tarnished that the party will continue to take the lion share of the blame and that they’ll stand no chance of taking over the Senate next year.  It’s not likely they would lose the House, but if you offend enough voters, anything is possible.

Yeah but why are voters so offended by what the GOP is trying to do? It couldn't be that the hostile press is turning everything the tea party is trying to accomplish into "GOP hates black president." "Tea Party is Racist and hates poor people." "Republicans only want to help their big business buddies." When the message is twisted, how is that the tea party's fault?

Now the GOP is bad about messaging. They assume everyone understands the fundamentals of economics. Memo to tea party: You have to start talking to the American people as if they are in grade school. Now here is the tricky part: You cannot treat them as immature children. The economic knowledge of most Americans is woeful but they are not stupid. They are distracted. They are pumped full of pop-culture and they are given information overload, especially by a press that twists and slants everything towards the democrats.

Most of the "reasonable" GOPers want to get on talk shows. They are very worried about impressing the talking head set in the beltway and everything they say sounds the same, is phrased the same, and is designed to make them look reasonable to the people that are in front of them. This is human nature, you are going to try to influence those that are closest to you. This is the mentality that Reagan shunned. He didn't really care about the pundit class. He spoke plainly and openly, but never condescendingly, directly to the American people.

The tea party and GOP wing needs to figure out how to do that. How will Obamacare affect you personally? How does the national debt affect you, Mr. John Q Public? Why is printing money bad? Pick a regulation and make it a personal story of how someone got damaged. There's no shortage of them. The GOP is very good about finding a soldier during wartime and telling his story and then pinning a medal on him. It humanizes the armed forces. Do the same with these crushing taxes, regulations, and idiotic policies.

As for you Mr. Goldberg, I know you come from a place of wanting the GOP to succeed. But even if the fight cannot be won, agreeing with policies we absolutely know to be destructive isn't the answer. And telling the people who are trying to fight those policies that they are "suicidal" while those capitulating are "reasonable" is part of the reason we are in this mess in the first place.

Obamacare website was no-bid, company contract.

Competition, the bane of government.

Anyone remember how furious the left was with Halliburton? A no bid contract to go in and clean up a war zone. Problem was that Halliburton was the only company that does the kind of dangerous work that Halliburton does. Last I checked, there are LOTS of web design companies.

Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance. 

CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal. 

Instead, it appears they used what amounts to a federal procurement system loophole to award the work to the Canadian firm.

Ok, not to be a dick to our neighbors to the north, but really. You couldn't find one, NOT ONE U.S. firm to do this? Aren't jobs a big deal right now? Yes, I know it's a US Subsidiary, but come on. 94 million for this?

They do have a PAC but who doesn't nowadays? They were approved during the Bush administration. In the end, this is how the government does business a lot, badly. Money taken is never taken seriously.

Moar Awesomeness with Obamacare

Cause government makes everything better!

“I believe everybody should be able to have health insurance, but at the same time, I’m being penalized. And for what?” said Weldzius, who is not offered insurance through his employer. “For someone who’s always had insurance, who’s always taken care of myself, now I have to change my plan?” 

That’s right — not only have premiums doubled in the individual markets, the coverage has gotten worse in a very concrete way. 

The piper always have to be paid, everything has a price. Katherine Sebelius said that the healthcare.org was necessary because there has never been a place where people could shop and choose. To which I say bullshit, bullshit, unbelievable bullshit. I went out and found my own a couple of years ago. Found quotes and everything. Now that same insurance is twice as expensive and a third of the coverage directly because of Obamacare.

Chiefs Season Goes from Improbable to Magical

A quick divergence here. This season for us Chiefs fans is nothing short of miraculous. Let me take you back to last year and move us forward and you tell me if Hollywood could script it better. The ending is still up in the air and everything could fall flat but for now, am I enjoying the ride.

In 2012 the Chiefs were a dumpster fire. Matt Cassel's intended receivers appeared to be the other team's corners. Romeo Crennel infamously told reporters he had no idea what was going on out on the field. Scott Pioli, the former general manager, was more interested in pointing out candy wrappers on the stairs than actually fostering a atmosphere of creativity and trust. His first head coach, Todd Haley, looked like he fell out of a boxcar just prior to the games. They finished 2-14 with the first overall pick in the draft.

In December the unthinkable happened as Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend 9 times and then went to the stadium and shot himself in front of Scott Pioli, Romeo Crennel, and linebackers coach Gary Gibbs. Whatever we may think of the job they did, they didn't deserve to have to see that.

Andy Reid had horrible tragedy of his own earlier that year as his son died of an overdose just before the season started. The Eagle's head coach of 14 seasons would go on to have the most dismal season of his career.

Reid spent the past 14 years coaching the Eagles. The 54-year-old was hired in 1999 and ends his career in Philadelphia with an overall record of 140-102-1. Under Reid, the Birds made the playoffs nine times, won six division titles, played in five NFC Championship Games and lost one Super Bowl.

After a record like that, you'd think he would not be dismissed so quickly, especially given the tragedy in his life. But football is a business, as they say. A 4-12 record isn't tolerated.

After the 2012 season, both the Chiefs and Andy Reid needed a fresh start. Clark Hunt cleaned house, brought in John Dorsey as the general manager and Reid as the new head coach.

It was clear from any fan's point of view that something was different at 1 Arrowhead Drive. The players weren't so guarded in interviews anymore. Andy Reid seemed comfortable and a guy. Injury reports weren't treated like national security documents. Off the record comments from employees said the Chiefs finally feel like a professional organization again.

And then they did the unthinkable. They went 6-0.

Now I don't know how long this ride is going to last. This may be the last stop. But I don't think so. Yesterday the fans broke the noise record at Arrowhead stadium. A reclamation, if you will. The defense played not just like the defenses of the nineties, but better. There is life and spark back into this town that has washed away the issues of the last several seasons.

If they go all the way, and that's a big if, what a story it is, both for Reid and the Chiefs. An organization as battered and damaged as any I've ever seen and a coach who was battered and dismissed badly. Both the organization and the coach went through dire tragedy. Both have found success and I don't think anyone or any team is more deserving.

Go Chiefs.

Who cares if it didn't work?!

Whenever I see a story like this I am reminded of Dick Jones from Robocop.



The pull quote:

“It’s been a flop, and the amount of energy that goes into producing a gallon of ethanol is a lot. Twenty-eight gallons of water to produce a gallon of gas, 170 gallons, I guess, to produce a gallon of ethanol,” he said. 

“There’s not been an environment benefit; there’s actually been an environmental detriment and there’s been an economic detriment to many sectors of the economy, even though there’s been a significant benefit to the Corn Belt,” Welch said. 

Even so, the EPA has utterly refused to back down from their… a policy with which the White House is clearly on board, given their veto threat of the mandate’s repeal.

Of course. We have subsidies to voting blocks. We have guaranteed donations from ethanol manufacturers. Who cares whether it works or not?!

The reformulation of gasoline that has been happening every six months has done nothing, zero, nada to help the environment. It only helped liberals feel better about themselves driving cars. Never mind that it hurts the environment cause we hate oil companies. The high prices are on the EPA, not the oil companies.

Ok we don't have a deal so we have to shut down the government to save money. And that means.. spending money?

I don't get it. I really don't get it. I super-duper don't get it.

So we spend money on people to get barricades to shut down a war memorial that didn't require any personnel to begin with?  This wouldn't be political theater, would it?

Believe it or not, I'm not for government shutdown. But I am for lots and lots of reform. You tell me that there isn't a ton of wasteful crap that doesn't need to be running, there isn't any middle management or unnecessary spending? We have to go right after things like War memorials?

But Republicans, while they may be doing the right thing, can't explain themselves out of a wet paper bag.  Let me let you GOP members in on a little secret. A country caught up in the going ons of Honey Boo Boo is not going to have the basics down when it comes to laws and politics, let alone economics. Don't talk to the people like they are four year olds, but do start explaining things on a basic level. Tell the people the why's and the consequences in non-beltway terms. What you are trying to accomplish and why it's a benefit to the country. Don't assume when you say terms like "CR" that everyone that needs to know that means "Continuing Resolution" knows it. And then don't assume they understand what a "Continuing Resolution" means.

Democrats use terms like "extremist" and "racist" not just because they are attack words but also they are very easy to understand. Being conservative means being properly educated and since Liberals are the ones running academia, I wouldn't assume people who have been through public education have been properly educated on this.

If they were, maybe shows like the ones the Kardashians star in wouldn't exist.

If Obamacare was in Star Wars

For some reason known only to my random synapse firings, I thought that replacing the phrase "the Force" with Obamacare made Star Wars take on a whole meaning. I then just let the randomness continue.

"You don't believe in Obamacare, do you?"
"Kid I've been to one end of this galaxy to the other, I've seen a lot of strange things. But I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's an all-powerful Obamacare controlling everything. Successfully."

"Obamacare?"
"Obamacare is what gives a bureaucrat his power. It surrounds us, penetrates us, it binds the country together." (Binds sounds really ominous in this context.)

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of Obamacare."

"I want to come with you. There's nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of Obamacare and become a bureaucrat like my father."

"You don't know the power of Obamacare!"

"Stretch out with your feelings! Forget about things like math."

"A Jedi's strength flows from Obamacare."
"So it controls your actions?"
"Yup."

"For my ally is Obamacare, and a powerful ally it is. Taxes create it, make it grow. Its energy surrounds us and ties us down. Luminous beings we were, now we're just crude voters. You must feel Obamacare around you; here, between you, me, the tree, your wallet, everywhere, yes. Even between you and your freedom."

"But I can help them! I have Obamacare!"
"But you cannot control it. Or even log into it."

"Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating the healthcare.gov site is approximately 3,720 to 1."
"Never tell me the odds."

"Did you hear that? They've shut down the private sector. This is madness Artoo."

"Let me see your identification."
"You don't need to see his identification."
"The hell I don't, troublemaker. We got another Vet trying to visit his own memorial! TASE HIM!"

"Aren't you a little incompetent for a president?"

"Hokey bureaucracies and ancient ideas are no match for a good glock at your side."

"If there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet it's farthest from."
"Washington D.C.?"

Why is Obamacare wrong?

In my earlier post, I got into it with a twidiot who is just enamored with ACA. Of course it's going to be perfect in his mind. People are just going to get health care now. Why would I want to deny universal health care? People are dying in the streets, why don't you want people to get care?

There are so many fallacies to what people believe about health care. Let's list them, shall we?

1. Health care is a right. -- No it's not. What is a "right?" What does a "right" require? It should not require anything from other people. If you make something a right that requires someone else's work or property, you have taken away a "right" from someone else. If I, as a sick person, deserve health care because it's a right, who do I enslave to get care? What if all the doctors decide it's just not worth it anymore. They'd rather be carpenters or research scientists or (God forbid) community organizers. We don't force people into professions but you have determined that your health care is a right and the law is on your side, what is the next logical step other than force?

Liberals scoff at this but there is a fundamental question on who is to provide you your "right"? Why is forcing doctors any different than forcing taxpayers to pay for it? Why not cut out the middleman and go from door to door in your neighborhood and demand, at gunpoint, your neighbors pay for your gall bladder surgery? (and if you think taxes aren't forcibly removed from you, please stop paying and let me know how long it takes for the people with guns to show up at your door. It may be years, but they WILL show up.)

2. You don't care about sick people. -- This is the typical lib pull at your heart strings argument. If you don't want universal health care then you don't care about sick people. This assumes that only the government can take care of you, an idea I find disgusting. But allow my hero, Thomas Sowell to explain:




The government is wrought with failure. "But it works in Canada", you say? Does it?


First of all, find me the hospital that refused treatment. As for coverage refusal, my father had a heart attack and was able to get coverage very reasonably less than two years later. The problem isn't that there isn't enough government in health care, it's that there's too much. No health care competition across the state lines for instance. Competition breeds value and lower prices and we have none of it thanks to the laws. Laws the precious government put in place.

We are arguing not about whether people are getting cared for but who has to pay for it and how much. But how can costs be controlled when this is happening year after year:


So why, please tell me WHY should we believe that THIS time it will work. This time, there will be no waste of money. This time, the poor won't get hurt by the very thing you put in to help them, like minimum wage laws do. This time will be different. Except it's already not.

In California, 1.9 million people buy plans on the open market, according to officials with Covered California, the state’s new health insurance exchange. And many of them are steaming mad. 

“There’s going to be a number of people surprised” by their bills, said Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of ValuePenguin, a consumer finance website. “The upper-middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill, and that’s true across the country.”

We are using the exact same things that failed us in the past. Housing reform with Fannie and Freddie destroyed the housing market. Government sponsored energy initiatives gave us $3.50 gas and lost money into companies like Solyndra. The state education program has given us less educated students, more drop outs, and lots more debt. Medicare is racked with fraud and abuse. Welfare and public housing give people hopelessness and horrible places to live. New Orleans and Detroit had people who depended solely on the government for their very well being and the crooks and corruption let them down.

Greed isn't in the private sector nearly as much as Oliver Stone would like you to believe. Head to your capital and see how the pros engage in greed. You really think Obama has your best interests in mind by taking your health care responsibility from you?

Wow. Look. It cost more. Who would've thunk it. I am so surprised.

From Ace. 

As you may have read, I got into it a few weeks back in Twitter with an Obamazombie regarding how bad Obamacare is. His main point was I hate poor people and I want them to stay sick. Unfortunately with Obamacare, he's going to get what he thinks I want.

Did I say Frontier Airlines suck? I meant blow.

Less time painting the tails with cute animals and more time putting customer service reps in place please.

So ok, let me preface this by saying weather is not Frontier's fault. I get it, weather happens and when Denver is your main hub and a snow storm goes by along with terrible winds, well shit happens. It's how the airline handles things that is the problem.

So we get to the airport at 2:00 pm for a 5:15 flight. The line to the Frontier desk is somewhere around 473 miles long. We wait in line for 2 hours with no explanation for why it's taking so long. Then they start splitting the line up. If it weren't for people looking online with their phones and whatnot, we wouldn't know what was going on. A person could come out and make an announcement occasionally but no, we had to hopefully figure it out. This is compounded by the fact the boards are not updating at all. Nothing is saying it's delayed, everything is supposedly on-time. Now other airlines are showing issues, so why not Frontier. That's the airport's job? I'm not sure how those boards work. I know other airlines were updating just fine. Again, not Frontier.

As we are waiting, we are seeing people get turned away. They can't get them to their destination. Bismark is snowed in. Sucks, but I get it. Then a guy going to Cincinnati is told he can't get there until Tuesday. Um, uh-oh. We finally get to the counter. The lady helpfully answers the phone as she is working on our flights to make sure that we can't speak to her in any meaningful way. Fortunately our flights are only delayed by an hour or so and we should even make our connecting flights which are also delayed.

Then she hands us a boarding pass. One. Not two, one for this flight and one for the connecting flight, just one. She then gives us some story on how they don't always print for the connecting flight. My wife, who has been a real trooper up to this point, gives her the EYE and demands to see a manager or get us our second pass. (Those of you who are husbands are well aware of the power of a wife's eye.) Sure enough, the second pass is printed. What kind of bullshit is this?

Again, I don't want to be unfair. Weather does throw things off and that can't be helped. Better communication to those in line, transparency, and some extra help for those ticket takers would've alleviated all of this. Sure it still might have taken a while but at least people would know why. That little bit of knowledge defuses all kinds of bad feelings.