As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey.
Thomas A. Edison
Earlier One-Off Post: Bill O'Reilly, Will You PLEASE Shut the Hell Up?
Chart of the Day: Hospitals' Medicaid Federal Dollar Match Tax Scam
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| Courtesy of Independent Institue |
Guest Quotation of the Day
"I am opposed to the attack on freedom in whatever form it may come. I am opposed to the Soviets and I am opposed to Mussolini. For the same reason also, I am opposed to the rapidly growing bureaucracy in this country. I am opposed to a Federal Department of Education; I am opposed to monopolistic public schools; I am opposed to a standardization that treats human beings as though they were Ford cars." -- theologian and classical liberal J. Gresham Machen, 1933. (HT Lawrence Reed)Tweet of the Day
But what is truly radical about Senator Paul is his relatively modest conception of what government can and should be http://t.co/q0PvYnyQws
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) August 9, 2014
Pssst. I have a Twinkie in my locker with your name on it--just $1.50..... http://t.co/ExqVXAXaV2
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) August 9, 2014
It was 40 years ago today;from the White House,Nixon went away. Memories of Watergate must not decay.From the Constitution, we cannot stray.
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) August 9, 2014
Pro-Liberty Thought of the Day
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| Via Bastiat Institute |
I LOVE Houston and Liberation From Local Zoning Fascists
Houston, my home for 7 years, where I earned two of my graduate degrees. I need me some Goode Company BBQ. I've been trying to return to anywhere Texas (except its asshole, El Paso, where I served a one-year sentence on the UTEP faculty) for years: Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio...
Oh, but ain't that America
For you and me
Ain't that America
Something to see, baby
Ain't that America
Home of the free, yeah
Little pink houses
For you and me
Oooh, little baby
For you and me
Facebook Corner
Pssst. I have a Twinkie in my locker with your name on it--just $1.50.....
(Independent Institute). Senior Fellow Robert Higgs: " To kill another huge number of people—men, women, and children, prisoners of war, foreigners, and other innocent persons in the city—was a war crime, plain and simple. That many Americans continue, even today, to defend this senseless and flagrantly brutal act is shameful."
The gullible Statist fools in this threat. In fact, Gen. MacArthur presented FDR a Japanese offer of surrender in early 1945 as chronicled by a Chicago Tribune reporter; the only condition was they wanted to retain their emperor, a nonmilitary, facesaving condition we ended up accepting anyway. FDR called MacArthur a great general but lousy politician and turned it down. The troll who argued 400k to a million lost is spouting a lie; actual estimates were less than 50K for an invasion. MacArthur, Eisenhower, and others disagreed with Truman's war crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan has few natural resources, its supply lines were cut; its military was sharply degraded, and Russia was ready to join the battle. If the Allies had lost the war, they would have been put on trial and convicted for crimes against humanity for the bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki; I'm ashamed that fellow Americans participated in unprincipled, direct attacks on innocent civilians--totally inexcusable. Higgs is spot on.
(Drudge Report). Do you stand with Rand?
Definitely. He's the only viable strict Constitutionalist candidate in the field, he's unlikely to lead us into foreign adventures that frivolously chew up American lives and treasure, and unlike the other same old same old candidates whom embrace repellent policies like economically perverse and immoral anti-immigrationist views that turn off most people (a key factor in Romney's defeat), Rand Paul brings more voters into play with new, fresh ideas.
(separately: it's likely Drudge removed my earlier comment(s) because I could no longer find it. If and when I find that I have my comments purged, my immediate response is "unlike". Drudge has lost his feed privileges and my promotion of his content. I have found Drudge to be a neocon shill and unduly provocative, especially on immigration. I used to visit his home page multiple times daily; these days I can go weeks between visits.)
Most DEFINITELY. Rand is the ONLY Constitutionalist among listed viable candidate. He's more pragmatic, less strident than his dad, a better politician. He will be the major alternative to the Clinton/Bush/Obama plaque on American politics over the past generation, the end of foreign meddling run amok.
No as his foreign policies are naive at best.
As if your typical neocon troll in this thread knows how to do anything than get people killed and throw your grandkid's taxes down the toilet for any foreign mess they're not smart enough to realize is none of their business and unfixable...
(IPI). The Affordable Care Act was supposed to cut Illinois’ eligible uninsured population in half by the end of March 2014. But it turns out it only cut the rate by a quarter. Naomi Lopez Bauman, our Director of Health Policy, breaks those numbers down on Fox Chicago News.
The idea that young people could be forced by mandate to buy artificially high premium policies to cross-subsidize an older, sicker population is falling below projections when the penalty is far less than the cost of coverage? Say it ain't so, Joe... This shows the ultimate failure of fascist medicine. Note that RomneyCare was implemented when the uninsured was less than 10%--and did NOT eliminate the uninsured problem. Who would ever guess that lower-income people couldn't afford even discounted five-figure policies, among the highest in the nation? Go figure.....
No bail out of insurance companies. http://www.foxnews.com/.../more-obamacare-woes-congress.../
End ObamaCare immediately.
I'm not sure that the term "bailout" applies here, because this is an artificial Statist market where participants are forced to take on the Progressive perverse policies of guaranteed issue and community rating--in essence, they are forced to take customers whom lose money for them from day 1. This would be like if a state required grocery stores to sell milk, bread and other staples below cost and to sell to all consumers. If customers only buy below cost items, the store would go out of business.
The point that Rubio is addressing is effectively, what if one vendor gets more than its fair share of parasitic customers? The companies entered this corrupt bargain with the idea they would pick up enough of higher-margin applicants forced to buy by mandate to offset the parasites. I don't quite see this as a "bailout" in the sense they can't charge actuarily sound premiums to begin with. The system has a policy to cover some portion of the losses if any company attracts a disproportionate number of the parasites.
You can argue that the company made a risk it might pick up a disproportionate number of takers by entering the system. The government fears that it will lose competitors in the marketplace. I suspect this is a game the fascists have been plotting from the get-go--say that the private sector can't do it, so here we go into single-payer. If that happens, we are done--we go from the fascism of ObamaCare into the madness of socialized medicine. I want to do away with contrived exchanges from free the healthcare market from the fascists, but I think Rubio is playing with fire here.
Hard to fault the ACA for people's foolish failure to sign up for subsidized (and in many cases, free) health care insurance.
Are you mentally retarded? Your tacit assumption is that the reason for being uninsured is because they can't afford it. Don't you remember Romney's argument that upper middle-class households were freeloading on the system? Not to mention that Bush's argument against expansion of Medicaid was that many in poverty already eligible were not enrolled?
The insurance industry has way overcharged us again and rebate checks will be in the Mail. They still made billions.
Moron! The issue is that regulations and benefit mandates increase the cost of doing business. Why don't you look at the narrow profit margins on the business? Why do you think Warren Buffett, whom profits from many government boondoggle corrupt Dem special interest programs like green energy, avoids the health insurance industry?
(Bastiat Institute). To paraphrase Bastiat: When goods don't cross borders, armies will. This is not a good sign for peace.
"Russia on Thursday banned most imports of Western food products, a sweeping escalation in an economic war...The measures were a signal that Russia is not backing down from a confrontation...that it is willing to risk barer shelves and higher food prices at home in the name of striking a blow against countries that have tried to punish it"
NOT a Basiat quote: http://econlog.econlib.org/.../2013/08/when_goods_dont.html
(IPI). The Chicago Sun-Times: "The unions have a simple position: Pension reform is unfair. Illinois has a “revenue problem,” they say, so just raise taxes."
The state never matched the pensions like they promised. Huge difference.
The lying corrupt crony unionist parasitic "progressive" trolls are at it again. In one of the threads below Collins has a spreadsheet showing in the TRS system, the taxpayer has annually contributed hundreds of millions, usually much more than employees, over $10B more from 1981-2012. No, it's not that the taxpayers haven't paid their fair share; it's that the union's political whores promised unsustainable cushy benefits, on far better terms than most private sector workers drawing social security; the problems are only starting with the Baby Boomer retirements. The political bastards deferred payment on their corrupt bargains beyond their terms of "public service", never the number of takers are approaching the number of givers, often paid below the payouts of the takers.
Every dime of what? We pay 9.45%, social security is at 6.2%.
Pensions were to offset low teacher salaries. They get no Social Security. taxpayers pay their salaries, true, but it is a wage, just the same as most earn. They pay into a pension and paid extra for their COLA. Legislatures raided their pension funds as loans for other pet projects. You think it is ok to reduce their pensions?
"Low" teacher salaries my ass! Plus, the parasites don't point out that social security tops out below $30K--for people earning into the six-figures and above, not to mention the social security fund has over a $40T unfunded liability. The issues have to do with cushy payout terms, where many retirees clear more than active workers and the tenure of retirement pay can run for decades.
Just to give an example from another state, the 59-year-old NJ parttime cop who resigned after being quoted that he didn't have to follow the Constitution because Obama doesn't has been collecting a $79K pension since 2006. Run the numbers: if he lives another 20 years, it's more than an additional $1.5M; do you think he picked up half that cost while he was on active duty?
IPI points out that the estimated pension fund returns have been based on unrealistic returns, nearly twice that the rate in the shrinking pool of private sector funds. Are the employees paying their "fair share" of costs? As IPI points out, the trend is for taxpayers ending up paying up to 4 times more than employees pay in. That's just not sustainable.
More Engagement Proposals
Not an expert here, but I think there's a difference between engagement and wedding rings...
Even if I had to sit through Bruno Mars one more time, this one was worth it. I myself can't dance, nor am I a judge of dancing in general, but this choreography I felt was very well done.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Scott Stannis via IPI |
Billy Joel, "An Innocent Man"
