Health care costs soared under ACA

The Affordable Care Act was supposed to lower healthcare costs, but it has done just the opposite. Why? Because it ignored the realities of how markets work.

https://www.prageru.com/courses/economics/why-healthcare-so-expensive

But then, the intention was never to reduced costs.  It's always been about forcing us into single payer.

DeVine wants you to HuntRepubicans

I've been blogging since October 2003 and about 1.5 million have visited my page, according to blogger.com statistics. Who knows? I don't know when Blogger started keeping the stats, because I didn't have that capability when I started. But it's certainly more people than read my articles in library journals when I was the veterinary medicine librarian at Ohio State.

This week the most popular article (164) was about that crazy Democrat, James DeVine, who urged his party to hunt down more Republicans after the Scalise shooting. But that was probably just hits on the topic, not actual stop and read. The left is demanding that NRA comment on that terrible tragedy where someone with a concealed carry permit was shot by a policeman, but where is the DNC disavowing a call to kill Republicans? I guess that shows the power of negative news--ropes people in.

Blogging is not the social media darling it was a decade ago, but I find it useful to look things up I was thinking 10-15 years ago. I particularly enjoy my Monday Memories, Thursday Thirteen and Friday Family photos. Yesterday I tried to view my blogs about our 2015 trip to Spain, but see I haven't written them.  I have over 500 photos in the file!

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/06/19/tucker-carlson-battles-hunt-republicans-democrat-over-steve-scalise-shooting-james-devine

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/hunt-republicans-tweet-james-devine/2017/06/16/id/796443/

Democrat party values

I do wonder about the values of the Democrats. They say Republicans are awful, vicious, and uncaring for wanting to undo Obamacare, the only federal social plan that didn't get a single Republican vote. The social safety net is ca. 70% of the federal budget and it's bi-partisan--about $60,000 for a family of 4. The 123 wealth transfer programs support huge bureaucracies (part of the deep state) and if Trump suggests streamlining (as did Obama and Bush) the media call it taking a hatchet to the safety net, starving people and putting them on the street.

But what is worse than forcing the poor to buy a product which makes millions for the wealthy investors and face a fine and jail if they don't buy it? What is worse than destroying the health and safety network of millions just so everyone can have a form of Medicaid? Strange values indeed. All yammered by the media to mislead and get Democrats another term in office.

The Democrats' idea of helping the poor is to take as much from you in the form of taxes--income, excise, death, phone, gasoline, sales, pass through (in over under around and through), VAT, etc. then pass it back to you in grants to your states, your educational institutions, your non-profits, your interstates, your transportation bailouts and subsidies, even your churches, all with handsome salaries along the way.

The #1 way to reduce childhood poverty in the U.S.A. is marriage, and not the reinvented kind. With married parents, a child has only about 8% chance of being raised in poverty. A better house, or a better education doesn't do it. Lunch programs from USDA distributed by church volunteers doesn't make a dent. Social justice workshops and summits at your church don't either, except maybe to tamp down a little liberal guilt if the Bible falls open to Matthew 25. You can address guns, cuts in food stamps for illegals, hunger, obesity or education. Where is your concern about marriage, the number one solution?

Paglia on transgenderism and Democrats

"I am highly skeptical about the current transgender wave, which I think has been produced by far more complicated psychological and sociological factors than current gender discourse allows. Furthermore, I condemn the escalating prescription of puberty blockers (whose long-term effects are unknown) for children. I regard this practice as a criminal violation of human rights. It is certainly ironic how liberals who posture as defenders of science when it comes to global warming (a sentimental myth unsupported by evidence) flee all reference to biology when it comes to gender." Camille Paglia

I believe the whole transgender lie is one more way to keep women down and to deprive them of their moral superiority and rights. First tell them to abort their children, tell them marriage doesn't matter, then tell them they are actually men, but that doesn't matter either because men can be women, which makes them better.

Camille Paglia: "Some background is necessary. First of all, I must make my political affiliations crystal clear. I am a registered Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary and for Jill Stein in the general election. Since last Fall, I've had my eye on Kamala Harris, the new senator from California, and I hope to vote for her in the next presidential primary. . .

After Trump's victory (for which there were abundant signs in the preceding months), both the Democratic party and the big-city media urgently needed to do a scathingly honest self-analysis, because the election results plainly demonstrated that Trump was speaking to vital concerns (jobs, immigration, and terrorism among them) for which the Democrats had few concrete solutions. Indeed, throughout the campaign, too many leading Democratic politicians were preoccupied with domestic issues and acted strangely uninterested in international affairs. Among the electorate, the most fervid Hillary acolytes (especially young and middle-aged women and assorted show biz celebs) seemed obtusely indifferent to her tepid performance as Secretary of State, during which she doggedly piled up air miles while accomplishing virtually nothing except the destabilization of North Africa. . . .

In summary: to have any hope of retaking the White House, Democrats must get off their high horse, lose the rabid rhetoric, and reorient themselves toward practical reality and the free country they are damned lucky to live in.

" http://www.weeklystandard.com/camille-paglia-on-trump-democrats-transgenderism-and-islamist-terror/article/2008464

 

Now whiteness has to be the base of policy

Since the bad old days of FDR Democrats/liberals pushed programs most of us could support--and did; better access to education, full time employment (better jobs) for the poor, affirmative action for minorities and women, a safety net for the elderly, special wealth transfers like EITC, Medicaid, low mortgages, TANF, better nutrition in the schools, etc., and some Democrats even acknowledged the importance of marriage. Not any more. Percentage of poverty hasn't budged--even went up during the Obama eight years. So the latest idea from the left is it's all about descendants of disparate nations as different as Germany and India who have a light skin color getting special advantages. That's why there is a wealth gap (although the gap between the Gates familly and the Bruce family is not our race). Is called the asset of whiteness. Guaranteed to cause more victimhood and riots, more votes for Democrats.
http://www.demos.org/publication/asset-value-whiteness-understanding-racial-wealth-gap

Most poor people are white, and Asians are a wealthier, better educated and more motivated group than any of them. But never mind the facts, just vote for the Democrat.

Painting the deck

Choosing a paint color for the deck and porch. I wonder who has the job of assigning those wonderful names in the color fan deck--a frustrated artist, out of work poet, unemployed chef, a computer?

Little lamb
Vanilla milkshake
equilibrium
Fall chill
Dusky dawn
Stargazer
Crushed silk
Namaste
Pristine petal
Symmetry
Cappucino bombe
Hitching post
Coffee kiss
Welcome home
Applesauce cake
Cumberland fog
Grape haze
Positively purple
Crushed tomatoes
https://www.ppgvoiceofcolor.com/collections

All the color "trends" are planed by decorators to see paints, furniture, accessories.

Oh say, can you see, by the dawn's early light

I can see the flag at the end of the dock through the pavilion at Lakeside.  Sunrise was about 6 am and this was on the morning walk on the way back to our cottage. Should get to 91 today, so I may have to get out again and avoid the heat.

Wednesday night picnic at Lakeside

Dinner was all planned. Baked chicken, fresh green beans, potato salad and fresh strawberries. Then on my afternoon walk I went past the park where they were setting up for the community picnic. . . so everything went back into the frig for tomorrow night. Hot dogs, macaroni salad, baked beans, potato chips, watermelon, lemonade and cookies.  Not the healthiest diet, but once in awhile that's OK.

Our Lakeside neighbors, Arlene and Roger

Marcia from Toledo ate with us

The kids love the hoola hoop games after eating
 

Black-ish is just Jim Crow-ish in white face

We don't have cable TV at our Lakehouse, so last night for the first time I watched "Black-ish." Wow. Most racist program I've ever seen on TV. Main character is wealthy advertising executive. whose wife is a doctor. No matter, all whites on show are bigoted, racist, Jim Crow era stereotypes. And an older black woman (relative?) was old timey superstitious media stereotype from the 1930s. I half expected her to roll her eyes and shuffle out of the room. So I looked it up. "Obama loved it." Some may find this "refreshing," but who watches this? Apparently, a lot of Democrats.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/feb/25/series-creator-kenya-barris-on-abc-sitcom-black-ish

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frances-cudjoe-waters/blackish-horrible-parody-_b_5882622.html

Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel

 Mike Huckabee:  "The ballots had barely begun to be counted [6th district Georgia] before angry liberals on Twitter were blasting Ossoff as a terrible candidate who didn’t articulate why working class voters should support him. And yet, when Hillary lost, it could only have been due to a Russian conspiracy. How do they know some Russians didn’t get misled by their iPhone Maps app, end up in Roswell, Georgia, instead of the Republic of Georgia, and stuff the ballot boxes? Hey, there’s as much evidence of that as there is that they colluded with the Trump campaign."

Just what do liberal candidates have to offer the working class voter? More government transfers? Take away their health insurance, doctor and network? Destroy the base of whatever industry they work in because it's not sustainable enough? Keep them away from school choice so their kids have to stay in failing public schools? Bring in more immigrants to compete with them for jobs? Ridicule their Catholic beliefs?

Just wondering. Other than calling deplorables names, just what are the liberal policies?

And just look at the sad angry faces of the media last night.

 " Just two weeks ago, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll had Ossoff up by 7 points, and he lost by about 5. Either the vote swung against him by 12 points in two weeks, or else polls are now the only section of the newspaper less reliable than the Horoscope column." Huckabee

Why do we tax payers need to support Planned Parenthood laundering money through campaigns for Democrats who can then vote to give the baby killer more money?

Update: Wall St. Journal

"Liberals may need some time and space to get over the Georgia result. In the New York Times, Frank Bruni captures the anguish of Democrats—and not just the ones who work in the media industry:

They ached for this seat. They fought for it fiercely. They reasoned that Ossoff had a real chance: Donald Trump, after all, won this district by just 1.5 percentage points. Donations for Ossoff flooded in, helping to make this the most expensive House race in history by far.

Democrats came up empty-handed nonetheless. So a party sorely demoralized in November is demoralized yet again — and left to wonder if the intense anti-Trump passion visible in protests, marches, money and new volunteers isn’t just some theatrical, symbolic, abstract thing."

I guess they don't see how this hateful anti-Trump idiocy is turning people off.

Our trip to Scotland--making new friends, June 2017

Glengoyne Distillery tour

At the pub Clachan in Dornie near Eilean Donan Castle

Norma and Bob at Eilean Donan Castle

Dinner at Dundee Doubletree Hilton

Pat in Edinburgh

Stacey, Deanne, Veronique

Eric and Rowena at Edinburgh Castle

Roger getting ice cream

Emily, Kelly and Stacey at the Pub

Getting golf instructions at St. Andrews

St. Andrews walk with Stacey, me waving, Rowena, Pat, Kelly, Emily, and Deanne

Bonnie and Brian St. Andrews Cathedral ruins

The grief of the Warmbier family

TODD STARNES: "Mr. Warmbier said he was told by the Obama administration to do nothing that would offend or upset the North Koreans. They were not even allowed to put ribbons on a tree. . . President Obama was famous for kicking the can down the road. But sometimes, when you kick the can down the road, people like Otto Warmbier die. This nation has a storied history of standing up to dictators and despots from Hitler to Saddam Hussein. And the time has come for President Trum...p to do what the previous administration was afraid to do – stand up to the North Koreans. The president must send an unequivocal message to Kim Jung Un – harm another American citizen and the Armed Forces of these United States will rain down hell fire on his godforsaken wasteland of a nation."

Although I do not agree with Starnes that this should take us into war with yet another backward Communist, evil nation, there should be something between kicking the can/drawing a red line and all out war.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/06/20/trump-should-rain-down-hell-fire-on-north-korea.html

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/19/family-otto-warmbier-has-died/410115001/

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/19/donald-trump-otto-warmbier-at-least-he-got-home-his-parents/410190001/

We're here on the longest day of the year

This is June 22 sunrise

We got back from Scotland a week-ago, and since we had some obligations in Columbus yesterday,  rather than drive 2.5 hours up on Saturday then 2.5 hours back on Monday, we decided to wait.  Now it is the longest day of the year, so I started my walk about 5:35 a.m.  I walked east on Third (our street) all the way to Poplar Ave. the last north south street inside the gates, then walked north to the lakefront. The sky was a brilliant pink at 6:50 with the sun still hidden, so I paused and watched, maybe 7 minutes.  Then I noticed a piece of sculpture on a rock, so I walked through the grass to get a better look.  It was lovely--realistic, but with movement and grace. I looked at the memorial plaque . . . it was for Katherine Alice Bichsel. Many appropriate flowers and season long plantings surrounded the rock and sculpture.  It was a lovely, peaceful and spiritual moment. I prayed.

The sun popped up very quickly and then went behind a few clouds and I continued on my way, greeting the dog walkers who are always out that time of day.  I decided to look up Ms. Bichsel, assuming I would find a long and useful life with many great grandchildren remembering her fondly.  Years ago I blogged about some of the memorials, taking a notebook with me to jot down the names. It's not easy for me to remember names, numbers or events, so I continued saying her name for the next mile I walked until I got to our cottage, poured myself a cup of coffee, and opened the computer. Not what I had imagined. I did find two Katherine Bichsels who matched my idea, but that was not to be.  This young Lakesider was only 20.

"BICHSEL Katherine Alice "Katie" Bichsel, age 20, of Bexley, died suddenly and unexpectedly Friday, November 7, 2008 in Burlington, Vermont. Katie was born in Cincinnati, OH on July 8, 1988 the oldest daughter of Vivian (Duff) and David Garver Bichsel. Katie graduated summa cum laude from Bexley High School in 2006. She attended the University of Vermont, majoring in Environmental Sciences. Her passions were many and included snowboarding, hiking, WWII history, music, protecting the planet and above all "hanging out" with her many friends. Katie is survived by her parents, Dr. David and Vivian Bichsel; her sisters, Sarah Bichsel and Emily Bichsel; her grandparents, Flora Duff, and The Rev. Dr. Dale and Josephine Bichsel; and a large loving extended family." - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?pid=120045747#sthash.YSvWURAq.dpuf

Her parents are cottage owners here at Lakeside according to our directory, and I know from my own experience they will always miss their child and grieve for what might have been, but I appreciate their sharing her with us in such a beautiful way.

What did Obama do?

The Trump-Putin charges have gone nowhere. Russia hacking the election has zip, nada zilch evidence. What we do know is that Hillary Clinton accepted a lot of money from Russian sources for her foundation while she was Secretary of State, and that the U.S. relationship with Putin and Russia was just fine until well into Obama's second term. Is no one going to ask what did the Obama administration do to create a mess with a former ally? This nothing burger investigation appears to be a lot of smoke to cover up the real fire Obama started with Putin in spring 2014.

 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/04/obama-putin-debated-ukraine-facts-during-phone-call/

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-the-obama-vladimir-putin-relationship-died/article/2551463