This is Peggy . . .

Twitter accounts and twits accounted for

A senior White House official, director of nuclear non-proliferation on the White House National Security Council, got fired for having a secret twitter account. A very disgruntled Democrat--he criticized not only key members of the administration, but also journalists. However, Lois Lerner of the IRS scandal who remained loyal and tight lipped,  refused to cooperate with the investigation, went on leave with pay, got no penalty and quietly retired with her pension.

Example of his tweets: “I'm a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me."

http://www.ibtimes.com/white-house-official-jofi-joseph-fired-bashing-administration-under-fake-twitter-name-1437120

Single payer vs. Obamacare

Even I believe single payer would be better than this terrible roll out of Obamacare; and I think that was the goal. Britain's system is about 65 years old, but with Obama technology, it would have died in its infancy. Everyone in Britain gets a basic level of care through NHS, and then the rich buy insurance or pay cash, and get special treatment. It looks like Medicaid to me with shortages, lines and one size fits all. Except for the rich. In Canada it's different, so they come to the U.S. to buy additional treatment options without the wait. Universal health care would suit government officials--of both parties. Everyone gets the same deal, except those who don't. http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/01/16/the-awkward-world-of-private-insurance-in-the-uk/

Cookie or dessert plates

I don’t do a lot of entertaining, but for the holidays (now upon us) I do like to put out pretty dessert plates, or give away cookies on them without the need to return the plate.  I found this one today at Volunteers of America for $.30. Verso says “fine China” Japan. On e-Bay it’s $10.

Somebody always pays, Cindy. There is no free lunch.

IRS overpays EITC 132 billion in 10 years

EITC, The Earned Income Tax Credit,  was primarily a Republican idea, and was signed into law in 1975 with bi-partisan support. The "refund" doesn't affect any other benefits received like welfare (TANF), food stamps, Medicaid, housing, etc. In fact, for some families it would be a loss if they got a raise at work and weren't eligible for EITC--which is how we hurt the poor with government transfers.

132 billion in EITC was overpaid by IRS to people who paid no income tax. From the IRS website:  "The EITC is a refundable tax credit. This means taxpayers may get money back, even if they have no tax withheld [from earned income]. Nationwide last year [2011], over 27 million eligible individuals and families received nearly $62 billion in EITC." This overpayment is an IRS problem, not an Obama problem. It has been going on for as long as the law has existed. There was recently a law passed to get the figure lowered which has been ignored. This is the agency that will be enforcing ACA, the Obama insurance law declared a tax by SCOTUS. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/04/24/IRS-Overpaid-Low-Income-Tax-Credit-by-132-Billion

Even Vermont with a mix of socialists and Democrats, can’t make it work

“But despite the urgency of getting the exchange launch right and the givens that should make it easier rather than difficult—small state, high rate of literacy, 98 percent English speaking—Vermont’s website seems as bad or worse than the federal system. I’m not a Vermont resident, but I have been in the past and still spend a lot of time in the state. In the past week, I’ve spent hours on the state’s health-care system and have experienced nothing but a series of maddening problems reminiscent of computer life 15 years ago. On a half-dozen occasions I’ve fought my way through the system to register, only to return to discover the system has no trace of my registration. I expect that each of these visits and each of these “registrations” have been recorded as unique visits and registrations, which could help explain in part the disparity between “visits” and “registrations” versus “enrollments.” ”

So says the liberal lefty site.

I have now read so many of the screw-ups with enrollments, both state and federal, and read or heard so many horror stories of people losing their insurance, that I am even more convinced this is just a planned step to single payer,  which Obama always said he wanted, to make people so frustrated they’ll beg for low level, single payer Medicaid type coverage.

But he promised we could keep our plan and doctor"!

From the Chicago Tribune

“The computer problems may be fixed in weeks or months — although as the nation learns more about the extent of those computer problems, there's far less confidence that a fix will come soon ... or ever.

But the problems with Obamacare go much deeper than a few million lines of faulty code and a sign-up system that swallows enrollee applications in a single electronic gulp.

The bugs aren't just in the software. They're in the law itself.

Consumers are finally seeing insurance rates and plans. In many cases, insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays are rising. Illinois officials said premiums here would be lower than expected. But a Tribune analysis of 22 of the lowest-priced plans showed that those plans required huge annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual — and $8,000 for family coverage.

Lower premiums also come with a troubling tradeoff: access to a narrower networks of hospitals and doctors. If people aren't careful in choosing coverage, they may be shocked to find they have to pay much more for out-of-network care to go to their preferred doctor or hospital.”

Civility Democrat style

Alan Grayson (D) calls Tea Party people KKK and distributed an ugly photo of a burning cross for fund raising. That's civility Democrat style and how they demonize anyone who disagrees with Obama. I wonder if he knows the KKK was a wing of the Democrat Party, a terrorist group, and that some revered Democrats in our government were members? Robert Byrd, a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010, became a Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of his local chapter, and that was just fine by all the Democrats who reelected him to be the longest serving Senator, and those fellow senators who welcomed and voted for all his pork.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United_States_politics

After he changed the Constitution, he ran for a third term

“Ilham Aliyev came to the third term as the head of Azerbaijan.
According to the agency, this is the first oath, that Ilham Aliyev gave after making changes and amendments in the Constitution of Azerbaijan at referendum held on March 2009, during which the restrictions, on one person staying in office for more than two consecutive terms, were changed.”

This doesn’t look like a bad translation, but seems to say the President made the changes to the Constitution.  That’s what happens when you write a Constitution and then ignore the executive powers.  I wonder if anyone in the U.S. objected?  Azerbaijan is an American ally, and their lobbyists have spent over $5 million the last 3 years in Washington. (Open Secrets)

Azerbaijan held presidential elections on October 9, where Ilham ALiyev took a victory with 84,58% votes. According to the preliminary data, Jamil Hasanli a single candidate from the oppositionist National Council of Democratic Forces is on the second place. He scored 5,54% of votes. The leaders of the "Musavat" party Isa Gambar, the head of the Popular Front Party Ali Kerimli, the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan Sardar Jalaloglu and leader of the movement “EL” Eldar Namazov have declared about "total violations" and frauds during the presidential elections. The candidate of the National Council Jamil Hasanli has also noted the mass election frauds and announced incumbent President Ilham Aliyev responsible that. Jamil Hasanli’s headquarter has regularly issued releases describing election violations in details - ballot stuffing, "carousels", pressure on observes, etc.

Sort of sounds familiar.

It’s the law, say the Democrats

"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder." The Law, by Frederick Bastiat [1850]. I'm always shocked by the Democrats who will say, "But Obamacare is the law," or Republicans who say "Let's just change this bad law into something better."

In 2008 Obama's campaign soft sell promised a number of things, but the bare bones outline he gave of his grand plan was it would be paid for by taxing only those people earning more than $250,000 a year. From 2009 to present he promised you could keep your plan and doctor (untrue for millions). SCOTUS declared the entire law a tax, and taxes are supposed to come from the House. The funding promise was perhaps the biggest whooper.

The true cost of Obamacare has been reduced hours and income by people at the lower end trying to move up; huge increases for the young and uninsured adults; mammoth costs to the states in increased rolls on Medicaid with only partial reimbursement from DC; cancelled policies for those not insured by employers; and exclusions for his cronies and federal workers and unions which is not only a dollar loss to the government which the rest of us will have to make up, but a credibility loss for Obama’s entire administration.

And there will still be millions uninsured because they can’t afford the rate increases and will opt for a fine, and illegals won’t need to buy it or pay a fine, so they won’t be covered either. And yes, it is the law, but so is the Constitution which has been pretty much ignored for the last 100 years.

He’s never wrong

Obama never apologized for the roll out mess (which isn't as bad as the law, by the way) in the news  conference yesterday.  It was an infomercial for Obamacare. "It's a good deal," he assured us—the law that is.  The problem is, according to him, it's just too popular (no numbers). Yikes.

Now outsiders have been brought in to fix the work of the contractors who didn't do the job. Do they and their sub-contractors have security clearance? Will Kathleen Sibelius ever be held accountable for such a lousy job? Or will she use Hillary’s line, “What difference does it make?”

This article gives John Boehner, speaker of the House, the blame for handing over the purse strings to Obama the last 3 years. We have a Constitution that separates the powers of government.  Last week we witnessed the spineless snivelers of the GOP who couldn't stick together long enough to take back the responsibility the Constitution gave only to them (the House, not the party).

“The $3,064,063,380,067.72 in new federal debt accumulated in less than three years under Speaker Boehner is more than the total federal debt accumulated during the service of the first 48 House speakers combined—from Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, elected speaker on April 1, 1789, to Rep. Jim Wright of Texas, who resigned as speaker on June 6, 1989.”

Monday Memories—Back to the Future

1985 American science fiction comedy film about a teen who is transported back to 1955 and meets his parents.  Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson starred.

A new use for loyalty cards

There was a Salmonella outbreak in the Northwest and investigators used loyalty cards of the patients who were made ill to track down the producer of the chicken.  A good outcome from government snooping (CDC), however it sounds like an unfortunate precedent when perhaps your Kroger or Giant Eagle card revealing unhealthy food purchases and snacks or soda can be linked to your electronic medical record, now required by the Unaffordable Care Act.  For many stores, selling the personal data that is generated by loyalty cards is more lucrative than the products they sell.  And you gave them that voluntarily.  So now the federal government can get in the act, too. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23842445

http://www.ccm.com.lb/SubPageCenterBody.aspx?pageid=211

The Obamaway—a freeway for illegals

President Obama’s failures aren’t limited to health care

"As the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation. In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds—all of which have become increasingly implausible (lower health care costs, smaller deficits, preservation of existing insurance, increased productivity) . . .”WSJ article by Daniel Kessler

Michael Smith  continues with his observations: “Add to that the failed economic activities, the debacles in "green technology", the various erroneous statements and predictions about "climate change", being wrong about unemployment, being for debt ceilings before being against them, asinine and atrocious foreign policy errors (from day one, I might add) and failing to fulfill his campaign promises, it is very, very difficult to see how the Obama presidency can be objectively categorized as anything less than a dismal failure of epic proportions. The only thing he has proven to be good at is lying just enough to get elected but not impeached - even though there seems to be mounting evidence that he was aided in 2012 by the IRS in suppressing the Tea Party support of his opponent.

Judging by the fact that the rabid "progressives" want the Tea Party caucus in the House and Ted Cruz arrested and imprisoned for sedition, it is not much of a stretch to think that if this were a Republican president, we would have already seen articles of impeachment filed in the House.”

He is owed an apology

The most clever and pernicious liar in the history of U.S. politics

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/thousands-get-health-insurance-cancellation-notices-8C11417913

“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.” Obama, July, 2009.  He had already backtracked earlier by stating he didn’t mean employers and insurers couldn’t take it away from you.  Then on the campaign trail (which is very speech), he repeated this lie.  If your insurance is dropped and you are reenrolled in another plan, you will have price increases and perhaps be forced to change doctors. He is such a clever liar—the government didn’t do that, the insurance companies did because they were required to follow new regulations (now 30 words for every word in the law).

Just wondering

Noticed this comment by the new Bishop of the ELCA, Elizabeth Eaton, who got 600 votes to Mark Hanson’s 287.

“We are a church that is overwhelmingly European in a culture that is increasingly pluralistic,” Eaton told the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh shortly after the election.

“We need to welcome the gifts of those who come from different places, that is a conversation we need to have as a church.”

Do African American denominations or Korean Baptists or Chinese home groups ever chastise their members for their self selection or culture or language?  Is there anything white Christians won’t complain about?

Lack of pluralism is not the reason ELCA is shedding members. Chasing the culture is.

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/08/14/lutherans-elect-elizabeth-eaton-first-female-presiding-bishop-of-elca/

People who hate Ann Coulter

like some of my trolls will respond to the messenger instead of the message, but she’s right.  Why does Congress get a waiver?  Why couldn’t we all have had the sort of choices that federal workers had instead of Obamacare—their health insurance was the best!