Common Core Concerns

Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs contemplates the Hoover Dam

[He read] an article about the men who maintain the Hoover Dam - one of the greatest engineering and architectural wonders of the modern era. Apparently, a big chunk of these men are about to retire. And guess what? There’s no one to replace them!

This is potentially unfortunate news for the many millions of Americans currently addicted to the electricity provided by The Hoover Dam. For that reason, I suggest you read the attached, or at least watch the video. It’s illuminating.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/31/wave-retirements-hitting-hoover-dam-workforce-as-government-scrambles-to-fill/

Probate in Ohio—Elder Law

The executor or administrator takes care of the following tasks:

• caring for all property of the decedent;

• receiving payments due the estate, including interest, dividends and other income;

• collecting debts, claims and notes due the decedent;

• determining the names, ages, addresses and degree of relationship of all heirs;

• determining the names, ages and addresses of all beneficiaries, if there is a will;

• investigating the validity of all claims against the estate and paying all outstanding obligations including federal, state and local estate and income taxes;

• planning for federal and state taxes and preparing and filing estate tax returns when required;

• carrying out the instructions of the probate court pertaining to the estate and distributing the assets of the estate to the heirs.

The probate court judge and support staff supervise the work of the executor or administrator.

These actions may require the preparation and filing of numerous legal documents, the provision of notices, hearings in court, an appraisal of the assets of the estate, an inventory of the assets, completion of final income tax returns and possibly gift and estate tax returns, an accounting of funds, final transfer of all assets to beneficiaries, termination of the probate proceeding, and discharge of the executor or administrator by the probate court. Because of the complexity of these procedures, the assistance of an attorney usually is needed.

If the total value of all property in the decedent’s individual name is $35,000 or less, the estate can be relieved from some of these administrative requirements. Where the decedent’s spouse is entitled to receive all of the estate’s assets, the amount that can be relieved from formal administration is increased to $100,000.

Non-probate assets include: insurance policies, IRAs and pensions that are payable on death to a beneficiary; and a home, car or bank account that the decedent owned jointly with rights of survivorship. In many cases, the bulk of a decedent’s assets may be non-probate assets. The administrator must identify non-probate assets for tax purposes, but these assets are not otherwise included in the estate for which the administrator is responsible.

Duties of the Executor

What are the duties of an administrator (executor)?

The basic duties of an administrator and an executor are:

1. Inventory and appraisal. The administrator must identify and determine the fair market value of all financial assets and property that were owned by the decedent at the time of death.* The administrator must file an inventory listing all of the decedent’s probate assets and their date-of-death values with the probate court within three months of the administrator’s appointment, unless an extension is granted.

If the value of an asset is “readily ascertainable” (for example, shares of stock in a publicly traded company or the balance in a bank account), then no professional appraisal is required; however, items such as jewelry, art objects, antiques, real estate and any other possessions whose value cannot be readily established must be appraised by a qualified person.

2. Collecting assets. The administrator must collect all assets of the decedent. This is very important (especially to prospective heirs) because it is these assets that will be distributed to the heirs after debts and taxes have been paid. Complications can arise in this process if assets legally owned by a decedent are in the possession of someone else at the time of death, or if property belonging to the decedent has been concealed or misappropriated by a third party. [. . .]

3. Payment of debts and expenses. Creditors (people to whom the decedent, or his or her estate, owe money) have six months from the date of death to present their claims against the estate. In most cases, any claim not submitted within six months is barred forever. Claims must be in writing and sent directly to the administrator or mailed to the decedent’s address, and must be received by the administrator within six months. In addition to ordinary bills the decedent owed at the time of death, other debts typically include expenses to keep up property; local, state and federal taxes; hospital and funeral expenses; and expenses of administration including probate court costs, bond premiums and fees charged by appraisers, attorneys and the administrator. [. . . ]

4. Distribution of assets. When all debts, taxes, costs and expenses of the estate have been paid, the administrator must distribute the balance of the estate to the decedent’s heirs according to a strict formula spelled out in Ohio’s statute of descent and distribution. Because an administrator may be held personally liable for an error or excess distribution to an heir that cannot later be recovered, legal advice should be obtained before making a final disposition of estate assets. Sometimes an administrator will make a partial distribution of certain assets before all claims have been received. In such cases, it may be prudent to advise persons receiving early partial distributions that they may be required to return money or property to the estate if it is needed to satisfy valid claims.

 

Welcome April

Happy birthday, Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers union, was a fierce opponent of illegal immigration and supporter of tight border controls. He organized U.S. farm workers, not illegals who would work for less than Americans. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374564/happy-border-control-day-mark-krikorian#!

Time to think outside the Bush box

I know nothing about Jeb Bush, perhaps he's better than his father and brother, but if Republicans can't find anyone other than a Bush when the party has some great leaders like Paul, Cruz, Jindal, etc. then perhaps it's time to throw in the towel.

Spinach/kale corn chips

Today I bought a bag of spinach/kale corn chips. Mainly out of curiosity. Lots of vitamin K and vitamin A, and fat and salt to make it palatable. Still tastes like your lawn smells.

All the buzz words. Non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan friendly, nut-free environment.   And I had to break my rule—no food from Mexico.

Intolerant gays on the left

Only about 2% of the population is gay--and most of them haven’t taken the steps to insure their partners (at Ohio State you can buy insurance for your gay domestic partner, but not straight), put their names on a mortgage, include them in a will, or have a joint checking account. Many males have the same motive as their straight colleagues--protect their money and estates (some have children and grandchildren and have been in multiple relationships).  And gay men are among the wealthiest demographic, in part because up until now they’ve been able to keep it all ($61,500 compared with the national median of $50,054, lower unemployment, more education).  A lot of the ridiculous show of gay intolerance comes not from gays, but from heterosexuals, disappointed with their own relationships and failed marriages, so of course, it's society's fault, or the institution of marriage.

Employees at Mozilla, the organization that created the Firefox web browser, has shown their warped sense of commitment to “tolerance” by demanding the termination of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich because he dared to oppose gay marriage.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/03/28/liberal-tolerance-mozilla-employees-demand-ceo-step-down-over-his-support-of-traditional-marriage/

http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/06/pf/gay-money/

http://nogaymarriage.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/why-i-oppose-gay-marriage/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/26/gays-who-dont-want-gay-marriage.html#url=/articles/2011/02/26/gays-who-dont-want-gay-marriage.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/style/gay-couples-choosing-to-say-i-dont.html?pagewanted=all

The left never allows tolerance or bi-partisanship, cooperation or acceptance.  They always need to be stirring the pot.

Alabama doctor excoriates EMR damage to patient health care.

Dear Congressman Brooks,

As a practicing family physician, I plead for help against what I can best characterize as Washington's war against doctors.

The medical profession has never before remotely approached today's stress, work hours, wasted costs, decreased efficiency, and declining ability to focus on patient care.

In our community alone, at least 6 doctors have left patient care for administrative positions, to start a concierge practice, or retire altogether.

Doctors are smothered by destructive regulations that add costs, raise our overhead and 'gum up the works,' making patient treatment slower and less efficient, thus forcing doctors to focus on things other than patient care and reduce the number of patients we can help each day.

I spend more time at work than at any time in my 27 years of practice and more of that time is spent on administrative tasks and entering useless data into a computer rather than helping sick patients.

Doctors have been forced by ill-informed bureaucrats to implement electronic medical records ("EMR") that, in our four doctor practice, costs well over $100,000 plus continuing yearly operational costs . . . all of which does not help take care of one patient while driving up the cost of every patient's health care.

Washington's electronic medical records requirement makes our medical practice much slower and less efficient, forcing our doctors to treat fewer patients per day than we did before the EMR mandate.

To make matters worse, Washington forces doctors to demonstrate 'meaningful use' of EMR or risk not being fully paid for the help we give.

In addition to the electronic medical records burden, we face a mandate to use the ICD-10 coding system, a new set of reimbursement diagnosis codes.

The current ICD-9 coding system uses roughly 13,000 codes. The new ICD-10 coding system uses a staggering 70,000 new and completely different codes, thus dramatically slowing doctors down due to the unnecessary complexity and sheer numbers of codes that must be learned.

The cost of this new ICD-10 coding system for our small practice is roughly $80,000, again driving up health care costs without one iota of improvement in health care quality.

Finally, doctors face nonpayment by patients with ObamaCare. These patients may or may not be paying their premiums and we have no way of verifying this. No business can operate with that much uncertainty.

On behalf of the medical profession, I ask that Washington stop the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and replace it with a better law written with the input of real doctors who will actually treat patients covered by it.

America has enjoyed the best health care the world has ever known. That health care is in jeopardy because physicians cannot survive Washington's 'war on doctors' without relief.

Eventually the problems for doctors will become problems for patients, and we are all patients at some point.

Sincerely yours, Dr. Marlin Gill of Decatur, Alabama

This kind

Choice, n. the opportunity or power to make a decision

Choice to kill the unborn, but no choice in health insurance. Choice for "reproductive freedom," but no choice to send children to charter schools. Choice to marry, but no choice not to participate in the marriage ceremony. Choice to abort, but no choice to abide by your religious beliefs. Choice to make your boss pay for your contraceptives, but no choice for the boss not to be involved in your sexual choices.

That's Obama and the Democrats--the most anti-choice administration in the history of the country.

Synonyms

alternative, discretion, druthers [dialect], election, liberty, option, pick, preference, selection, volition, way

Do you shop at Whole Foods?

"In 1978, 25 year old college dropout John Mackey and 21 year old Rene Lawson Hardy, borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open the doors of a small natural foods store called SaferWay in Austin, Texas (the name being a spoof of Safeway, which operated stores under their own name in Austin at that time). When the couple got booted out of their apartment for storing food products there, they decided to simply live at the store. Since it was zoned commercial, there was no shower stall. Instead, they bathed in the Hobart dishwasher, which had an attached water hose." . . fast forward through various mergers and acquisitions, and you have Whole Foods, where I know many of you shop. I bought 50 shares this week. That's how ordinary people like me can be part of the big vision of those more ambitious and talented in the U.S. Let's not lose that through a greedy government that punishes small start ups. There's a brand new Whole Foods in my community--I'll have to stop in and check out my investment. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company-info/whole-foods-market-history

Chris Matthews to be Ohio State graduation speaker

Chris Matthews is going to be the speaker at the OSU graduation. This is probably appropriate given the politics of academe (left), but I doubt that the parents who have gone into debt to shell out the $50-60,000 are pleased. Their children have already endured years of political indoctrination in the classroom which may take years of the "real" world to undo--they really don't need this final word from a man who spouts such trash about conservatives. He's called half the nation intolerant morons, he joked about Christie's weight (during sex no less!), called Ted Cruz a zoo animal and a racist (picture a Republican getting away with this about an Hispanic), commented that Republicans would like to see Obama executed, said that if you didn't believe Hurricane Sandy was a result of Global Warming you were a "pig," called the press too even handed (!), depriving women of birth control (which no one is doing) is being a Nazi, he said a year ago that the economy was bustling and job growth was booming, he calls Tea Party members terrorists and racists, he actually called Biden the best vice president in history, gave advice to the Catholic Church on birth control (accept it),  he referred to opposition to Hillary as a psychosis (including Obama in 2008?), and he speaks of Obama in reverential, Biblical tones worthy of someone moving toward sainthood. I won't go to the campus and carry a sign, but the next time OSU asks me for money, I'll tell them where to put that appeal.

Friday family photo—Gwyneth Paltrow

Gwyneth Paltrow is worth $60 million (her husband $90 million), has an $14 million home with heated floors, an ocean view, tennis courts, landscaped gardens, yoga studio, etc., and numerous staff to meet her needs. She thinks her job (making movies) is more tough than the ordinary working 9-5 mom. And I'm guessing she's a Democrat just from the whine and cheese. Also, she's a distant relative of mine through the Danner family (my great grandfather's grandmother Rachel was a Danner).

She and Coldplay husband also own a massive estate in London, a place in New York City and in 2012, they spent about $10 million for an equestrian estate in Los Angeles. Life is tough.

POTUS and Pope, FLOTUS and Chi-Coms

With Michelle Obama talking to the Chinese about freedom of expression and information and Barack Obama chatting with the Pope about religious freedom, the world is truly upside down and backwards. The Obamas know nothing about either.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2014/03/25/michelle-obama-should-lecture-barack-not-china-about-internet-feedom

http://www.catholicvote.org/vatican-shocker-despite-us-ambassadors-statement-potus-pope-summit-focused-on-religious-liberty/

Cardinal Raymond Burke: “It is true that the policies of the President of the United States of America have become progressively more hostile toward Christian civilization. He appears to be a totally secularized man who aggressively promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.”

The cardinal added that “Now he wants to restrict the exercise of the freedom of worship; that is, he holds that one is free to act according to his conscience within the confines of his place of worship but that, once the person leaves the place of worship, the government can constrain him to act against his rightly-formed conscience, even in the most serious of moral questions.”

He concluded that “Such policies would have been unimaginable in the United States even 40 years ago. It is true that many faithful Catholics, with strong and clear leadership from their Bishops and priests, are reacting against the ever-growing religious persecution in the U.S.”

The James Cancer Hospital is out of network for many

“Ohio State University’s James Cancer Hospital is in the network for three of the 12 insurers selling federally subsidized individual plans on Obamacare’s Health Insurance Market in Ohio.

That’s turning out to be a common story for the 23 “comprehensive” centers designated by the National Cancer Institute, which typically draw patients from far beyond their immediate geographies, the Associated Press reported this week.”

Read more at Business First.

The New York Times carried an article by a man describing the care he got for his dog with pet insurance.  He’s jealous. He thought he’d get a better deal with Obama’s plan, but he was wrong.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/why-im-jealous-of-my-dogs-insurance.html?_r=1

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood

You've heard a lot about Hobby Lobby. The other company is Conestoga Wood, owned my Mennonites. The ACA mandate includes a long list of contraceptives, 3 of which are abortifacients, which the owners of both companies object to, but they have no problem with the others (as a Catholic group might). They believe that providing drugs that can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb would make their companies complicit in a form of abortion. Obama has already exempted non-profits from this mandate, and of course has personally changed the law over 20 times to suit his Democrat supporters and those running for office this fall.  Freedom of religion for Obama means your religion stops at the church door.  He’s confused it with freedom of worship.

More than you’ll ever want to know about implantation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantation_(human_embryo)

American royalty deserves the best?

Bossy, aren’t they?

The pro-choicers are bossy enough to say "Not my boss's business."  But they do want the boss to be very involved in their business when it comes to paying for birth control. The two companies they are protesting today do pay for birth control in their employees' insurance plans, but object to abortifacient types which prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. There are two schools of thought on this--life begins at conception, or life begins at implantation--and each view has scientific research to support their viewpoint. http://www.lifenews.com/2013/11/18/undisputed-scientific-fact-human-life-begins-at-conception-or-fertilization/

She cried the day she realized she was a Republican

“Michelle Obama, while on her multi-million dollar "vacation" with an entourage of 70 people, tells the ChiComs How America Used to Discriminate Against People Like Her and Her Husband. - and yet it seems they have Stockholm Syndrome. I love how Rush put it today, RUSH: "I really wonder if Michelle Obama knows that you can't even move from the country into a city in China unless you have a permit and that getting a permit is dependent on many things which are discriminatory. . .  I wonder also if Michelle Obama even knows that every single one of these laws that discriminated against blacks like her and her husband were written, enacted, and enforced by Democrats, every damn one of them."

I believe it was Einstein who once said: It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. - I can somewhat attest to that. I remember the day I realized I had been duped, fooled, hoodwinked etc.  I was mad but I also had to choose to accept or reject the truth. We each have the choose to dig in our heels and be stuck on stupid (or more kindly, willful ignorance) or admit we were wrong and move on. Shoot I even cried the day I realized I was a Republican, lol. After the years of conditioning it is hard to admit to being fooled but I would rather that than live my life as a fool.”  ~ Ayesha Kreutz, President, www.fdfny.org  Shared on Face Book