BAGHDAD JAY CARNEY RESIGNS

He couldn’t keep track of all his lies, so he had to jump ship.

Carney “I can’t remember all the lies anymore to function effectively as Obama’s mouthpiece.”

WOW!!

Two Rats in one day. There aren’t many left.

White House press secretary Jay Carney resigns

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — White House press secretary Jay Carney is resigning, President Barack Obama said during a surprise appearance at a regular briefing Friday. Obama said Josh Earnest, now deputy press secretary, will take over for Carney. Obama called Carney one of his closest advisers and friends.

The Rise of Africa… and How To Play It

The Rise of Africa… and How To Play It

By Adam J. Crawford, Analyst

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Say the words and most people think of poverty… famine… epidemics… political strife… sectarian violence. Yet, just recently, Microsoft announced a new investment on the continent, calling Africa a “game changer in the global economy.” So what gives?

Game Changer?

For starters, we concede SSA faces challenges… relatively low per-capita GDP, relatively low life expectancy, and more than its fair share of military conflict. Nevertheless, considerable progress is being made.

Politically, things have changed dramatically over the last two decades. In a recent report from financial advisory service firm KPMG titled “African Emergence—The Rise of the Phoenix,” researchers explained why…

The end of the Cold War more than two decades ago brought new freedom to Africa. People started to demand political representation and called on governments to be more transparent. Democratic features were introduced and a vibrant civil society emerged.

Influenced by this political renaissance, governments began to act more responsibly. Several ended hostilities with neighboring countries.

With political change came economic change.

Beginning in the 1990s, fledgling African democracies increasingly accommodated private enterprise by reducing trade barriers, cutting corporate taxes, and privatizing state-run industries. By the time the 2000s rolled around, these reforms started to gain traction. In 2000, GDP for all of SSA was a meager $331 billion. By 2012, it had quadrupled to $1.3 trillion.

As far as the future is concerned, with more stable political and economic environments and the unleashing of market forces, SSA will reap the benefits of two megatrends:

1) growing demand for natural resources;

2) increasing consumer spending by an expanding middle class.

Let me explain…

As the world’s population grows and per-capita consumption rises in emerging economies, the demand for natural resources will increase… and SSA has plenty of natural resources, such as gold, oil, chromium, and platinum. But as important as natural resource exports will be, they aren’t the region’s only engine for economic growth.

Consumerism is also a powerful factor, and it’s being driven by an emerging middle class. More and more SSA citizens are moving from subsistence farming to higher-paying urban jobs. In 2000, about 59 million African households were earning discretionary income; by 2020, discretionary income will be available to 128 million households.

All of this points to the expectation of continued economic growth. Economists at the International Monetary Fund estimate that by 2018, GDP for SSA will reach $1.9 trillion. That amounts to a compounded annual growth rate of 7%, which compares favorably with estimates for Latin America and developing Asia of 4.7% and 8.1% respectively.

Leapfrogging to the Tech Frontier

Microsoft is not the only big tech company betting on growth opportunities in SSA. Intel, Google, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM have also invested heavily in the region. But are these companies a little early? Won’t the benefits to tech come after the buildup of roads, power grids, and healthcare systems?

Not really.

Whereas in developed countries, high tech has been “bolted onto” existing infrastructures years after they have been created, in developing regions high tech can be integrated in as the infrastructure is constructed. For example, as the US struggles to mesh electronic health records with the healthcare system and smart-grid technology with the power grid, developing economies can build these features right into their nascent systems at the outset. In the words of John Kelly, head of research at IBM, Africa “can leapfrog straight to the tech frontier, without worrying about adapting old systems…”

In addition, the Cloud is adaptable to and quite useful in the early stages of an economy’s development. According to The Economist, “The ability to use software, computing power, and storage online ‘as a service,’ paying only for what you need and only when you need it, may put the cost of information technology within the budget of many small African businesses.”

The point is: the time for tech in SSA is now… not a decade from now. That’s why so many big tech firms are setting up shop in the region. Research firm IDC predicts that IT spending across Africa will increase from $30 billion in 2012 to $40 billion in 2016, and if telecom is included, spending will increase from $103 billion in 2012 to $130 billion by 2016.

But here’s the thing: Africa won’t significantly move the revenue needle for the global tech giants, so investors should look elsewhere for opportunities. Our advice? An African telecom.

The Gains Down in Africa

As mentioned before, over the next few years, millions of SSA households will be acquiring discretionary income for the first time. That means millions more in the region will have more money to purchase necessities, and they’ll begin to purchase things like mobile phones and mobile services.

According to GSMA, a global trade organization for mobile phone operators, there will be 250 million mobile phone connections in Africa over the next five years. That bodes well for African telecoms. But it’s a hotly contested space. So which telecom is the best bet?

We like MTN Group Limited (MTNOY). The company is on solid financial ground. It pays a nice dividend. Its network is superior to the competition’s, which is why MTNOY is the market share leader in SSA. Oh, and the stock is cheap—even after the 12% run the stock has gone on since we recommended it in the December issue of BIG TECH. If you want access to our comprehensive report on MTNOY as well as access to our other buy recommendations, which include a networking equipment provider with 90% near-term upside potential, then sign up for a risk-free trial of BIG TECH.

The article The Rise of Africa… and How To Play It was originally published at caseyresearch.com.

PATRIOTIC WHISTLEBLOWER CALLS KERRY A F$#ING LIAR

Via The Guardian

Daniel Ellsberg: Snowden would not get a fair trial – and Kerry is wrong

Edward Snowden is the greatest patriot whistleblower of our time, and he knows what I learned more than four decades ago: until the Espionage Act gets reformed, he can never come home safe and receive justice

snowden nbc interview

As the author knows from direct chat-log conversations with him over the past year, Snowden acted in full knowledge of the constitutionally questionable efforts of the Obama administration, in particular, to use the Espionage Act in a way it was never intended by Congress. (Video still via NBC News)

John Kerry was in my mind Wednesday morning, and not because he had called me a patriot on NBC News. I was reading the lead story in the New York Times – “US Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016” – with a photo of American soldiers looking for caves. I recalled not the Secretary of State but a 27-year-old Kerry, asking, as he testified to the Senate about the US troops who were still in Vietnam and were to remain for another two years: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

I wondered how a 70-year-old Kerry would relate to that question as he looked at that picture and that headline. And then there he was on MSNBC an hour later, thinking about me, too, during a round of interviews about Afghanistan that inevitably turned to Edward Snowden ahead of my fellow whistleblower’s own primetime interview that night:

There are many a patriot – you can go back to the Pentagon Papers with Dan Ellsberg and others who stood and went to the court system of America and made their case. Edward Snowden is a coward, he is a traitor, and he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.

On the Today show and CBS, Kerry complimented me again – and said Snowden “should man up and come back to the United States” to face charges. But John Kerry is wrong, because that’s not the measure of patriotism when it comes to whistleblowing, for me or Snowden, who is facing the same criminal charges I did for exposing the Pentagon Papers.

As Snowden told Brian Williams on NBC later that night and Snowden’s lawyer told me the next morning, he would have no chance whatsoever to come home and make his case – in public or in court.

Snowden would come back home to a jail cell – and not just an ordinary cell-block but isolation in solitary confinement, not just for months like Chelsea Manning but for the rest of his sentence, and probably the rest of his life. His legal adviser, Ben Wizner, told me that he estimates Snowden’s chance of being allowed out on bail as zero. (I was out on bond, speaking against the Vietnam war, the whole 23 months I was under indictment).

More importantly, the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing. Legal scholars have strongly argued that the US supreme court – which has never yet addressed the constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to leaks to the American public – should find the use of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence of a public interest defense. The Espionage Act, as applied to whistleblowers, violates the First Amendment, is what they’re saying.

As I know from my own case, even Snowden’s own testimony on the stand would be gagged by government objections and the (arguably unconstitutional) nature of his charges. That was my own experience in court, as the first American to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act – or any other statute – for giving information to the American people.

I had looked forward to offering a fuller account in my trial than I had given previously to any journalist – any Glenn Greenwald or Brian Williams of my time – as to the considerations that led me to copy and distribute thousands of pages of top-secret documents. I had saved many details until I could present them on the stand, under oath, just as a young John Kerry had delivered his strongest lines in sworn testimony.

But when I finally heard my lawyer ask the prearranged question in direct examination – Why did you copy the Pentagon Papers? – I was silenced before I could begin to answer. The government prosecutor objected – irrelevant – and the judge sustained. My lawyer, exasperated, said he “had never heard of a case where a defendant was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what he did.” The judge responded: well, you’re hearing one now.

And so it has been with every subsequent whistleblower under indictment, and so it would be if Edward Snowden was on trial in an American courtroom now.

Indeed, in recent years, the silencing effect of the Espionage Act has only become worse. The other NSA whistleblower prosecuted, Thomas Drake, was barred from uttering the words “whistleblowing” and “overclassification” in his trial. (Thankfully, the Justice Department’s case fell apart one day before it was to begin). In the recent case of the State Department contractor Stephen Kim, the presiding judge ruled the prosecution “need not show that the information he allegedly leaked could damage US national security or benefit a foreign power, even potentially.”

We saw this entire scenario play out last summer in the trial of Chelsea Manning. The military judge in that case did not let Manning or her lawyer argue her intent, the lack of damage to the US, overclassification of the cables or the benefits of the leaks … until she was already found guilty.

Without reform to the Espionage Act that lets a court hear a public interest defense – or a challenge to the appropriateness of government secrecy in each particular case – Snowden and future Snowdens can and will only be able to “make their case” from outside the United States.

As I know from direct chat-log conversations with him over the past year, Snowden acted in full knowledge of the constitutionally questionable efforts of the Obama administration, in particular, to use the Espionage Act in a way it was never intended by Congress: as the equivalent of a British-type Official Secrets Act criminalizing any and all unauthorized release of classified information. (Congress has repeatedly rejected proposals for such an act as violating the First Amendment protections of free speech and a free press; the one exception to that was vetoed by President Clinton in November 2000, on constitutional grounds.)

John Kerry’s challenge to Snowden to return and face trial is either disingenuous or simply ignorant that current prosecutions under the Espionage Act allow no distinction whatever between a patriotic whistleblower and a spy. Either way, nothing excuses Kerry’s slanderous and despicable characterizations of a young man who, in my opinion, has done more than anyone in or out of government in this century to demonstrate his patriotism, moral courage and loyalty to the oath of office the three of us swore: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

HOW LONG CAN YOU GO ON LIKE THIS?

Man Terrified To Realize He Could Easily Go On Like This

NewsLocalhuman interest ISSUE 50•21 May 29, 2014

Gallardo says he is “deeply disturbed” that the thought of spending every Friday night streaming movies by himself in his apartment for the rest of his life does not sound all that bad to him.

 

FARMINGTON, NM—Despite being deeply dissatisfied with nearly every aspect of his life, local man Paul Gallardo told reporters Thursday that he was terrified to realize he could very easily continue to exist in such an unhappy state and probably would do so indefinitely.

Gallardo, a part-time file clerk who is unmarried and has few meaningful relationships of any kind, stated that although his personal and professional circumstances were an ongoing source of distress, he feared they would never be sufficiently unbearable to compel him to remedy his situation. According to Gallardo, after more than four decades of living with his painful but entirely manageable loneliness, he was unlikely to ever improve himself, a fact he said has filled him with dread.

“I’ve always been miserable, but I guess I haven’t been quite miserable enough to do anything about it,” said Gallardo, 44, who added that while his daily life is consistently unpleasant, he has never felt the need to abuse alcohol or drugs to numb his emotional anguish. “I still go to my awful job, still pay my rent, still eat a whole frozen pizza pretty much every night. I hate every minute of it, but it’s not making me panic or reassess my life or anything. I kind of wish it did, though.”

“And that’s what’s so scary,” continued Gallardo. “I’m sad, really sad, but I’m also pretty comfortable with everything. God, I hate to say it, but I could see myself doing this for years.”

Gallardo told reporters that he is continually disappointed with the increasingly overweight and unambitious individual he sees in the mirror each day, but he expressed his deep-seated worry that there may never come a day when he is so overwhelmed with disgust at his own reflection that he vows to change himself at any cost. Instead, the man who cannot remember the last weekend he did not spend alone in his apartment said he was alarmed to discover that it would “not be much of a problem at all” to pass the rest of his time on earth in the same state of moderate dejection he has felt for decades.

“If there hasn’t been a wake-up call by now, it’s hard to imagine there’s ever going to be one,” said Gallardo, who claimed to be deeply dismayed by his complacency at sitting on his couch and aimlessly poking around the internet until he falls asleep each night. “There’s no pressure building up inside me, and I’m okay with that.”

“I’m 100 percent okay with that,” Gallardo added. “Jesus Christ.”

Gallardo told reporters that as long as he could continue completing day-to-day activities such as doing laundry and grocery shopping, he would be perfectly capable of putting one foot in front of the other until he died—almost certainly alone—in about 40 years, a realization a frightened Gallardo said would nevertheless fail to alter his debilitating behavior in the slightest.

“Some people take stock of their lives and finally say ‘enough is enough,’” Gallardo said. “I can’t do that. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever do that. I think it’s safe to say I’ll keep putting up with myself year after year and simply never reach a breaking point. Jeez, that’s awful. What am I going to do about this?”

“Forget it,” added Gallardo, shaking his head. “I already know the answer to that.”

Via The Onion

WORKPLACE MORALE

New Study Finds Employee Morale Drastically Improves After Watching Coworker Throw Fit

News in BriefcoworkersworkNews ISSUE 50•21 May 28, 2014

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN—According to a study published Wednesday in the Journal Of Management, the morale of an entire workplace typically improves dramatically following any instance in which employees witness one of their coworkers absolutely losing it and throwing a fit right there in the office. “It turns out that whenever someone at a place of business gets fed up to the point of raising their voice or begins vigorously and loudly typing on their keyboard as they have a tantrum at their desk, everyone else who works there starts to feel a little bit better,” said industrial psychologist Glenn Hardt, explaining that the study measured self-reported levels of happiness among employees immediately before and after a coworker sighed heavily, slammed his or her laptop closed, and stormed out of a meeting. “There may be a few stunned looks at first, but this behavior is soon followed by a flurry of eye contact, half-suppressed smiles, and then sustained, measurable improvements in mood among those still present.” The study went on to state that workplace morale plummets to its lowest point when a fellow employee is promoted.

Via The Onion

Eight Obamacare Myths Refuted

Guest Post from David Stockman’s Contra Corner

by John R. Graham

Four years after its passage, Obamacare has now been largely implemented, and millions have had their coverage disrupted. For years, the administration has propagated a number of myths about Obamacare. Some have already crumbled, and others will fall as Obamacare continues to change the American health system.

Myth No. 1: If you like your health plan, you can keep it. Despite President Obama’s promise that “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” about 6 million people have already been notified by insurance companies that their policies are being canceled. That number will grow. Currently, about 19 million people have health coverage that they purchased in the individual market. Most of those plans do not comply with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. One expert estimates that the law will cause more than 15 million people to lose their individual insurance by the end of 2014.1 Most of these people have to get coverage from the deeply troubled Obamacare exchanges.

Businesses were supposed to be allowed to keep their employee coverage.The term the government uses for this is “grandfathered.” The truth is that few small business health plans will be “grandfathered.”2 For example, even small changes in deductibles and copayments or switching to another plan offered by the same carrier means losing this protection. Small firms keep premiums down primarily by changing insurers, but doing so will likely cause them to lose grandfathered status. The employer will have to find insurance that complies with dozens of costly new mandates, such as paying for so-called “preventive care” with no out-of-pocket cost to the employees.

Under a mid-range estimate, two-thirds of small business employees will not be able to keep the plan they now have.3

Under the worst-case scenario, as many as 80 percent will lose their plans.4

By contrast, a self-insured, large company plan or union plan is free to change its third-party administrator (the firm hired to administer the benefits on behalf of the employer) as often as it likes and still keep its grandfathered status.5

However, a government memorandum predicts that more than half of all employees — and up to as many as two-thirds — with employer-provided health insurance will have to switch to more expensive, more regulated plans. 6 A survey of employers by a leading benefits consultant found that 90 percent of employers expect to lose their grandfathered status. A majority expect to do so before the employer mandate takes effect.7 The memorandum suggests that eventually all plans will lose grandfathered status.

Myth No. 2: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Many health plans sold in the exchanges offer very narrow networks with a limited choice of doctors.8 For example, 70 percent of California physicians are not in CoveredCalifornia exchange plan networks.9 If government estimates are correct, about 26 million uninsured people will eventually acquire health insurance.10 If economic studies are correct, the newly insured will try to double their consumption of health care.11 Yet, with no increase in the number of physicians, there is no realistic way to meet this demand.

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a shortfall of 21,000 primary care physicians by 2015. Before health care reform passed, the Health Resources and Services Administration estimated a shortage of 55,000 to 150,000 physicians by 2020. That number is undoubtedly higher today.12 Texas alone is predicting a shortage of 18,000 nurses by 2015.13

Myth No. 3: There is an “employer mandate” to offer affordable coverage. If an employer has fewer than 50 full-time workers, she is not required to offer health benefits. There is a mandate for larger employers to offer health benefits. However, they do not have to cover spouses or pay for dependents. Most importantly, they have an incentive to offer benefits that will be unaffordable to many workers.

One option is to refuse to provide health insurance and pay a $2,000 fine per employee. Because this is much less than what most companies spend on employee health benefits, many employers will stop offering health insurance and send their employees to the exchanges.

Furthermore, half of all employees work for an employer who is self-insured (meaning the company pays the medical bills and hires a third-party administrator to administer the plan). A self-insured company can avoid the fine with a health plan that only covers the cost of preventive care, with no annual or lifetime limit. However, because this insurance will not satisfy the full requirements of the law, employees may go to the exchange and get subsidized insurance. If they do, the employer will be liable for a $3,000 fine per employee. An employer could avoid the fine by offering to “top up” the limited benefits and requiring employees to pay up to 9.5 percent of their annual wages in premiums and the full cost for their spouses and children.

The table shows an example of a $50,000-a-year employee who is asked to pay 9.5 percent of his or her annual gross wage for individual coverage ($4,720) and the full cost of family coverage ($10,000). Under the law, this is deemed “affordable” and satisfies the employer mandate, even though few workers would willingly spend nearly one-third of their take-home pay on health insurance — unless they expect some whopping medical bills. If an employee turns down this offer, he will not be entitled to subsidies if he buys coverage in an Obamacare exchange.

Myth No. 4: Health reform will lower the cost of health insurance by $2,500 a year for the average family. Because of Obamacare’s mandates and regulations, coverage will be more expensive for everyone outside a small portion of older, low-income adults who can obtain highly subsidized coverage in the exchanges.

A new tax on health insurance is likely to cost the families of employees of small businesses more than $500 a year in higher premiums.14

A 40 percent tax on the extra coverage provided by expensive “Cadillac” plans will apply to about one-third of all private health insurance plans by 2019, but, because the tax threshold is not indexed to medical inflation, it will eventually reach every health plan.

Scores of other items will be taxed, ranging from tanning salons to the sale of appreciated capital assets (including homes), in extreme cases.15

Some benefits have hidden costs:

Health insurers are raising premiums for everyone in order to charge people with pre-existing conditions less than the expected cost of their care. Some young people, for example, have seen a doubling or tripling of their premiums.16

Insurers are also trying to cover the higher costs of sicker enrollees with higher deductibles and narrow networks that cover only some of the doctors and hospitals in areas where people live.

In order for employers to provide health insurance (or more generous insurance) to their employees, they will have to reduce what they pay in wages and in other benefits.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2 million fewer workers will be employed in 2017 and 2.5 million fewer in 2024 than would have been employed in the absence of Obamacare. Also, total compensation will be 1 percent lower.17

Myth No. 5: There is an “individual mandate” that ensures everyone has health coverage. As originally written, the Affordable Care Act required most legal residents of the United States to have qualifying coverage or pay a fine. There were narrowly defined exemptions for some religious groups,prisoners, those whose incomes were so low that they did not have to file a tax return and those who would have to pay over 8 percent of household income to buy health insurance. For 2014, the fine was only supposed to be $95 per adult or $285 per family, or 1 percent of household income, whichever is greater. By 2016, the fine is scheduled to go up to $695 per adult or $2,085 per family, or 2.5 percent of income.

However, the individual mandate was effectively deferred until at least 2016 when the Obama administration’s Department of Health & Human Servicesallowed people to decide for themselves if they qualify for a “hardship exemption.” An individual can claim a hardship exemption if she attests that “you received a notice that your current health plan is being cancelled, and you consider the other options available unaffordable.”18

Because this exemption was created to reduce the political liability of fining people before the November 2016 election, the individual mandate is highly unlikely ever to be imposed. After all, there is an election every two years. Thus, fewer healthy people and more sick people will continue to sign up for coverage, and premiums will continue to rise.

Myth No. 6: Individuals cannot be denied individual coverage due to pre-existing conditions. This was only true if they applied for Obamacare coverage before March 31, 2014. If they missed that deadline, they cannot get coverage at all until November 15, 2014, unless they experience a life-qualifying event, such as getting married or having a child. In the individual market, prior to Obamacare, people could apply whenever they wanted to.

Myth No. 7: Health insurers no longer can cancel a policy after an insured individual gets sick. This has been illegal for decades. If an insurer canceled a policy, it had to offer coverage under another policy without underwriting. Before Obamacare, a health insurer could only rescind a policy if the insured had misrepresented her health status on her application. If the insurer did so illegally, it was called “post-claims underwriting,” and insurers that did it were punished severely under state law. In 2008, for example, HealthNet announced an agreement with the California Insurance Commissioner to reinstate 926 policies, pay $3.6 million in penalties and reimburse $14 million in outstanding medical claims.19

On the contrary, Obamacare has caused many cancellations. For example, as a contractual condition of selling health plans in the CoveredCalifornia exchange, insurers were required to cancel existing policies and force those already covered into the exchange.

On November 14, 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent a letter to state insurance commissioners giving them the discretion to allow individuals to keep their prior coverage for one more year.20 Nearly three-fourths of states agreed to allow insurers to reinstate canceled health plans. However, it appears that most insurers were not able to do so. Indeed, the practice has been specifically barred in a handful of states, including Washington, Indiana and the District of Columbia.21

Myth No. 8: Medicare has been strengthened. Reduced Medicare spending, amounting to $715 billion over the next 10 years, will pay for more than half the cost of health reform:22

Cuts to hospital services total $260 billion.

Cuts to Medicare Advantage Plans total $156 billion.

Cuts to skilled nursing, hospice, home health and other services add up to $155 billion.

Hospitals that treat a disproportionate share of indigent patients will lose $56 billion.

The elderly and disabled will incur significantly higher costs:

In general, the Medicare spending cuts exceed the new benefits by a factor of more than 10 to 1.23

As a result, one of every two people expected to participate in Medicare Advantage over the next 10 years (7.5 million of 14 million) will lose their coverage entirely. According to Medicare’s chief actuary, they will be tossed back into Medicare, with the option to buy another Advantage plan or a supplement. Those who retain their Advantage coverage will face steep benefit cuts or hefty premium increases, or both.24

Additionally, indirect costs, including new taxes on drugs and medical devices, will apply to items that are disproportionately used by seniors and the disabled.

To make matters worse, Medicare’s chief actuary believes the planned cuts in fees may cause some doctors to retire and force some hospitals out of business.25      

Conclusion. Favorable media coverage of the 8 million people who have enrolled in health insurance via exchanges has allowed the administration and its allies to revive discredited claims about Obamacare’s benefits. The numbers touted by the administration disguise the fact that many of these people lost previous coverage in the period prior to open enrollment, and people are no longer free to acquire the health insurance they want. The real costs of Obamacare will continue to burden Americans, despite the apparent success of the first open enrollment. We need an alternative.

John R. Graham is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Published at NCPA.org

 

Endnotes

[1] Robert Laszewski, “Healthcare.Gov’s Numbers at the Deadline,” Healthcare Blog, December 30, 2013. Available at http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2013/12/30/healthcare-govs-numbers-at-the-deadline/. 

[1] Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, “Like Your Health Care Policy? You May Be Losing It,” Associated Press, May 29, 2013. Available at http://bigstory.ap.org/article/your-health-care-policy-you-may-be-losing-it. 

[1] “Interim Final Rules for Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Coverage Relating to Status as a Grandfathered Health Plan under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, July 2010, page 54. Available at http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/employees-not-grandfathered-in.pdf#page=54. 

[1] Ibid. 

[1] Chris Jacobs, “Did Unions Just Obtain Another Backroom Health Care Deal?” Republican Policy Committee, June 14, 2010. Available at http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/E-mail_from_Chris_Jacobs_RPC_061510.pdf. 

[1] HealthReform.Gov, “Fact Sheet: Keeping the Health Plan You Have: The Affordable Care Act and ‘Grandfathered’ Health Plans,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, August 2, 2010. Available at http://www.healthreform.gov/ newsroom/keeping_the_health_plan_you_have.html. 

[1] Hewitt Associates, “Nine out of 10 U.S. Companies Anticipate Losing Grandfather Status Under Health Care Reform, According to New Hewitt Survey,” Press Release, August 2010. Available at http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/AboutHewitt/Newsroom/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?cid=8810. 

[1] Darius Tahir, “Narrow-Network Health Plans Expected to Proliferate Under Obamacare,” National Journal, October 9, 2013. Available at http://www.nationaljournal.com/innovations-in-health/narrow-network-health-plans-expected-to-proliferate-under-Obamacare-20131009. 

[1] Richard Pollock, “Doctors boycotting California’s Obamacare exchange,” Washington Examiner, December 6, 2013. Available at http://washingtonexaminer.com/doctors-boycotting-californias-Obamacare-exchange/article/2540272. 

[1] “CBO’s April 2014 Estimate of the Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage,” Congressional Budget Office, April 2014 Table 2. Available at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45231-ACA_Estimates.pdf. 

[1] Jack Hadley and John Holahan, “Covering the Uninsured: How Much Would it Cost?” Health Affairs, Web Exclusive, June 4, 2003, pages W325-265. Available at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.w3.250v1. 

[1] Julian Pecquet, “Investment in Healthcare Workforce Announced as Doctor Shortage Looms,” Healthwatch: the Hill’s Healthcare Blog, June 16, 2010. Available at http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/103575-investment-in-healthcare-workforce-announced-as-doctor-shortage-looms. 

[1] “Texas Nursing: Our Future Depends on It, A Strategic Plan for the State of Texas to Meet Nursing Workforce Needs of 2013,” Texas Department of Health and Human Services, April 2010. Available at http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/cnws/TexasTeam/TexasStrategy.pdf. 

[1] Five Unaffordable Facts About the New Health Care Law: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” National Federation of Independent Business, April 2010. Available at http://health.burgess.house.gov/uploadedfiles/nfib_-_5_unaffordable_facts_about_health_reform_law.pdf

15 Alyene Senger and John Fleming, “Obamacare’s 18 New Tax Hikes,” Heritage Foundation, August 20, 2012. Available at http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/20/obamacares-18-new-tax-hikes/.

16  John C. Goodman, “The Senate Health Bill,” John Goodman’s Health Policy Blog, December 9, 2009. Available at http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/the-senate-health-bill/.

17 “The Budget and Economic Outlook,” Congressional Budget Office, February 4, 2014, pages 126-127.

18 “Application for Exemption from the Shared Responsibility Payment for Individuals who Experience Hardships,”  Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, March 2014. Available at http://marketplace.cms.gov/getofficialresources/publications-and-articles/hardship-exemption.pdf.

19 Lisa Girion and Marc Lifsher, “Health Net to reinstate 926 dropped policyholders in California,” Los Angeles Times September 12, 2008. Available at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-insure12-2008sep12-story.html.

20 Gary Cohen, letter to state insurance commissioners, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, November 14, 2013. Available at http://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Letters/Downloads/commissioner-letter-11-14-2013.PDF.

21 John W. Schoen, “Want to keep your health plan? In most states, you can,” NBC News, December 4, 2013. Available at http://www.nbcnews.com/health/want-keep-your-health-plan-most-states-you-can-2D11691633.

22 CBO letter to John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressional Budget Office, July 24, 2012. Available at http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf.

23 Ibid.

24 Richard S. Foster, “Estimated Financial Effects of the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,’ as passed by the Senate on December 24, 2009,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, January 8, 2010. Available at http://www.politico.com/static/PPM130_oact_memorandum_on_senate_bill_as_passed_01-08-09.html.

25Ibid.

TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE HAVE SANCTIONS ON IRAN

Where is the evidence that Iran has an atomic bomb program?  Oh right, there is none.  Where is the evidence that Iran has violated their NPT obligations?  See above.  Yet we have isolated Iran from the world economy and saddled its’ people with 30% inflation and forced them into a cash only society for over a decade.  

It would seem that the real intention of the US is to destroy their economy simply because their leaders sometimes say bad things about us and our lil’ buddy in the levant.  How dare they?  How dare a 5,000 year old civilization that his been the off and on superpower in that region for 2,5000 years  go its’ own way in defiance of the indispensable country.  Bomb them!

Iran Set to Start Converting Low-Enriched Uranium to Fuel

Plant Will Process What Remains of Iran’s Stockpile

by Jason Ditz, May 29, 2014

Last week the IAEA confirmed that Iran’s 20 percent enriched stockpile is almost entirely gone, converted into fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor. Now what remains, Iran’s low-enriched stockpile at 3.5 percent, is about to start conversion as well.

Iran’s plant for the conversion of 3.5 percent enriched uranium gas into uranium oxide fuel, for the Bushehr Power Plant, is expected to open in June, and Iran has already moved roughly half of its gas stockpile to the site in anticipation of that.

The 3.5 percent enriched uranium was never any real “threat” to begin with, as nuclear weapons require enrichment in excess of 90 percent, something Iran has never even attempted. Still, the conversion of the gas into oxide will remove yet another talking point that hawks have relied on to keep scaring people about Iran.

ANTIWAR.COM

DREADFULLY PLEASANT WEATHER IN APRIL KEEPS CONSUMERS FROM SPENDING

I’m guessing you’ve heard a spokesmodel “journalist” or Wall Street Ivy League economist hack, on the corporate mainstream media, bloviate about the dreadful weather keeping consumers from spending over the last six months. They assured the technology sedated masses that they would resume their debt financed orgy of consumerism as soon as the warm winds of Spring arrived.

Well, Spring arrived right on time in April. Temperatures rose, the sun came out, and consumers spent even less. Oops!!!!

Frantic calls are being made to Madison Avenue public relations maggots for a new spin on data proving we are in recession. Maybe it was too sunny and warm in April. Consumers just wanted to sunbath in their backyards because 92 million of them aren’t in the labor force anymore.

It seems we just experienced the largest drop in consumer spending since September 2009, when all of the highly educated, highly paid, mouthpieces for the establishment insisted we would see a consumer spending revival as soon as the snow melted.

Propaganda, storylines, lies, misinformation and cheer leading constitute our entire society at this point in our long decline. We all know for a fact we are paying far more for energy, food, and Obamacare boosted insurance premiums. The collapse in Retailer sales and profits proves we have nothing left to spend on anything else. Weather has nothing to do with anything.

http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1#reqid=9&step=3&isuri=1&903=76

Looking at the data on the BEA website reveals these tidbits:

  • The government actually wants you to believe that taking funds from your paycheck for social security, medicare, medicaid and obamacare and then handing them to other people constitutes INCOME. These government transfers went up by $129 billion in April versus last April.
  • Meanwhile, the 120 million or so Americans still working for companies only increased their income by $247 billion.
  • Government drones are now “earning” 16.4% of all the wages paid in this country. Despite a storyline of government austerity, wages of government drones continue to rise.
  • Turning off the spigot of extended unemployment is clearly seen in the data as unemployment payments have crashed by $31 billion over last April, a 55% reduction. It seems cutting off people from 2 years of unemployment and reducing their food stamps has put a little crimp in our fake economic recovery.
  • The most damning statistic in the data is Real Disposable Income Per Capita. This is how much you have left to spend after taxes, adjusted for inflation (using understated BLS number). This figure stands at $37,174 today. This figure was $37,584 in May 2008, just prior to the Federal Reserve created financial meltdown. So here we are six years later and the average person has 1% less real disposable income.

We have less real disposable income, fewer jobs, higher energy, food, and health insurance costs and the stock market continues to hit all-time highs as the oligarchs use their HFT supercomputers to fleece the muppets, rig the system and reap Federal Reserve created riches for themselves. The sheeple hate Congress and then vote 99% of incumbents back into office.

If you want to understand why we are in an inescapable downward financial spiral look no further than what percentage of personal income constitutes government entitlement transfers from the productive to the non-productive:

1988 – 11.3% of personal income was made up of government transfers

2000 – 12.0%

2008 – 14.2%

2014 – 17.0%

Does this trend seem to be sustainable, or have we crossed the point of no return?

And so it goes.

THE COPS ARE YOUR ENEMY

SERVING & PROTECTING THE SHIT OUT OF YOU

 

Toddler critically injured by flashbang during SWAT raid

A toddler was critically injured by a flashbang during an early morning SWAT raid in Georgia Wednesday.

SWAT breached an Atlanta residence around 3 a.m. in search for Wanis Thometheva, 30, who was wanted for selling drugs. They deployed a flashbang, but the device landed in 19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh’s playpen, WSB-TV reports.

baby-burned-2

The baby was severely injured by the blast and was transported to an area hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma.

“It landed in his playpen and exploded on his pillow right in his face,” said the boy’s mother, Alecia Phonesavanh. “It blew open his face and his chest. Everybody was asleep. It’s not like anyone was trying to fight.”

According to Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the raid took place after a confidential informant reported he had purchased methamphetamine from Thometheva.

Law enforcement officials were familiar with Thometheva, who had prior drug and firearm related arrests. He wasn’t home at the time of the raid but was captured later on at another residence.

Cornelia Police Chief Rick Darby said the operation was a multijurisdictional effort. He added there was no indication children were present in the home.

baby-burned-1

“There was no clothes, no toys, nothing to indicate that there was children present in the home. If there had been then we’d have done something different,” Darby said.

Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell said injuring an innocent child was the last thing he wanted to happen.

“The last thing you want is law enforcement to injure someone innocent,” Terrell said. “There was no malicious act performed. It was a terrible accident that was never supposed to happen.”

Doctors say baby Phonesavanh has about a 50 percent chance of surviving his wounds, but say they won’t know for certain for at least several weeks.

“Our hearts are broken with them because of the child,” Terrell added.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings…No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

Fukushima: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Off the microphone of RE

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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on May 30, 2014

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Discuss this Rant at the Podcast Table inside the Diner

Snippet:

Fukushima-Simpson…Topic for today is the Disaster Gift that keeps on Giving, Fukushima. You may not remember this since it long ago dropped off the pages of the MSM and Faux Newz, but Fukushima was the Nip Nuke Reactors that melted down, caught on fire and began spewing radioactive material out into the environment back in 2011 in the aftermath of Sendai quake and ensuing Tsunami that hit the coast of Honshu Island smack dab in the Fukushima prefecture.. The latest newz from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, aka TEPCO is that so solly, we will need to start dumping 100 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific every day. However, we ASSURE you the radiation level of this water is perfectly safe. The reason we can assure you of that is because every time the readings go higher, we declare higher levels to be safe!

Da Goobermint here in the FsoA follows much the same path, in this case though rather than keep raising the bar on what is an acceptable level of daily Radiation Vitamins to ingest, they simply elect not to monitor it! On the theory that if you don;t know about it, it can’t hurt you. Not to mention when leukemia victims start suing, they can claim this wasn’t under their jurisdiction and therefore they are not liable. Go sue TEPCO…

For the rest, LISTEN TO THE RANT!!