This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Hondo

  • Yer 2017 ObamaCare Enrollment Period Update

    The 2017 premiums for that      Pathetically Puerile Abominable Collection of Asininity
    “wonderful” law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – AKA “ObamaCare” – have been released.

    The numbers for next year?  Well, as they might have said where I was raised:  “Them numbers ain’t lookin’ so good.”

    Nationwide, for the 39 states using the Federal healthcare exchange the average premium increase is about 25%.  But if your premium “only” goes up 25% next year when you purchase healthcare through the Federal insurance exchange – count your blessings.  In many states premiums increase by far more than that.

    In 10 states, a “Silver” plan (2nd lowest before tax credit) purchased through an insurance exchange has a premium increase of 40% or more.  And in Arizona, that Silver plan rate increase puts the emphasis on “more” – as in, next year it will cost a whopping 145% more.

    Hey, they’ve got the proverbial “captive audience” – coverage is legally mandatory, remember?  So yeah, they can do that and get away with it.

    Choices are much more limited next year as well.  In 11 states, only one or two insurers are offering insurance through an insurance exchange.  So much for “robust competition” happening simply because “the government said so”, eh?

    Seriously:  anyone with common sense could have seen this coming.  Insurers don’t exist as public services; they exist to make money – and they can’t do that at anything approaching a reasonable cost to consumers under the conditions mandated by ObamaCare.  (Not being able to exclude preexisting conditions essentially guarantees that.)  The result was predictable:  many insurers opted to leave the marketplace, and those which remained raised prices through the roof.

    Result:  few or no choices, and they’re all expensive as hell.  Ain’t legalized monopoly grand?

    Oh, and since all this utter idiocy is subsidized by the US taxpayer . . . wanna guess who’s paying a sh!tload of the cost?  Yeah, you’re right:  US taxpayers.  You and me.

    But never fear, fellow citizens!  The current       phalanx of fools fecklessly fornicating things up by-the-numbers in DC       Administration still predicts an increase in ObamaCare enrollment of 9% this coming year!  All is simply wonderful, right?

    Yeah, right.  Just like I’m the Emperor of Japan.

    Oh, and remember that “Medicaid expansion” that was thrown in as a “sweetener” to drum up support for this      imbecilic squandering of Federal tax money      soup-sandwich of a Federal program?  Well, it looks like that “sweetener” means Medicaid is going to cost the Federal government somewhere around $550+ billion annually 7 years from now – with states ponying up another $160 billion on top of that.

    Doesn’t exactly sound so sweet when the bills finally come due, eh?

    Here are a couple of graphics from the 2nd article linked above.  They’re quite illustrative of the very predicable problems we’re seeing with Obama’s Abomination.  They are linked here for your convenience.  The first shows the premium increases by state for a “Silver” plan; the second, the drop-off in participation by insurers in the Federal exchange in various states.

    The second link above explains the death spiral in which ObamaCare finds itself today in detail.  Yeah, that’s a death-rattle cough you’re hearing.

    Whether that death-rattle cough is from ObamaCare or the US economy remains to be seen.  Remember:  it’s the latter which ultimately is funding this Socialist travesty.  And it’s being funded with money forcibly confiscated by the Federal government that would otherwise be put to  productive use in the private sector.

    Socialism works great until you run out of other people’s money.

  • Yeah, Looks Like the POTUS Lied. Again. Surprised?

    Last March, the POTUS was asked when he learned about the Clintoon “private” email server.

    His response?  “The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”

    Well, it looks like the man either is monumentally dense – or he       shamelessly lied through his teeth       “misspoke” here.  Because here’s a quote from an email written by Cheryl Mills, a close Clintoon confident, late that night.  The email was written after Mills had learned of the POTUS’s statement.

    “We need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov.”

    Oopsie.

    Yeah, it certainly seems the POTUS lied.  Again.

    So . . . what else is new?

    . . .

    Let’s recap the Clintoon email matter.  Here are my “Top 10 Hits” from the whole matter.

    1. While SECSTATE, Clintoon used an unauthorized, “private” and abysmally-badly secured email server to conduct government business.  This is against US government policy, and arguably violates Federal law.

    2.  As the second link above also shows, Clintoon had the State department change IT policy so she could use her “private” Blackberry and that unauthorized “private” email account from within secure DoS areas.

    3.  The POTUS received email from Clintoon originating at her “private”, unauthorized email address.  Given Mills’ concern, obviously at least some of that email to the POTUS from Clintoon’s unauthorized “private” email server was both official business and was sent while Clintoon was SECSTATE.

    4.  The POTUS thus knew that Clintoon was using a private email address for official government business prior to 7 March 2015.  (Well, either that or he’s a totally clueless fool – take your pick.  A “.com” email address isn’t one provided by the US government.)  But when asked point-blank when and how he learned Clintoon was using an unauthorized private address for government business, he publicly lied about when he learned that fact.

    5.  Multiple instances of highly classified material were later found to have been stored on Clintoon’s unauthorized, poorly-secured “private” server – including both SCI and Special Access Program material.  Some of it was marked properly; much of the more sensitive material should have been blindingly obvious as classified to someone with Clintoon’s experience and security indoctrinations, whether marked or not.

    6.  None of those classified spills were reported by Clintoon (or anyone else) when discovered, as is required by Federal law.  Intentional failure to report such unauthorized storage of classified information is a Federal felony.

    7.  Once the matter became public, Clintoon’s unauthorized, unsecured “private” email server was wiped.  It appears to have been wiped well after the Federal government had begun investigating the matter.  Sophisticated tools were used to wipe it. The administrator of Clintoon’s unauthorized “private” email server apparently also sought advice on how to sanitize “VIP identities” from email archives on Reddit – also after the Federal government had begun investigating the matter.

    8.  It’s a shoe-in that Clintoon’s p!ss-poorly secured server was penetrated by foreign intelligence services.  It likely was penetrated by more than one such foreign intelligence service.

    9.  Material contained on that unsecured, unauthorized email server was sufficient to identify at least one US intelligence source.  That source was later taken into custody and executed by the nation about which he was providing information to the US.

    10.  The FBI whitewashed the whole matter, and refused to prosecute clear and obvious violations of Federal law.

    Those are just the national security-related “hits”.  I haven’t even touched on the evidence of possible “pay-for-play” corruption, abuse of government resources, and unethical DNC-press collusion the Clintoon emails recovered or made public to date seem to show.

    You or I would be in jail by now.

    I guess it’s good to have serious “top cover”.

  • Sgt Reckless – Redux

    I’ve previously written about Sgt Reckless – the USMC horse that served honorably and heroically in Korea.  In 2013, the USMC erected a statue in her honor IVO the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico.

    When the Korean War ended, Sgt Reckless returned to the US with the USMC.  She (yes, Sgt. Reckless was a filly) lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1968 at Camp Pendleton, CA.

    Until recently, she had no monument there.  This week that will change.  On Friday, a statue in her honor will be dedicated at Camp Pendleton, CA.  It’s similar to the one at Quantico.

    Well done, Marines.

  • Yet More Falsehoods

    Remember those claims by Clintoon supporters that you couldn’t believe the Wikileaks emails?  You know, especially those claims by DNC chief Donna Brazile that the Wikileaks emails had been “doctored”?

    Well, looks like it’s indeed time to raise the “bullsh!t” flag.  But the reason is not because the emails have been “doctored”.

    You see, the Clintoon email server “hillaryclinton.com” that processed the email Brazille was specifically questioned about – the email where she stated that she’d been slipped debate questions in advance and was passing one of them on to Clintoon – uses a verification process for outgoing email.  The process it uses is an accepted industry standard called DomainKeys Identified Mail, or DKIM.

    DKIM verifies a given email’s source using a digital signature, ensuring that it actually came from the host that purports to have sent it and isn’t a fake from a spammer.  A side benefit of such a digital signature is that the message’s content is also verified – and any later alterations to that content can be readily detected.

    As noted in this article, the Brazile email in question checks out.  Its DKIM signature validates correctly; that means the email in fact came from the domain in question and has not been altered.

    Oopsie.

    Further:  per this publicly-available tool, the Clintoon email server “hillaryclinton.com” which sent the Brazile email in question uses a 1024-bit RSA key.  (To check that yourself, enter “google” in the selector field and “hillaryclinton.com” for the domain.)  That in turn means it’s not vulnerable to known feasible attacks on shorter RSA keys which might allow alteration without detection.

    Finally, Google hosts the “hillaryclinton.com” email domain.  They know a thing or two about security and key management.  So a “lost private key” claim (which might also allow alteration without detection) is likewise specious.

    In short:  yeah, they’re lying.  Through their teeth.  Yet again.  And the press is aiding and abetting their lies.

    Surprised?

  • Another Returns

    DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US military personnel.

    From Korea

    • CPL Melvin R. Hill, X Corps, Heavy Mortar Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 2 December 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 12 October 2016.

    Welcome back, elder brother-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.

    You’re home now; rest in peace.

    . . .

    Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,700 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of DNA from recovered remains against DNA from some (but not all) blood relatives can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.

    On their web site’s “Contact Us” page, DPAA now has FAQs. The answer to one of those FAQs describes who can and cannot submit DNA samples useful in identifying recovered remains. The chart giving the answer can be viewed here. The text associated with the chart is short and can be viewed in DPAA’s FAQs.

    If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a DNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.

    Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.

  • “Such is how folk heroes are born.”

    “Eh, p!ss on him!”  I’m sure we’ve all heard a variant of that muttered by someone, directed towards someone in authority – when they’re out of earshot, of course.  (smile)

    But one time, it literally happened.  In that case, the “whizzer” was a relatively junior officer – and the “target”, a GO.

    And the junior guy got away with it with nothing but an ass-chewing.

    . . .

    The date was 21 September 1944.  It happened somewhere in the air over Germany.

    On that date, the 303th Bombardment Group executed a combat mission against rail yards in Maintz, Germany.  Some of the aircraft involved were from the 359th Bombardment Squadron.

    That squadron had some months prior instituted a rule prohibiting pilots from leaving the cockpit during a mission.

    The earlier practice had been for pilots in need of a “nature call” to go to the bomb bay and take care of business.  The new policy was that the pilot and copilot were to relieve themselves out of their respective cockpit windows after cracking them open slightly, allowing the slipstream to carry away the waste fluid.  After landing, the pilot was required to clean the window area personally.

    During the 21 September mission, the copilot of at least one of the 359th planes had to answer the call of nature.  He did so – unaware that the pilot had simultaneously decided to take a “smoke break”, and also had cracked open his cockpit window.

    Unfortunately, the smoker’s window created a cross-draft.  Not all of the waste fluid went out in the slipstream.  Some of it was caught in the cross-draft and struck the smoker dead in the face.

    The smoker was Brigadier General Robert F. Travis  – CG, 41st Combat Wing.  He was flying in that aircraft that day as pilot and mission commander on what was the final mission of his current combat tour.

    The copilot was the 359th Bombardment Squadron’s Operations Officer – who was a Captain.

    After landing, General Travis chewed the Captain’s butt for an extended period of time.  He told the Captain he would award the navigator and bombardier on the crew a DFC, but that the Captain wouldn’t be getting one.  He even threatened to court-martial him, but that threat was never carried out.  (The fact that General Travis’ tour ended and he left a month later might well have had something to do with that. [smile])

    In fact, other than that ass-chewing nothing at all happened to the young Captain.  He left the service after World War II, but returned to the USAF in 1948.  He then served until January 1977, retiring with 32 years active duty – as a Colonel.  One of his last assignments was as the Commander, Rhein-Main Air Base.

    The copilot’s name was William E. Eisehnart.  As far as I know, he’s the only junior officer who ever literally p!ssed in a general’s face and got away with it.  (smile)

    Lest you think this story can’t possibly be legit and should begin with, “No sh!t, there I was . . . ”, you can read this online Google Books excerpt from Stephen Frater’s Hell Above Earth; it documents the incident.  The title of this article was shamelessly lifted from the end of the incident description in that source.

    A second description of the incident can be found here.  A third description can be found here.

    As of earlier this year, Col. (Ret) William E. Eisehnart was still alive and resided in the Hilton Head, SC, area.  May you continue to live long and prosper, Colonel.

     

    Author’s Notes: 

    1.  Yes, this was the same Brigadier General Robert F. Travis who died in a B-29 crash at what was then Fairfield-Suisun AFB, California, in August 1950. The base was renamed Travis AFB in his memory the following year.

    2.  Hat-tip to the Military Corruption site for the original article I saw concerning the incident. Further research based on information in that original story allowed me to locate the referenced links in the article above.

  • Two More Are Home

    DPAA has identified and accounted for the following formerly-missing US military personnel.

    From World War II

    • FM1c Warren G. Nelson, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, USMC, was lost on 20 November 1943 on Tarawa Atoll. He was accounted for on 5 October 2016.

    From Korea

    • CPL Milton T. Bullis, Medical Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, US Army, was lost on 1 December 1950 in North Korea. He was accounted for on 28 September 2016.

    Welcome back, elder brothers-in-arms. Our apologies that your return took so long.

    You’re home now; rest in peace.

    . . .

    Over 73,000 US personnel remain unaccounted for from World War II; over 7,800 US personnel remain unaccounted for from the Korean War; and over 1,600 remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia (SEA). Comparison of DNA from recovered remains against DNA from some (but not all) blood relatives can assist in making a positive ID for unidentified remains that have already been recovered, or which may be recovered in the future.

    On their web site’s “Contact Us” page, DPAA now has FAQs. The answer to one of those FAQs describes who can and cannot submit DNA samples useful in identifying recovered remains. The chart giving the answer can be viewed here. The text associated with the chart is short and can be viewed in DPAA’s FAQs.

    If your family lost someone in one of these conflicts and you qualify to submit a DNA sample, please arrange to submit one. By doing that you just might help identify the remains of a US service member who’s been repatriated but not yet been identified – as well as a relative of yours, however distant. Or you may help to identify remains to be recovered in the future.

    Everybody deserves a proper burial. That’s especially true for those who gave their all while serving this nation.

     

    Author’s Notes: The rank abbreviation and service for Warren G. Nelson of “FM1c” appears to be correct. During World War II, the USMC had a small number of nonstandard rank titles (and, presumably, matching abbreviations. One of them was “Field Music First Class”, which was equivalent to Private First Class. Field Music First Class was Nelson’s rank.

  • Tell Me Again How Vote Fraud is “Insignificant”

    As I noted in a previous article, we hear all the time from certain circles that vote fraud is “insignificant”.

    Well, maybe.  But IMO, that’s not exactly how the smart money would bet – or what Norm Coleman would say about the 2008 Minnesota Senate election.  Or what the late Coke Steverson would have said about the 1948 Senate primary in Texas, for that matter.

    Well, we have a bit of new news on the subject.  It seems that a group, Public Interest Legal Foundation, looked at voter registration in both Philadelphia and Virginia.  What it found was disturbing.

    Philly gave Public Interest Legal Foundation the “stiff arm” – the group had to file suit to get data.  Apparently that reluctance on the part of Philly was for good reason.  For years, the number of registered voters in Philadelphia has been nearly equal to the number of persons in the city eligible to vote.  That alone is absurd on its face.

    When they finally received data from Philly, the group found that in a 2 year period –  2013-2015 – at least 86 formerly-registered voters in Philadelphia had requested their voter registration be cancelled because they were not US citizens.  Of those 86, 40 of them were found to have voted in at least one election.

    Think about that for a moment.  This group of 86 was only those who voluntarily came forward.  That’s almost certainly only a tiny minority of the number of non-citizens still on the rolls unlawfully in Philly.

    Public Interest Legal Foundation also found literally thousands of felons still on the voter registrations rolls.  They were required by law to have been removed when convicted, but never were.

    In Virginia, only 8 counties in the state responded to Public Interest Legal Foundation’s request for information. Still, in those 8 counties over 1,000 aliens not entitled to vote were nonetheless found on those counties’ voter registration rolls.

    And unless things have changed, every one of those on the rolls had to have committed a crime to get there (or in the case of felons, had been convicted of a serious crime).  I don’t ever remember registering to vote without also having to certify, under pain of perjury, that I was indeed a US citizen.

    How did these illegal voters vote?  Dunno; ballots are secret.  But I think we can draw a reasonable inference about that from other information.

    One major political party wants to ensure voting is clean by such common-sense measures as requiring positive ID to vote, and by strengthening checking of voter registration rolls.  The other major party steadfastly opposes both of those common-sense measures.

    That opposition suggests a motive.   The nature of that motive should be obvious.

    The Washington Free Beacon has an article today with more details.  It’s worth a read.