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

Category: “Teh Stoopid”

  • 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.

  • “Governor Moonbeam” Strikes Again

    This time, he’s fighting “climate change”.

    How, you ask?  He’s just pushed through a new law allowing regulation of short-lived “dangerous pollutants”.  In the “Granola State” of California, a whole slew of such emissions are now subject to regulation.

    Those “dangerous pollutants” now regulated by California now include methane emissions – from dairy farms.  Under a newly-passed CA law, those dairy farm methane emissions must be reduced by 40% over the next 17 years.

    I’m dead serious.  CA is now legally regulating cattle farts.

    Elsie the Cow had no comment, other than to burp.  No word on whether or not that subjects her owner to a fine.

    Yet.

  • About That Recent “Return of Assets” to Iran . . .

    Remember that $400 million      ransom payment      return of assets we recently sent to Iran?  You know, the one made in cash, using foreign currency obtained in Europe, by a cargo plane immediately before 4 US citizens      held hostage by Iran       detained by Iran were released?  The cash payment I wrote about previously here – and again here – and mentioned yet again here?

    Well, it appears that the       gang of idiots screwing up US foreign policy “by the numbers”      current Administration has recently acknowledged that cash payments in foreign currency made to Iran didn’t stop after the first payment.  The total paid in cash to Iran amounted to far more than the original $400M.  Rather, the entire $1.7 billion in “returned assets” was apparently paid in foreign currency – e.g., in cash.

    The first installment of $400M was sent to Iran on the day Iran agreed to release those       US hostages      detained US citizens:  17 January 2016.  The Administration has now confirmed that the second and third payments of those “returned assets”, totaling another $1.3 billion, were made a few days after their release – on 22 January 2016 and 5 February 2016, respectively.  They were also made in foreign currency.

    Hmm.  So, we made cash payments to an adversary that was at the time detaining a number of US citizens, and in return those US citizens were promptly released.  To me that certainly sounds an awful lot like the textbook definition of something called a “ransom” – and a big honking ransom at that.  And it was paid in cash.

    But maybe that’s just me.

    Oh, and if anyone’s wondering if this is a “big freaking deal”, it is – for two reasons.  First, we have now established the principle that we will indeed pay ransom for US citizens held hostage by adversaries, at least sometimes.  This is idiocy that even Jimmy “the Clueless” Carter did not commit.

    And, second:  cash generally cannot be traced.  And $1.7 billion can fund a helluva lot of terrorist activity.

    I really did not think I’d live long enough to see a US Administration more inept, foreign-policy wise, than Carter’s Clueless Crew.  I was wrong.  This gang of naive fools in DC today takes the cake.

  • “The exemptions or loopholes are happening in secret, and it appears that they favor Iran.”

    The title above is not a quote from some Trump campaign speech, or from some “Right wing” editorial.  Rather, it comes from David Albright.

    Albright’s president of the Institute for Science and International Security.  He’s a former UN weapons inspector.

    He’s also co-author of a report by his institute concerning the US-Iran nuclear agreement.  That report documents numerous “exemptions” the US and its partners granted to Iran so that Iran would not be in violation of the agreement on 16 January of this year.  That was the date at which the agreement required return of Iranian “assets” to begin.

    Or, in other words:  it had to happen so that we could      fund a $400 million cash blackmail payment for the return of some US citizens held hostage by Iran      begin returning Iranian assets frozen after the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran.  And it was necessary not only for that, but so that afterwards we could       continue to give Iran money in the future they’ll use to fund their nuclear program      continue returning assets to Iran in the future.

    Funny, but I don’t recall hearing that Iran had returned our Embassy – or compensated the US for damages relating to its seizure.  But maybe I missed it.

    Reuters has a good article discussing this idiocy.  Since Reuters articles seem to have short on-line lifetimes, I’m also linking to a Fox News article which provides much the same info.

    Yeah, that Iranian nuclear agreement certainly seems to be a manifestly “good deal” – for Iran.  For the US and the rest of the West . . . not so much.

    Coming from this Administration that’s no surprise, though. Given their track record,       this bunch of clueless naive dolts        the current Administration seems so incompetent that I believe they could eff up a wet dream three times before breakfast.

  • Bye, Corrine. Don’t Let the Door Hit You On the Way Out.

    Remember that       manifestly corrupt drooling idiot       esteemed US Representative from Florida, Rep. Corrine Brown?  You should; Jonn and TSO have written about the individual here multiple times – first here, then here, then here, then here, and finally here.  And I might have missed an article or two.

    In case you’ve forgotten:  she was recently indicted, along with her chief-of-staff, on fraud and other Federal charges – as in more than 20 total counts.  And she also had some, um, interesting things to say about the Orlando Pulse terrorist shooting incident.

    Well, Rep. Brown ran for reelection in yesterday’s Florida primary election.

    She lost.

    Gee.  That’s too bad.

    But at least it doesn’t look like she needs to worry too much about future employment.  I’m guessing that’s pretty well already arranged.

    Wonder how she’ll look in an orange jumpsuit?  (smile)

  • Third Time the Charm for “Young Malachi”? Maybe.

    Third Time the Charm for “Young Malachi”? Maybe.

    Jonn’s written before about Malachi Love-Robinson, the youngster in Palm Beach, FL, who seems to like playing doctor – while committing fraud.  In fact, Jonn’s written about him twice.

    Well, young Malachi is back in the news.  Wanna guess what for?

    Nah, you don’t have to guess.  Same old, same old:  he’s back in jail on charges of writing a worthless check and grand theft.

    Methinks the young man is looking at a long stay behind bars.  At least, that’s what he’ll get if the court that tries him has any common sense whatsoever.

  • Want to See “Single-Payer” Healthcare In Action? Read This.

    Linked story pretty much says it all. You might want to grab a tissue (and a dose of high-blood pressure medicine, if you think you might need it) before reading the link, though.

    ‘This is the saddest photo I have ever taken,’
    woman says of grandparents forced to live apart
     

    A real-world variant of the “golden rule” is operative here: “He who pays the gold makes the rules.” And in Canada, the folks running Canada’s      Socialized      single payer medicine pay the gold – and make these kinds of rules.

    Of course, under US “single payer” medicine it will be an agency of the Federal government effectively making those decisions – just like in Canada. That’s the same folks that have brought us those “wonderful examples of common sense, simplicity, and bureaucratic flexibility” called the IRS, the EPA, the BLM, and HHS.

    But remember: “single payer” will fix American healthcare’s “problems”.

    Just like it has in Canada.

  • Yeah, It Was Ransom. The State Department Now Admits It.

    Something curious happened last week, on Thursday.

    Asked by a reporter if the U.S. wouldn’t have paid the money until the prisoners were released, State Department spokesman John Kirby replied, “That’s correct.”

    Hmm.  From Merriam-Webster

    ransom:  a consideration paid or demanded for the release of someone or something from captivity

    Seems pretty clear to me that the US State Department has now contradicted the POTUS’s (and its own) prior public statements regarding the Iran payment.  Above, State now plainly admits that the USA paid ransom to Iran for the return of some of our citizens.  Previously, the “party line” was that the timing was “a coincidence”.

    “Coincidence?”  Yeah, right.  The payment was ransom, plain and simple.  Anyone with half a functional brain could see that.

    The media’s reaction to this admission has also been interesting.  While in a rare display of responsible journalism the New York Times apparently gave this story the Page 1 treatment it deserves, some       pernicious “Progressive” propaganda purveyors      mainstream media outlets did not.  The Washington Post and USA Today each chose to bury the story deep inside their respective Friday editions.

    But the fact that at least some of the media would try to bury this isn’t surprising, either.  Most of the US media has been de facto cheerleaders for the political left for virtually my entire life.

    The only surprising parts of this disgusting incident are that this “most transparent administration in history” actually admitted the sordid truth here – and that at least some of the media didn’t try to hide that fact.