COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

For the second time in a week, President Barack Obama backtracked on his promise to Americans that they could keep their health insurance plans under Obamacare, telling a group of activists on Monday that what he had really meant was that Americans could keep their healthcare plans "if it hasn't changed since the law passed."

OBAMA REWRITES HISTORY: YOU CAN KEEP YOUR PLAN... 'IF IT HASN'T CHANGED SINCE THE LAW PASSE


by TONY LEE 4 Nov 2013 BREITBART 

Obama explains that when he told Americans they could keep their healthcare plans,  period, under the Affordable Care Act, he actually meant the promise was conditional.

For the second time in a week, President Barack Obama backtracked on his promise to Americans that they could keep their health insurance plans under Obamacare, telling a group of activists on Monday that what he had really meant was that Americans could keep their healthcare plans "if it hasn't changed since the law passed." 

Speaking at an Organizing for Action health care summit in Washington, D.C., Obama revised a signature mantra of his stump speeches during the Obamacare debate and the 2012 campaign in which he repeatedly said that under Obamacare, "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” 

In 2009, the President even cut off the possibility of modifiers to that plan. In a speech to the American Medical Association, he stated, "If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."

In his Monday speech, however, the promise took on newfound nuance. "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed," Obama said. "So we wrote into the Affordable Care Act, you're grandfathered in on that plan. But if the insurance company changes it, then what we're saying is they've got to change it to a higher standard.

"They've got to make it better, they've got to improve the quality of the plan they are selling. That's part of the promise that we made too. That's why we went out of our way to make sure that the law allowed for grandfathering."

In addition to the malfunctioning HealthCare.gov website, millions of Americans have been receiving cancellation notices from their health insurance providers since Obamacare went into effect in October. Mainstream media outlets and personalities—from the Washington Post to MSNBC's Chuck Todd—that were some of Obama's fiercest defenders the last four years have called him out on this falsehood, even admitting in hindsight that they were skeptical of Obama's signature claim.
Obama attempted his first rewrite of history last Wednesday in his healthcare speech at Boston's Fanueil Hall after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was grilled in front of Congress and apologized for Obamacare's rollout, which she conceded was a "debacle." 

"For the vast majority of people who have health insurance that works, you can keep it," Obama said last week in Boston. Obama then said that Americans who were receiving cancellation letters merely had "substandard" insurance plans. 

217 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Substandard. At least my insurance plan's website works.

      Delete
  2. He really does think his supporters are stupid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's banking on them being low information voters.

      Delete
    2. And he is right too. His supporters are morons.

      Delete
    3. Taxpayers are like that, folks that support the Government and are morons.
      All those in the US military, supporters of the Constitution and the President, morons, according to Farmer Fudd, the Fascist.

      Farmer Fudd does not qualify as a moron, he pays no taxes and gets his Federal money, every month.
      He is not a supporter of he United States, he is a leach.

      Proud of it, too.

      Delete
    4. They are stupid, including the ones who support him here.

      Delete
    5. Hegelians are taught to use any stupid argument at their disposal that enrages their assigned opposite "side," their job is to fuel established conflicts and say anything they want, as long as it keeps the masses distracted.

      Hegelians don't care what the issues are.
      Neither do they care which "side" they are perceived to be on.

      Their role is to be a barrier to any authentic political discourse that may arise from thinking people.

      Hegelians do not think for themselves, they follow orders.
      They repeat words that have no meaning to them, throw around words they cannot define and have no interest in defining.
      When asked directly what they mean by a particular word, they always respond with "what do you mean what do I mean?" as if you're just too stupid to be answered.

      Most followers haven't got the first clue what sustainability, livability, health and safety, and quality of life means.
      They build "good communities" and only stupid people ask them what they mean by good.

      Delete
  3. .

    The man is consistent in his inconsistency.

    SOP

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's out on the campaign trail again, blaming Republicans. That's consistent.

      Delete
    2. My insurance went up and I haven't even tried to visit the website.

      I call that 'efficiency'.

      Delete
  4. "The Zionist regime is an illegitimate and bastard regime," Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said of Israel, whose existence Tehran does not recognize.

    Khamenei also criticized the United States for its close relations with Israel.

    "The Americans have the highest indulgence towards the Zionists and they have to. But we do not share such indulgence," AFP quoted Khamenei as saying.


    Is he speaking for you deuce?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "The Zionist regime is an illegitimate and bastard regime..."

      When the Iranians took over the US Embassy almost exactly 34 years ago, I thought they were illegitimate bastards too.

      Delete
    2. I think you confuse me with you.

      You openly state that you don’t recognize the Palestinians, You have often claimed they are a made up people in a made up country. That fits my definition of being illegitimate and bastardly. You and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei both believe in religious based modern states.

      You certainly believe in ME states armed with nuclear weapons and you are more advanced in the faith and belief in their use.

      Delete
    3. I dont recognize the truth in the claim of a "palestinian" national history. I do agree there are a self identified group of arabs seeking an additional national state called palestine. if they want a state? If they want self determination? FINE.

      Dont redefine my words.

      Just because I don't believe that there is any real history of an arab palestine has NOTHING to do with israel's true history in the area.

      Now Iran? Doesn't accept Israel as a nation.

      At last look? IF and WHEN the arabs of the middle east create a new nation called "Palestine" and take a nation's seat at the UN? I'd have to accept it's being. However as of this moment, there is NO nation called "palestine".

      get it straight.

      Delete
    4. But again deuce, does Iran speak for you?

      Do you accept Israel as a legitimate nation?

      Delete
    5. Of course he accepts Israel as a legitimate nation. That's why he considers the Liberty thing and the Pollard thing acts of war and not just a domestic dispute between states.

      Delete
    6. Let him speak for himself.

      Offer you OWN opinion.

      Delete
    7. Israel, a secular and socialist state that was built upon ...
      ... the Three Pillars of Apartheid

      The first pillar “derives from Israeli laws and policies that establish Jewish identity for purposes of law and afford a preferential legal status and material benefits to Jews over non-Jews.”

      The second pillar is reflected in
      “Israel’s ‘grand’ policy to fragment the OPT [and] ...
      ... ensure that Palestinians remain confined to the reserves designated for them ...
      ... while Israeli Jews are prohibited from entering those reserves but enjoy freedom of movement...
      ... throughout the rest of the Palestinian territory.

      This policy is evidenced by Israel’s extensive appropriation of Palestinian land,
      which continues to shrink the territorial space available to Palestinians;
      the hermetic closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip from the rest of the OPT;
      the deliberate severing of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank;

      and the appropriation and construction policies serving to carve up the West Bank ...
      ... into an intricate and well-serviced network of connected settlements for Jewish-Israelis ...
      ... and an archipelago of besieged and non-contiguous enclaves for Palestinians.”


      The third pillar is
      “Israel’s invocation of ‘security’ to validate sweeping restrictions on Palestinian freedom of ...
      ... opinion, expression, assembly, association and movement [to] mask a true underlying intent ...
      ... to suppress dissent to its system of domination and thereby maintain control over Palestinians as a group.”

      Delete
  5. Tehran Rally Shakes Fist at America and Outreach
    TEHRAN, Iran November 4, 2013 (AP)

    In Tehran's largest anti-U.S. rally in years, tens of thousands of demonstrators joined Monday in chants of "death to America" as hard-liners directed a major show of resolve against President Hassan Rouhani's outreach to Washington more than a generation after crowds on the same streets stormed and occupied the U.S. Embassy.


    I hear that rat flew home for the rally...

    Any thoughts?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've always suspected he had an Iranian passport.

      Delete
    2. Iranian street demonstrations do not amount to a wind riffle in history.

      All this Iran vs Israel hoopla, nothing more than an argument over a literary construct.

      Delete
    3. Israel has been violating the laws governing military occupation for 46 years. Israeli governments have been committed to building housing settlements on the West Bank from the beginning, with the goal of creating irreversible “facts on the ground” that they have no intention of removing.

      The official United States position has always been to oppose the settlements, but each administration, Republican and Democratic, has done nothing that would actually put a bite on Israel. Instead, our leaders talk about there being “no daylight” between the US and Israel.

      This is a case of the US working against its own best interests. The much-maligned US State Department recognized this in 1948 when, under Secretary of State George C. Marshall, it recommended to President Truman to withhold official recognition of the new Israeli state. Marshall and the State Department understood that Israel represented a foreign object in the fabric of the Arab Near East. Unfortunately, Truman succombed to the forces pushing for recognition. Israel has had its way with the US ever since, save for the cojones displayed by President Eisenhower when he forcefully denounced the joint British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956 and made them pull back.

      In terms of US interests alone, our unequivocal support of Israel has been disastrous. Our interests lie as much or more with the Arab World as they do with Israel. And that means we should maintain decent relations with Egypt under the current military run government, as well as Saudi Arabia and other states that may not have pristine examples of democratic governments. There are those who think the US uses Israel as its “cat’s paw” in the Arab World. We do not. Israel is a foreign policy burden, not a boon, for the US in the region.

      Delete
    4. I see the blog's shithead is back as anon.

      Time to go back to bed for me.

      Election Day, remind myself to vote, self.

      Indeed this Iran vs Israel hoopla can be seen as a literary event. They are arguing after all over two differing visions of the world found in........two different literatures. So yes, it is a literary event par excellence, the quintessential example of such perhaps.

      And it might soon explode the world.

      Delete
    5. To this day, Israel has never constructed a nuclear power plant to assist its utility energy needs but only for “research” – which has effectively been for the creation of a nuclear arsenal to menace its neighbors.

      The U.N. General Assembly condemned Israel for the July of 1981 destruction of the Osirak atomic facility in Iraq. It has also menaced Iran with the spectre of a military strike.

      Israel today is believed to have about 200 atomic weapons which can be delivered by air or by nuclear-tipped missiles that can be sea-launched via Israeli navy submarines purchased from the Thyssen-Krupp arms manufacturer in Germany at a cost of well over one billion dollars.

      Israel has acquired an expensive nuclear option which it augmented over the years at cost of many billions of dollars via deceit and concealment. Israel’s conduct in opposing Iranian nuclear research technologies is duplicitous and hypocritical.

      Delete
    6. Thanks Jenny!

      aint it great that Israel can defend it's self from those that seek it's genocide!

      And it's true, Israel has LIBERATED disputed lands from the arab usurpers! Jerusalem is now united and open to all faiths!!!!

      Delete
    7. At least he didn't call her an anti-Semitic C*** or a Teresita sock. That's an improvement.

      Delete
    8. Jenny is an anti-semite. Her words are clear.

      Your thousands of words slamming Jews, Judaism, Israel and Zionism put you in the same class.

      :)

      Delete
    9. Under Israeli military occupation, millions of Palestinians live in conditions which closely resemble the apartheid system that existed in South Africa:
      • No right of free speech, assembly or movement
      • Arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial
      • Torture
      • House searches without warrant
      • Assassination, extra-judicial murder
      • No right to vote for the Israeli government (even though it controls their lives)
      Israel controls all Palestinian borders, all imports and exports, and all movement between towns and cities. 
      THE GAZA STRIP, still surrounded, besieged and controlled by Israel, has been sealed off and effectively turned into the world’s largest open-air prison.

      Delete
  6. .

    Once, we get past 200 posts my computer goes crazy with this blog. After we hit 200 on the last stream yesterday, I put in five or six posts that never showed up last night. However, I see they are up this morning. A little better than Obamacare.com, but not much.

    By the way WiO, I answered your silly post on Egypt and Gaza.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's cause you are a fuckin' fascist fraudulent unemployed Fudd that is so stupid you can't handle modern implements.

      Delete
    2. Quirk, when you hit 200 posts you have to click on "load more" to see the rest.

      This wouldn't happen if I had da powah here again. Always new posts.

      Delete
    3. A sad case, a shell of a man, a nothing really, a nobody........

      Can't even use a computer.

      Delete
    4. If you had da powah I'd hope you'd ban rat for indecency.

      The 'load more' doesn't help much. Doesn't show one's recent posts, sometime doesn't show other recent posts.Sometimes comes up short on da loadin'.

      Delete
    5. What we have above, is a failure to communicate.
      Anonymous is busting a cap on Fudd's ass and he ain't even a Fudd Buster
      Or a Fudd Hunter, not even a member of he Guild, Fudd Hunters International.

      No, Anonymous is just a fraudulent Fudd.

      Soon our host will shut down the blog to those contributors without sign-ons.
      That will be a "Good Day"

      Delete
    6. .

      Thanks, T, but I know that.

      After the change here a while back, I can at least see most of the posts now (I couldn't do that before); but there seems to be a lag time problem, at least, with my posts.

      .

      Delete
    7. And we will be rid of you.

      Hopefully my techy, who I am seeing today, as we go voting, will fix my problem. I am not paying the board bill for horse unless she does. And you will have to go back to being desert rat, professional asshole or vanish forever.

      Delete
    8. Fudd Hunters InternationalTue Nov 05, 09:05:00 AM EST

      Fudd, what is this obsession you hve with this desert rat?
      A contributor cn have as many accounts as they wish to have.

      There is no numerical limit on the opportunity.

      Why, I bet the Hegemony of Character could get an umbrella sign-on, in about 2 minutes.

      The sanctions will continue, regardless, rest assured.

      Delete
    9. Quirk
      By the way WiO, I answered your silly post on Egypt and Gaza.


      Thanks!

      .

      Delete
    10. The Fudd has found another woman to blame for his own incompetence.
      Typical of a misogynist

      Why is it that Fudd just cannot "Man Up" and take responsibility for his own failures and mistakes?

      Delete
    11. "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." -- Adam

      Delete
    12. Baked it into a pie, she did.

      Delete
    13. None of the misogynists take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviors.
      Going all the way back to their Founding Father.

      Fudds Gone Wild!

      Delete
  7. I think you confuse me with you.

    You openly state that you don’t recognize the Palestinians, You have often claimed they are a made up people in a made up country. That fits my definition of being illegitimate and bastardly. You and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei both believe in religious based modern states.

    You certainly believe in ME states armed with nuclear weapons and you are more advanced in the faith and belief in their use.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One issue has nothing to do with the other.

      Israel is real. It's history is real.

      There is no history for arabs calling themselves "palestinians" before 1966.

      So do you accept israel as a NATION?

      Delete
    2. Fudd Hunters InternationalTue Nov 05, 09:19:00 AM EST

      The Encyclopaedia Britannica publish a map, in the 19th century with Palestine plainly labeled.

      SUBJECT: Maps, Middle East, Palestine

      DATE: 1881

      MEDIUM OR PRINTING METHOD : Chromolithography, Lithography

      ORIGIN : 9th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica

      http://www.etsy.com/listing/159542803/antique-map-of-palestine-the-holy-land?ref=exp_listing

      quot is contributing ever more outright lies.

      He has become a Fudd.

      Delete
    3. .

      You live in your own little dream world, WiO, divorced from reality.

      .

      Delete
    4. Quirk really?

      Don't we all...

      Abbas? the leader of the Palestinians. A People who don't even have a P in their native language just gave a speech that not one inch of Palestine has yet to be liberated.

      Reality is truth. The truth? The Europeans murdered the Jews. The Arabs murdered the Jews.

      The reality? The Jews refuse to be murdered anymore.

      That is reality.

      Nothing has changed accept the butchers of Jews now fear us.

      That as Martha would say is a "good" thing.

      International laws? Did it stop the palestinians from hijacking and slitting the throats of countless throats of innocents?

      International laws? Did it stop hezbollah, hamas from raining rockets down on civilians?

      International laws? How did it work out for the people of syria, sudan? Did it stop Pol Pot? Stalin? Hitler? Iran from slaughtering thousands of it's own citizens...

      SO really I just don't give a shit about 10 square miles of land that the Jews have liberated from the arabs after the arabs have ethnically cleansed 850,000 jews from their historic homes of 2000 years.

      Delete
    5. he Encyclopaedia Britannica publish a map, in the 19th century with Palestine plainly labeled.

      SUBJECT: Maps, Middle East, Palestine


      nice but doesn't address what I said.

      the arabs never called themselves palestinians until 1966.

      The WEST's label of the area has NOTHING to do with what arabs of the region called themselves.

      and the funny thing? THERE IS NO P IN ARABIC.


      no P

      can't be a PALESTINE so whatever the scant few arabs living in the lands that the west named they didn't call themselves by a national ID that they didn't have the 1st letter of...

      Delete
    6. Think of the idiocy.

      Calling one's national peoplehood by a name that didn't have a letter in their own alphabet!!!!!!

      LOL

      retards

      Delete
    7. .

      I agree with what you said. However, that being said why not just admit the history of how this all came about. Why do you continue throwing out faux facts, altering basic history, parsing words like 'Palestinian', arguing there never was a Palestine, arguing that Israel isn't currently 'occupying' the West Bank, that Gaza is part of Egypt.

      Why not be honest as you are above rather than simply making yourself look silly?

      .

      Delete
    8. .

      My post of course applies to your post above not to the most recent ones where you have once again reverted to your childishness.

      .

      Delete
    9. There NEVER has been an independent nation called PALESTINE. There was a territory called that. Israel is not occupying Gaza. And MOST all of the west bank is not occupied.

      Definitions are the issue.

      What does "occupy" mean? When America occupied germany after ww2. they controlled every square inch, the people, the government, everything and even installed a government and supervised it and trials against nazis.

      In that definition, Israel does not occupy the west bank.

      Are there land issues? Sure.

      The lands of the west bank are disputed lands.

      Does Israel "occupy" Gaza like Turkey "occupies" Cyprus? As china "occupies" Tibert" Not even close.

      What is "occupation"?????

      is there one definition for all? Or is it redefined for Israel?

      Delete
    10. If you go back to the Ottoman Empire you will find that the concept of NATIONALISM was not a native concept.

      Arabs did not understand the concepts of NATIONS, it took the Americans to teach them that.

      The American University School was key in that education.

      Delete
    11. Three key features characterize Israeli apartheid:

      • Four million Palestinians in the Occupied Territories lack the right to vote for the government that controls their lives through a military occupation.

      In addition to controlling the borders, air space, water, tax revenues, and other vital matters pertaining to the Occupied Territories,
      Israel alone issues the identity cards that determine the ability of Palestinians to work and their freedom of movement.


      • About 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, ...
      ... which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens.

      More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.

      Millions of Palestinians remain refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, unable to return to their former homes ...
      ... and land in present-day Israel.

      Even though the right of return for refugees is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

      Delete
  8. Crimes, drug running and illicit drug sales, but NO ONE goes to jail.

    Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay more than $2.2 billion to settle criminal and civil claims that it marketed the antipsychotic drug Risperdal and other medications for off-label uses and paid kickbacks to a large pharmacy, the Justice Department said ...

    Guss the fellas t Johnson & Johnson are not black kids form the "Hood", do not wear "hoodies" and so do not warrant jail time for their transgressions..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too bad, you could use some of that Risperdal

      Delete
  9. It's a brilliant plan, actually. All the "rich" people with their private "Cadillac" health insurance plans lose them for not being Obamacare compliant and have to sign up on heathcare.gov to replace it. But healthcare.gov will never work because it has more code than Windows 8.1, without even being tested before rollout. So almost no one will be able to sign up before the deadline, and they will end up having to pay a $2000 fine, payable from their tax return. So Chief Justice Roberts is right, it is a tax. It's a tax on your tax return.

    ReplyDelete
  10. DailyTech

    It will create 2000 jobs
    DailyTech -

    Apple is looking to expand its manufacturing efforts in the U.S. with a new glass plant in Arizona.
    Apple plans to stamp "Made in USA" on more Apple products as it prepares to build a manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona.

    ReplyDelete
  11. quirk: The only authority the UN had when the British mandate expired was to recognize Palestine independence and push for its self-determination. Instead, the Jews created Israel by force. The continue that today and they also occupy territory that wasn't part of what they initially took.


    Actually The Arabs used force, the Jews defended themselves and won. Sorry we won.... Hope it doesn't ruin your day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We?

      You include yourself amongst those complicit in Genocide?

      Delete
    2. .

      Doesn't ruin my day at all. However, you have a skewed view of history. Must have been all the fairy tales you were fed as a youth.

      .

      Delete
    3. Quirk, no santa, no easter bunny, no saints or myths here.

      Just true stories of the butchers of the nazis, the arabs and crusades.

      History of the continued genocide against the jews is not a fairy tale.

      Maybe it is you that lives in a rose colored dream world?

      Maybe you can lead us in a song?

      Delete
    4. What is a Semite?Tue Nov 05, 09:23:00 AM EST
      We?
      You include yourself amongst those complicit in Genocide



      The only genocide against arabs i can recall would be at the hands of syrians, egyptians, iraqis and iranians...

      otherwise there doesn't seem to be any dent in the population of arabs anywhere in the world. Including in the great state of Israel where today MORE arabs live within the 1948 armistice lines than were living in the entire river to the sea in 1948.

      As for the arabs of gaza and the west bank? breeding like nobody's business... hope no genocide there.

      But there is always hope for hamas to genocide on the followers of fatah....

      let me know, i can pop some corn...

      Delete
    5. .

      Once again you wax poetic on bullshit.

      The holocaust was a spur to the Zionist cause but it wasn't the precipitating event. Zionism has been around since the 16th century as I recall.

      The Nazis, the Arabs, and the crusades? They may be motivating factors for the Jews but what we are talking about right now is the Israel of today not of the 12th century. If you want to dwell in the past do it but don't try to use it as argument for what is happening today.

      Do I accept Israel as a state? Of course, it is recognized as one by the UN and most other nations, it has a powerful army and the bomb, it has a friend in the US that covers its back in the Security Council. If I had to choose one state as an ally in the ME it would be Israel. That is Realpolitik although Israel also follows the Western tradition more than any other state in the ME. But Israel is our ally not our friend. And I don't have to like everything she does; and I sure as hell don't have to go along with history you make up or the bullshit you often offer here.

      .

      Delete
    6. Do I accept Israel as a state? Of course, it is recognized as one by the UN and most other nations

      That was the question....

      the rest as they say is commentary.

      Delete
    7. As for your other points?

      The holocaust was a spur to the Zionist cause but it wasn't the precipitating event. Zionism has been around since the 16th century as I recall.

      You are correct.


      "The Nazis, the Arabs, and the crusades? They may be motivating factors for the Jews but what we are talking about right now is the Israel of today not of the 12th century. If you want to dwell in the past do it but don't try to use it as argument for what is happening today."

      I dont. But you brought up fairy tales. I countered that I wasn't raised on fairy tales.
      Don't cut and paste my responses to fit other questions and queries

      "But Israel is our ally not our friend. And I don't have to like everything she does; and I sure as hell don't have to go along with history you make up or the bullshit you often offer here."

      I think that America and Israel can be friends and are friends as well as allies.

      As for agreeing with everything? No one demands that in either direction.

      You and I disagree about the USS Liberty. Doesn't stop America from spying on friends and allies via the NSA, you just don't think the Liberty was a NSA program. I do.

      Doesn't stop America and Israel from being friends.

      Israel spied on America and Pollard stole US intel on the Palestinians (the the USA had already promised) Pollard sold that intel to Israel. America and Israel are still friends.

      Israel has quietly returned DOZENS of Americans from Israel for interfering in elections, funding ngo's that funded and supported terror groups and yes spying. But that doesn't stop Israel and America from forging friendship.

      American history is being revised on a daily basis, as are all nations. But I don't see America or Israel digging up artifacts and either tossing them in the trash or changing them to fit fiction like the palestinians do.

      Delete
    8. You and I disagree about the USS Liberty. Doesn't stop America from spying on friends and allies via the NSA, you just don't think the Liberty was a NSA program. I do.

      SIGINT isn't under the sole purview of the NSA. There's the DIA, and even just plain old Haze Gray and Underway US Navy. Get your boogeymen straight.

      Delete
    9. Oh so sorry.... so sooo sorry... you DID want starch on that shirt?

      Delete
    10. Starched shirts, you love starch in your shirts.
      Your 'Brown Shirts' especially.

      The first commander of the Warsaw ghetto was Józef Szeryński, a Polish-Jewish police colonel.

      In ghettos the Jewish police were often used in collecting ransom payments, personal belongings and valuables, as well as taxes, fetching people for forced labour, guarding the ghetto walls and gates, escorting labour gangs who worked outside the ghetto, and as time passed conducting random round-ups of Jews to be sent to labour camps and eventually participation in the mass deportations to the death camps.
      One of the largest police units was to be found in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst numbered about 2500. The Łódź Ghetto had about 1200, and the Lviv Ghetto 500.

      The Polish-Jewish historian and the Warsaw Ghetto archivist Emanuel Ringelblum has described the cruelty of the ghetto police as "at times greater than that of the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Latvians."

      Delete
  12. Do I accept Israel as a state? Of course, it is recognized as one by the UN and most other nations

    When I turned 18 my parents recognized me as an adult and cut off my $3 billion a year allowance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did you have to spend that 3 million on useless overpriced crap your parents were selling you?

      Delete
    2. When and if you had kids, did you charge your parents to visit them or was that considered "free" since they helped raise you and protect you for decades?

      Delete
    3. did your parents give 3 billion a year to your brother the rapist/ murderer too?

      Delete
    4. If your parents supported, protected and defended your serial rapists brother, who raped you over and over again, stabbed you and even murdered your kids and refused to stop supporting him, would you still be ok with them cutting off you allowance too?

      Or would you say? Mom, Dad love you but i need that allowance to buy weapons and security cameras to keep my brother from attacking me...

      Delete
    5. can't be a PALESTINE so whatever the scant few arabs living in the lands that the west named they didn't call themselves by a national ID that they didn't have the 1st letter of...

      Hey, there's no "I" in מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל either, so lets turn all the Israelis out on their ass too.

      Delete
    6. יִשְׂרָאֵל

      Is what Israelis call themselves

      Delete
    7. Hebrew doesn't start words with vowels, except E, unless I'm mistaken. So it's Eretz Yisrael. Anyway, I'm mocking your claim that there can't be a Palestinian people based on an alphabet. You'uns and them folks are all Canaanites, always were, except your branch didn't raise pigs and were quite adept at rewriting Sumerian tales like Gilgamesh or the thing about Shabat and putting them out as long lost scriptures of your own tribes.

      Delete
    8. Mistaken.

      LOL

      Hebrew for Dummies doesn't cover the nuance of the alphabet.


      Let me expand on the P issue.

      There is NO P SOUND either in the arabic alphabet.

      so the proper transliteration would be Falestine.

      NOT palestine.

      Israel sounds the same in english as in hebrew.

      Delete
    9. Teresita RedingerTue Nov 05, 10:34:00 AM EST
      Hebrew doesn't start words with vowels, except E, unless I'm mistaken. So it's Eretz Yisrael. Anyway, I'm mocking your claim that there can't be a Palestinian people based on an alphabet. You'uns and them folks are all Canaanites, always were, except your branch didn't raise pigs and were quite adept at rewriting Sumerian tales like Gilgamesh or the thing about Shabat and putting them out as long lost scriptures of your own tribes.


      your over all meanings that you give us here?

      anti-semetic... but thanks for denying my folks 3200 year history all in 3 sentences.

      Delete
    10. Fudd Hunters InternationalTue Nov 05, 11:10:00 AM EST

      There is no record of the Ashkenazi prior to 2,000 years ago.

      'What is &qut't is caught in another lie

      Delete
    11. Now this 'What is &quot' wails that the the Palestinians do not speak English, so those Semites cannot be "Real" Palestinians.

      That is well beyond LOL

      Delete
  13. End the OccupationTue Nov 05, 10:25:00 AM EST

    'Waht is &quot' is a victim of "Tunnel Vision".
    Mention Genocide and Israeli complicity in it and he thinks of the Middle East

    The Israeli may be complicit in Genocide, in the Middle East, bu that is not the issue of the moment.

    The issue of the moment is the Genocide in Guatemala that Israel was complicit in.
    Where Israel aided, abetted and trained the Death Squads fi Guatemala, and the mass murder of Americans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On Aug. 1, 1983, NSC aides Oliver North and Alfonso Sapia-Bosch reported to National Security Advisor William P. Clark that his deputy Robert “Bud” McFarlane was planning to exploit his Israeli channels to secure the helicopters for Guatemala, according to a document that I discovered at Reagan’s presidential library.

      “With regard to the loan of ten helicopters, it is [our] understanding that Bud will take this up with the Israelis,” wrote North and Sapia-Bosch. “There are expectations that they would be forthcoming. Another possibility is to have an exercise with the Guatemalans. We would then use US mechanics and Guatemalan parts to bring their helicopters up to snuff.”


      So Rat, you are responsible for genocide? IS THAT WHAT TROUBLES YOU????

      American supplied Helios to Israel, Ollie North ( your boss) went to the Israelis for those copters and YOU and OLLIE helped the Guatemalans to murder indians.

      THIS IS THE KEY TO RAT'S HATRED.

      HE IS GUILTY OF MASS MURDER IN GUATEMALA!!!


      That is the KEY.....

      Rat helped the Guatemalan military gun down indians.......

      Delete
    2. according to former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, who described some of the history behind Israel’s activities in Guatemala in his 1992 memoir, "Profits of War".

      Ben-Menashe traced the Israeli arms sales to Guatemala back to a private network established in the 1970s by Gen. Ariel Sharon during a gap when he was out of the government. Sharon’s key representative in Guatemala was a businessman named Pesach Ben-Or, and through that channel, Israel supplied military gear to Guatemala’s security services in the 1980s, Ben-Menashe wrote.

      In an interview on Thursday, Ben-Menashe said the Israelis supplied a total of six helicopters to the Guatemalans along with computers and software to keep track of alleged subversives who could then be identified and executed. Ben-Menashe said he learned of the mass slaughters during his travels to Guatemala and reported back to his Israeli superiors about the atrocities involving the equipment that they had authorized. The response, he said, was concern but inaction

      After our phone interview had ended, Ben-Menashe called me back to stress that the Israelis were unaware of the genocidal nature of the Guatemalan military campaigns against the Ixil Indians, although the Israelis did recognize that they were assisting in mass murders of dark-skinned Guatemalans.

      “As we saw it, they [Guatemalan military authorities] were targeting all non-white villagers who were sitting on fertile lands that the white Guatemalans wanted,” he said, adding that when he reported this information to his superiors, “the Israelis rolled their eyes [in dismay] but said, ‘this is what our friends in the Reagan administration want.’” [For more on Ben-Menashe's work for Israeli intelligence, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege and America's Stolen Narrative.]

      Delete
    3. That might be it, WiO.

      I also took close note of Quirk's analysis. Which was also plausible.

      My opinion is, though, we must be careful not to overlook an organic cause.

      I'm tentatively thinking early on-set Alzheimer's setting in on an Asperger's sufferer.

      The former would account for the confusion, irritability and frustration, the latter for the continual "f" words and other slang dirty talk.

      The secret here may be that he is, as well all know, an extremely simple man with a simple set of elementary ideas and emotions, strongly cathected, who is suffering from multiple causation.

      Delete
    4. Put simply, it may well be that Quirk, you and I are all following the rat same trail, there's just many causes impelling the poor fellow to perdition.

      It really is possible to lose one's soul.

      Delete
  14. We people of the World, we need to look to Germany for leadership ...
    allen told us they know what they aer doing ...

    As if there were any doubt, of that.

    Germany defends itself on Nazi-era art

    BERLIN - German authorities defended themselves from accusations that they covered up the discovery of more than 1,400 artworks - including pieces by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse - seized during the Nazi reign.

    "Our primary goal is to investigate whether there has been a crime," Reinhard Nemetz, head of the Augsburg state prosecutor's office, said at a news conference on Tuesday.

    He said it would have been "counterproductive" to have gone public with the case.

    "It is by no means easy to find the rightful owners, particularly when we are talking about over 1,400 paintings," he said.

    That explanation did not satisfy people who have been trying to find artwork looted by the Nazis and their collaborators in Europe and return it to its rightful owners or their heirs.

    "The fact that this is a year and a half later is as much an issue as the find itself," Anne Webber, of the London-based Commission for Looted Art, told USA TODAY. "There needs to be a transparency, there needs to be a commitment to providing a detailed list.

    "And if the works turn out to be looted, there needs to be a clear and simple claims procedure," she said.



    "There needs to be a transparency ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/05/germany-art-trove/3440517/

      Delete
    2. Obama is offering to create a website for claimants to register and apply for the return of their paintings.

      Delete
    3. Not to worry the Jews will breed some babies, raise them to be world class artists and paint more....

      Delete
    4. There must not be any world class artists or painters amongst the ...

      20,000 Jews murdered by the secular Israeli government
      According to reports filed by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

      Delete
  15. wow... who would have thought,,,, all those rat posts were a cry for help..

    rat, guilty of genocide, outs himself....

    rat all those dead indians.. must really drive you crazy...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All this time... Who knew... Who understood.

      Reagan and Israel IN RAT's mind, helping the Guatemalan army get helios is and was genocide. And Rat was there HELPING train the Guatemalan army on sniping and population control...

      We have seen this all to many times before.

      Rat this explains your hiding, not traveling. There might be crimes against humanity charges against you... REALLY..

      WOW...

      a true war criminal in our midst...

      no wonder your anger.... your frustration...

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. Rios Montt thanked his God in heaven for anointing him as Guatemala’s president, but on earth he thanked Israel for establishing his March 1982 military coup.
      Israeli press reported that 300 Israeli advisors helped execute the coup, which succeeded so smoothly,
      Brother Efraín told an ABC News reporter, “because many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis.” Through the height of la violencia (“the violence”) or desencarnacíon (“loss of flesh, loss of being”), between the late 1970s to early 1980s,
      Israel assisted every facet of attack on the Guatemalan people.

      Delete
    4. You are making a good case, WiO.

      The abnormal is often tough to explain, but you are making a good case here.

      Delete
  16. Says the man who admits he's a member of a terrorist organization (JDL) that has killed 7 and maimed 22. Go figure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. the member of the JDL that did that crime were arrested and punished.

      I am on the community watch program

      Delete
    2. Sorry no harm no foul but I do get a great decoder ring. Did you make those for us too?

      Delete
    3. So like Snowden claim America has killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq. Deuce claims that Lincoln killed hundreds of thousands , Obama with drones strikes?

      What has the JDL done lately.... NOTHING but hand out paper than advocates Jewish Love...

      Delete
    4. The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective.
      The Authorities in the US should implement it against those JDL terrorists

      Delete
    5. It is an interesting point, a side note that &quot is attempting.

      The countries in the Islamic Arc expelled their Jewish populations, after the founding of the Israeli Sultanate in 1948.
      There is no disputing that, well excepting Iran which retains a vibrant Jewish population.

      'What is &quot' holds the Palestinians to be responsible for that.
      Excuses Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, in part as 'punishment' for those expulsions.

      However when Jewish terrorists run rampant ...
      He demands that they be treated as individuals, with no stigma attached to the rest of the Jewish Communities of the World.

      He demands a "Double Standard" be applied.
      While constantly bemoaning that there is a "Double Standard" where the secular state of Israel is concerned.


      Delete
    6. I am on the community watch program

      Ah, so you're another Zimmermann.

      Delete
    7. What has the JDL done lately.... NOTHING but hand out paper than advocates Jewish Love...

      With love like this who needs hate?

      "Happy New Year, Mr Friend. Although for you, 2013 is not going to be very ‘happy’ as your reign of anti-semitic terror will soon be at an end, and we will be delivering the kind of justice and retribution that only the worst kind of Nazi filth deserves."

      http://beforeitsnews.com/power-elite/2013/01/jewish-defense-league-rep-says-we-will-be-delivering-the-kind-of-justice-and-retribution-that-only-the-worst-kind-of-nazi-filth-deserves-the-enemy-will-soon-be-at-your-door-2440916.html

      Delete
    8. Zimmerman was totally innocent. You are totally off base on that one.

      Delete
  17. Scenes that we see being played out, in Israel and the Occupied Territories ...

    At the time, Rios Montt defended his war against the “guerrilla,” indistinguishable from civilian noncombatants, in this way:
    “Look, the problem of the war is not just a question of who is shooting.
    For each one who is shooting there are ten working behind him.”

    Rios Montt’s press secretary added:
    “The guerrillas won over many Indian collaborators.
    Therefore, the Indians were subversives, right?
    And how do you fight subversion?

    Clearly, you had to kill Indians because they were collaborating with subversion.
    And then they say, ‘You’re massacring innocent people’. But they weren’t innocent.
    They had sold out to subversion”

    (Witness to Genocide, Survival International, 1983, p. 12).

    Or, as one of Brother Efaín’s Verbo pastors explained to a delegation of Pentecostals from California about the regime’s awesome benevolence:
    “The army doesn’t massacre Indians,” the Verbo pastor assured the visitors.

    “It massacres demons, and Indians are demons possessed; they are communists.”


    Replace 'communists' with 'Muslims' and the correlation becomes clear.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Desert Rat needs that anti-psychotic drug, double dose, and fast too. The long acting variety.

    Is he a danger to himself or only to others?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Who, where, is this Desert Rat that you fellows keep referring to?

      Is he so pervasive that you cannot remove him from your mind?

      Here, try this for relief, it is available at Walgreens ...

      Anti-Fungal Soap
      A convenient way to control most jock itch and common fungal infections.
      Regular use helps eliminate fungus while you wash.
      Use it alone, or in combination with other treatments
      Contains tea tree oil Homeopathic

      Delete
    2. But,someone said you were a fungus.

      Can't come up with something original?

      Delete
    3. “Only those with no memory insist on their originality.”

      Delete
    4. “All ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the Farmer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”

      Delete
    5. “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.”

      Delete
    6. .

      Must have been quite and orgy.

      .

      Delete
  19. Replies
    1. Remember when Nazi Pelosi said we need to pass something to find out what's in it? That's the definition of a stool sample.

      Delete
    2. .

      :)

      Actually, very little was in it. Every other line starts with "The Secretary of Health and Human Services will...(fill in the blank with any idea she might come up with)..."

      As I said yesterday, the liberal wet dream, the blank check.

      .

      Delete
  20. Replies
    1. Caterpillar Inc., is an American corporation which designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network.

      They could use the order, times are tough in the bulldozer business.

      Caterpillar Shuts West Virginia Mining Factory to Cut Costs
      http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-04/caterpillar-to-close-west-virginia-underground-mining-factory.html

      Delete
    2. The War on Coal seems to be more successful than the War on Poverty. Maybe because coal country is poverty-stricken.

      Delete
  21. I need to find an asparagus grower.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Would a used alfalfa farmer do? I could lease him out for a few months.

      Delete
    2. Fudd Hunters InternationalTue Nov 05, 02:39:00 PM EST

      Now the fucking fascist Farmer Fudd has moved into the ...

      Slave Trade

      Dealing with human lives as if they were commodities, to be bartered and exchanged.

      The fascist Fudd is acting more Islamic every day.
      Trading in human flesh.

      Delete
    3. Monetta Asparagus Farm

      Andrew Fallaw is a fourth generation farmer that has spent much of his life working in the asparagus fields around the family farm run by his late father Gibson Fallaw, Sr. and mother Ethel. They grew the common variety of the day, Mary Washington. As an adult with two small children, Andrew saw an ad running in a produce catalog boasting of tremendous yields from a then unnamed hybrid strand of asparagus created by Jersey Asparagus Farms in collaboration with Rutgers University of New Jersey. Doubting the possibility of a product unlike anything he had seen in his lifetime, he ordered our first hybrid seeds (quite possibly the first to come to South Carolina) back in the late eighties. It was still a # and not a name but was everything it claimed to be in regards to the volume of product for harvest. Andrew has continued for the last two decades to farm the Jersey Strands (Jersey Giant, Jersey Knight, Jersey Gem, and others) alongside his older brother Thomas and his family and his late father. Our farm has approximately 20 acres of asparagus in production currently with new fields set out in addition to production ready fields for the coming years. Ours has always been a family affair with the majority of labor being provided by family members, friends and kids from our church. We hand cut every stalk, pack in nearly hundred year old antique Philadelphia bunchers and still cut our own wood and build our own hand made crates for wholesale distribution. Andrew has two sons, Andrew Shawn and Jeremy David and a wife Velma that continue to assist on various levels to this present day.


      Mailing Address: Post Office Box 121, Monetta, SC 29105
      Physical Address: 205 Born Again Road, Batesburg, SC 29006
      Phone: 803.685.7857

      Delete
    4. He needs the work. He's under contract to me. I would subordinate my interests. But you don't know what that means.

      aka, doing both farmer and Allen a big favor.

      You are dumber than the bottom of a toilet, desert rat.

      You are mentally ill as well.

      You need counseling.

      Everyone here is sick of you.

      No one takes you seriously. You are talking to yourself, and you don't have a good listener.

      Delete
  22. I could use a Nissan Titan and cab over camper with shower myself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are getting a little, to put it politely ...

      stinky

      Skip the Titan and the camper, just go find the shower, will ya?

      Delete
  23. I could use some healthcare-


    Obamacare: The Unimaginable Suffering That Awaits Us
    November 5, 2013 By John Perazzo

    http://frontpagemag.com/2013/john-perazzo/obamacare-the-unimaginable-suffering-that-awaits-us/

    Desert Rat could use a shrink.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Who is Desert Rat and why are you so obsessed with him, Fudd?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Be vewy quiet, it's rat season. Hahahahahahaha.

      Delete
    2. That was he "original" essence of the character ...

      Or so I was told ... by a fellow that would know.

      Delete
    3. rat season? O goodie,goodie, have you any wafarin, Miss T?


      bWABVWABWAhhHAHAHaa hahahahaha

      Delete
  25. Army source in Syrian army says they have decided to “get rid of terrorism coming from neighboring countries.”
    http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Syrian-forces-deploying-on-Lebanese-border-as-talks-over-peace-conference-stall-330694

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sure, just push a button, wave a wand, get rid of terrorism.

      Delete
  26. Wow, Interesting....

    Rand Paul the plagiarist.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/us/politics/after-plagiarism-charges-paul-announces-office-restructuring.html?hp

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave.

      Delete


    2. “There can be no justification for choosing any part of that which one knows to be evil.”

      Delete
    3. Depends on what your definition of evil is.

      Delete

    4. “You have no choice about your capacity to feel that something is good for you or evil, but what you will consider good or evil, what will give you joy or pain, what you will love or hate, desire or fear, depends on your standard of value.”

      Delete
    5. ... myth decleares that he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge-he acquired a mind and became a rational being.
      It was the knowledge of good and evil-he became a moral being…
      The evils for which they damn him are reasn, morality, creativeness, joy-all the cardinal values of his existence….
      the essence of his nature as a man.

      Whatever he was- that robot in the Garden of Eden, ...
      who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love- he was not a man.”

      Delete
    6. It was a movement into multiplicity, nitwits.

      Try to recall the knowledge of eternal life.

      Dance lightly across, back and forth, like the cosmic dancer, forth and back, between the two, making them one.

      Then you will be a true dancer.

      Delete
  27. Australia and New Zealand rank among the global leaders in privatizations this year, raising billions of dollars as lawmakers seek to cut debt and plug budget deficits.

    ...

    Australia's Education Minister Christopher Pyne said last week that selling the nation's US$22 billion student-debt portfolio would not be "insensible." "Britain have sold their [student] debt as an asset and we should investigate whether that is a sensible move for us to do so," Mr. Pyne said on ABC's Q&A public affairs program.

    Meanwhile, banks are currently pitching for a mandate to conduct a review of the financial ramifications of selling Medibank after Australia's government decided last month that there was "no compelling policy reason" for it to continue owning it. Australia's Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann said results of the study will be due by February.

    ReplyDelete
  28. On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for trying to vote in a presidential election.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Tired of constantly being broke & stuck in an unhappy marriage, a young husband decided to solve both problems by taking out a large insurance policy on his wife with himself as the beneficiary, and then arranging to have her killed.

    A 'friend of a friend' put him in touch with a nefarious dark-side underworld figure who went by the name of 'Artie.' Artie explained to the husband that his going price for snuffing out a spouse was $5,000.

    The husband said he was willing to pay that amount, but that he wouldn't have any cash on hand until he could collect his wife's insurance money. Artie insisted on being paid at least something up front, so the man opened his wallet, displaying the single dollar bill that rested inside.
    Artie sighed, rolled his eyes, & reluctantly agreed to accept the dollar as down payment for the dirty deed.

    A few days later, Artie followed the man's wife to the local Woolworths Supermarket store. There, he surprised her in the produce department & proceeded to strangle her with his gloved hands. As the poor unsuspecting woman drew her last breath & slumped to the floor, the manager of the produce department stumbled unexpectedly onto the murder scene. Unwilling to leave any living witnesses behind, ol' Artie had no choice but to strangle the produce manager as well.

    However, unknown to Artie, the entire proceedings were captured by the hidden security cameras & observed by the store's security guard, who immediately called the police. Artie was caught and arrested before he could even leave the store.

    Under intense questioning at the police station, Artie revealed the whole sordid plan, including his unusual financial arrangements with the hapless husband who was also quickly arrested.
    The next day in the newspaper, the headline declared:

    'ARTIE CHOKES 2 for $1.00 @ WOOLWORTHS'

    ReplyDelete
  30. As a result of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare now covers a yearly wellness visit and preventive care at no cost. This includes cancer, cholesterol and diabetes screenings; immunizations; diet counseling and more. It will also lower prescription drug costs.

    If you have Medicare Part D and you reach the coverage gap (donut hole) in 2014, you will get a 52.5 percent discount on brand name prescription drugs and a 28 percent discount on generic drugs while in the coverage gap. These discounts will increase each year until 2020; when both brand name and generic prescriptions will be discounted by 75 percent.


    Read more: http://www.wickedlocal.com/easton/topstories/x348806111/GUEST-COLUMN-Affordable-Care-Act-won-t-change-your-Medicare#ixzz2joStGh4K
    Follow us: wb.times on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
  31. The president’s promises that individuals could keep health plans and doctors were false, and his senior advisers knew it, but decided to mislead people anyway because it made for a better sales pitch. The administration’s repeated assurances that the exchange system was on schedule and on track to work were either intentionally incompetent or deliberately misleading.

    ...

    With this record of evasions and incompetence, it is impossible to trust anything the administration says about the health law and its implementation. The only questions that remain are how bad it becomes, for how long, and what deceptions remain to be revealed.

    What, in other words, are we being given false hope about now?

    ReplyDelete
  32. HEY,HEY,HEY,HO.HO.HO.HEE,HEE,HEE

    WHACKADOODLE DANDY

    LOOK AND SEE -


    November 5, 2013
    Libertarian con in Virginia governor's race revealed
    Thomas Lifson

    It has been revealed that the libertarian candidate for governor in Virginia, who is siphoning votes away from Ken Cuccinelli, was funded by an Obama campaign bundler. Meredith Jessup of the Blaze reports:

    A major Democratic Party benefactor and Obama campaign bundler helped pay for professional petition circulators responsible for getting Virginia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert C. Sarvis on the ballot - a move that could split conservative votes in a tight race.

    Campaign finance records show the Libertarian Booster PAC has made the largest independent contribution to Sarvis' campaign, helping to pay for professional petition circulators who collected signatures necessary to get Sarvis' name on Tuesday's statewide ballot.

    Austin, Texas, software billionaire Joe Liemandt is the Libertarian Booster PAC's major benefactor. He's also a top bundler for President Barack Obama. This revelation comes as Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday in an election where some observers say the third-party gubernatorial candidatecould be a spoiler for Republican Ken Cuccinelli.

    This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Split your opponent's votes with a hopeless candidate. Coming as it does on Election Day, this revelation may be too late.

    Hat tip: Mark Levin


    Bwabwabwabwabwabwabwahahahahaha

    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/11/libertarian_con_in_virginia_governors_race_revealed.html#ixzz2jopQMcPJ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      SOP for the Dems.

      In 2010, a couple Dem party leaders here in Michigan were convicted of filing false affidavits for numerous phony Tea Party candidate to draw off votes from Republican candidates.

      The Detroit Free Press, mlive.com and others are reporting that a Democrat Party operative from the Oakland County Democratic Party in Michigan has been notarizing candidate affidavits for fake “Tea Party” candidates. The object of this fraudulent exercise is, of course, to divide the conservative vote in the hopes of allowing socialists to cling to power just a little bit longer in this day and age of unparalleled awareness by the American voter.

      mlive.com has a scan of a fake affidavit notarized by Jason Bauer, operations director of the Oakland County Democratic Party for an Aaron Tyler…who knows nothing of his own candidacy, as a “Tea Party” candidate or any other type of candidate.


      And from the Detroit Free Press:


      Tyler was one of 23 candidates nominated at a tea party movement convention last month. But suspicions about the candidates, many of whom have Democratic Party ties, surfaced almost immediately.

      The candidates filed in races where a tea party candidate might siphon votes away from the Republican candidate. They had no ties to established tea party groups around the state. Two of the candidates weren’t old enough to be eligible to run for the offices being sought. Twelve of the candidate affidavits, including Tyler’s, were notarized by Jason Bauer, the operations director for the Oakland County Democratic Party.


      The key players were all convicted of felonies associated with the scam.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      In the article above, shouldn't the title read Democratic con in Virginia governor's race revealed?

      .

      Delete
    3. So the candidate You support was out maneuvered, on top of making himself unsuitable for about 9% of the electorate.

      That 9%, or so, if the polling numbers become "real", did not vote for the candidate You prefer.
      Would not vote for the candidate You prefer.

      Being a "Common Man", as You are ...
      You fall directly into the category of simpletons that Julius Caesar was referring to, below.

      "What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.
      Julius Caesar

      You and Mark Levin, both, seem to think that if folks did not have the opportunity to vote for another alternative candidate, they would for the one you support.
      Because ... You think he is "best" and imagine others think also.

      Those voters that will vote for the 9% Candidate knowing full well that he will not win.
      They will vote for him for a variety of reasons and "Sending a Message", is high amongst those reasons.

      Your candidate is not acceptable to many among that 9%.

      No matter the alternative.
      There are many, amongst the 9% that would not vote rather than vote for either of the "Mainstream" candidates.

      No, You start from a skewed perspective, then fall for the first ploy of misdirection.
      What you wish, You readily believe.

      We have seen this from You, time and again.

      What You yourself think, You imagine others think también.

      You are displaying that level of "Common Man" thinking on this issue, regarding the election in Virginia.

      Delete
    4. Where there was actual voter process fraud, in Michigan, the perpetrators were found out, prosecuted and convicted.

      I understand that correctly?

      Are you attempting to draw a correlation between that criminal behavior in Michigan and...
      the financing of a candidate for Governor, in the state of Virginia

      Are you charging, or just implying that there has been illegal activity relating to the Democratic Party or associated individuals in regards to the election in Virginia?

      Delete
    5. Voting for a Libertarian candidate to a major office ...

      Why, it's like being a fan of Vandal Football!

      You know the team is going to lose ...
      But you still go to the field and cheer.

      If the Vandals aren't playing football, most fans don't go watch the Huskies.

      Vandal Football fans, they KNOW the team is going to lose
      If the Vandals aren't playin', they're not watching.

      Delete
  33. The U.S. faces a doctor shortage
    POSTED AT 1:21 PM ON NOVEMBER 5, 2013 BY BRUCE MCQUAIN


    Even if you manage to finally enroll in ObamaCare and get your subsidized health insurance, you have no guarantee of seeing a doctor. And that problem is going to be exacerbated in the coming years as a shortage of physicians continues to grow according to projections:

    This fall, millions of uninsured Americans seeking health insurance, many for the first time, overwhelmed the unprepared federal website, still under repair, built to give it to them. Next year, the same people, all heading to hospitals and physicians’ offices ready to make use of their new coverage, could crash something more tangible: the U.S. health care system itself.

    America is running out of doctors, and next year’s influx of patients will strain the current supply. The nation will be 91,500 physicians short by 2020, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. By 2025, that number is expected to swell to more than 130,600.

    Next year, the demand will be highest for primary-care physicians, such as general internists, family doctors, and pediatricians—the kinds of doctors many people go to first for nonemergency medical attention before seeing specialists. Last winter, an Annals of Family Medicine study predicted the country will need 52,000 more primary-care physicians by 2025.
    Of course, primary care physicians are the gate-keepers who are responsible for referring patients to specialists if needed. They also, as the name implies, provide primary care to their patients. No primary care doctor, no primary care and certainly no referrals to specialists. With fewer and fewer primary care doctors and more and more insured, the likelihood that primary care doctors will be accepting new patients declines.

    More and more of the brightest and best are looking at the medical profession and deciding to go elsewhere. And more and more of the medical workforce is foreign-born and foreign-trained according to POLITICO:

    A quarter of the U.S. physician workforce is foreign-educated, according to a new RAND Corp. study, which found that the country relies on foreign-born and foreign-trained medical professionals but doesn’t have a long-term plan in place. “There is no cohesive national policy that outlines a strategy for how to incorporate foreign-born and foreign-trained health professionals into the U.S. workforce,” said Dr. Peggy G. Chen, the study’s lead author. Researchers concluded that foreign-born registered nurses make up 12 to 15 percent of the U.S. RN workforce and that foreign-born nursing and home health aides constitute a quarter of the direct care workforce.
    So while, according to the New York Times, we ought to be celebrating millions getting access to “free heath insurance” – even while knowing nothing the government gives you is “free” – it really won’t matter if you can’t find a doctor.

    Will it?

    Solution?

    The same as before ObamaCare: Crowded ERs and interminable waits for treatment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Solution ... to a labor shortage?

      That is so easy, ... Increase the number of laborers.

      Path to United States Practice Is Long Slog to Foreign Doctors

      Thousands of foreign-trained immigrant physicians are living in the United States with lifesaving skills that are going unused because they stumbled over one of the many hurdles in the path toward becoming a licensed doctor here.

      The involved testing process and often duplicative training these doctors must go through are intended to make sure they meet this country’s high quality standards, which American medical industry groups say are unmatched elsewhere in the world. Some development experts are also loath to make it too easy for foreign doctors to practice here because of the risk of a “brain drain” abroad.

      But many foreign physicians and their advocates argue that the process is unnecessarily restrictive and time-consuming, particularly since America’s need for doctors will expand sharply in a few short months under President Obama’s health care law.

      They point out that medical services cost far more in the United States than elsewhere in the world, in part because of such restrictions.

      The United States already faces a shortage of physicians in many parts of the country, especially in specialties where foreign-trained physicians are most likely to practice, like primary care. And that shortage is going to get exponentially worse, studies predict, when the health care law insures millions more Americans starting in 2014.

      The new health care law only modestly increases the supply of homegrown primary care doctors, not nearly enough to account for the shortfall, and even that tiny bump is still a few years away because it takes so long to train new doctors.

      Immigrant advocates and some economists point out that the medical labor force could grow much faster if the country tapped the underused skills of the foreign-trained physicians who are already here but are not allowed to practice. Canada, by contrast, has made efforts to recognize more high-quality training programs done abroad.

      “It doesn’t cost the taxpayers a penny because these doctors come fully trained,” said Nyapati Raghu Rao, the Indian-born chairman of psychiatry at Nassau University Medical Center and a past chairman of the American Medical Association’s international medical graduates governing council.

      “It is doubtful that the U.S. can respond to the massive shortages without the participation of international medical graduates. But we’re basically ignoring them in this discussion and I don’t know why that is.”


      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog-for-foreign-doctors-to-practice-in-us.html?_r=0

      Delete
    2. .

      Like everything in the US, from school grades to food safety, if you have a problem with standards simply lower them.


      Easy peasy.

      .

      Delete
    3. The proposal does not lower the Standard, it increases the number of Doctors.
      Streamline the process. improve the testing.

      End the protectionism the Medical Industry enjoys.

      The accrediting "Council" for Medical Schools is part of the American Medical Association.
      The Doctor's Guild.

      The Doctor Guild, consortium or union, has been instrumental in not increasing the availability of accredited Medical Schools.
      Which ultimately controls the number of Doctors in the work force.

      Bring in foreign trained Doctors, institute a two year Physician Assistant program, to verify certifiable skills and the shortage of General Practitioners will disappear, with no decrease in Medical Standards, but an improvement in Immigration Regulation and process.

      We are not discussing heart and brain surgeons, but General Practitioners, working in supervised, Standardized, medical facilities.

      Which would increase medical efficiencies and decrease medical costs.

      Any other alternative that you would offer, is open to discussion.

      Delete
    4. .

      There was no mention of physicians assistants in your post.

      These guys have not asked to become physician's assistants, they want to come in and become doctors (at least according to your post). You even highlighted the point

      “It doesn’t cost the taxpayers a penny because these doctors come fully trained,”

      If you want to talk about physicians assistants or any other solution, fine. But don't confuse it with the issue in your post.

      .

      Delete
  34. "It’s not often that you see an economic theory fail so utterly and completely. Yet that theory’s grip on the GOP has only strengthened as its failure becomes ever more undeniable.

    Incidentally, small . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

    Inflation charted with Monetary Base

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      The FED's policies have become pernicious.

      The CPI measures a specific set of goods and services. However, the QE the FED is indulging in is creating money not for those who would spend it thus creating demand and driving up prices but rather to create bubbles in both the stock and housing markets and to improve the financial position of the banks. Their policies are doing nothing to either improve the job market, increase demand, or drive growth.

      Over time, the general business cycle (not the FED and certainly not the government which has been sitting with its finger up its ass for the past five years) will eventually provide enough jobs and along with the massive amounts of welfare transfers the government is putting out will generate an acceptable level of demand. At that time, the CPI will begin to rise. Whether the FED will be able to control that rise is an obvious question.

      All the FED controls is short term interest rates. The bond market does the rest. The following chart shows what the 10 year has done over the past year. I think this was the point Ash was trying to make about rising interest rates over time and the need to replace longer term bonds at higher rates.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      Whoops, the following chart...

      http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/bond/10_year/charts?symb=10_YEAR&countrycode=US&time=8&startdate=1%2F4%2F1999&enddate=11%2F5%2F2013&freq=3&compidx=none&compind=none&comptemptext=Enter+Symbol%28s%29&comp=none&uf=7168&ma=1&maval=50&lf=1&lf2=4&lf3=0&type=2&size=2&style=1013

      .

      Delete
    3. The CPI has proven itself to be a particularly malleable tool. A recent article claimed that the Fed was going to shoot for an inflation rate of 6%. Inflation has proven itself to be like pregnancy: it begins as orgasmic bliss and culminates as an eight pound cantaloupe with toe nails.. In my lifetime, I cannot recall a single success in accurately predicting or controlling inflation.

      Delete
    4. The Federal Reserve is a consortium of PRIVATE banks.

      It is NOT a Federal Agency.

      The Congress does not even audit the Federal Reserve.

      Why would anyone think those fellas would not operate in the best interests of the stockholders of the Federal Reserve?

      It is, actually, their fiduciary responsibility to do so.
      Why would anyone expect an alternate behavior?

      Delete
    5. “If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money,...
      it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”

      Delete
  35. .

    According to the NYT, Obama didn't 'lie' he merely 'misspoke'.

    Despite this, Obama continues to double-down on the 'mispeaking'.

    At a speech last Wednesday, he asserted that the only policies being canceled were "substandard" ones offered by former "bad-apple insurers" whose practices ObamaCare reformed.

    As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Edie Sundby, a cancer victim, would vehemently question that claim.

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303482504579177811453111326

    Over the weekend a New York Times editorial parroted that line, claiming that "insurers are not allowed to abandon enrollees" and that "people forget how terrible many of the soon-to-be-abandoned policies were." But even the Times editors can't quite defend the if-you-like-your-plan-you-can-keep-it fraud. The best they can do is equivocation: "Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that."

    To misspeak means to express oneself imperfectly or incorrectly. It implies either a careless choice of words or an unintended candor (as in a "Freudian slip"). Obama did not misspeak. As The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend, the slogan was the result of careful deliberation. Whereas "some White House policy advisers objected to the breadth of Mr. Obama's 'keep your plan' promise," "political aides" insisted upon it. The latter prevailed. In an interview with the Journal, one unidentified former official "added that in the midst of a hard-fought political debate 'if you like your plan, you can probablykeep it' isn't a salable point."


    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The very fact that ANYONE would think that the President could accurately comment of the future actions of PRIVATE insurance companies, just gives evidence to how gullible some folks are.

      The President was speaking of things that were well beyond his pay-grade, as a Federal Employee.

      That so many people did not realize it sooner, just another part of the show.
      It won't matter in the end.

      The Legislation will not be repealed, the transition bumps will be smoothed out.
      Or not.
      But to bet on "or not" does not make much political sense.

      By now and more so during the next year, the many facets of the ACA will be so integrated into the "System", there will be no going back. The dimwits that do not "Shop" the entire marketplace, out of ideological concerns, will pay more and get less.

      The entire ACA from initial formulation by the Heritage Foundation, its initial implementation in Massachusetts and then the expansion of mandatory mandated private health insurance across the 50 states, just another "Con" by the Kabuki Dancers.

      Delete
    2. I saw it mentioned in the Mainstream Press, only once so far, the costs of the Federal subsidies to ALL those that are qualified to utilize them.

      Betcha it rolls into an even bigger number than was in the proposals, too.

      And that won't matter, either.

      Delete
    3. .

      The 10 year cost already doubled from the initial projection according to the CBO in 2011.

      It will be interesting to see what the 10 price will be when they put out their estimate in March, 2014.

      .

      Delete
    4. .

      Most of America was never in favor of Obamacare.

      The GOP was pretty much universally against it.

      The DEMs couldn't care less if he was lying. After all, he was the ONE.

      As to your point about everyone should have known that Obama was lying. True, however, it never hurts to emphasize the lying and pernicious nature of this regime. Damn, when you are constantly taking it in the ass from these guys, what else have you got?

      .

      Delete
    5. I am not sure he was lying, but he was speaking to an issue he had no authority over.
      The behavior of PRIVATE insurance companies.
      Would any of us want to delegate to the President the power he implied he had?

      In the past years, at "Renewal" time, how many policies were cancelled?
      Is 1.3% an outlier number, or close to the norm?

      Delete
  36. Foes and even some friends of the reforms are calling those compelled to pay more for coverage or subsidize others "losers" in Obamacare.

    "Loser today, winner tomorrow" may not be the most inspired rallying call. And the breakdown of the federal website sure hasn't helped the education process.

    But all shall be repaired. Once the reality sinks in, eyes will dry.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I think that Va election might end up closer than many liberals believe. Cuccinelli's bat-shit crazy, but his poll numbers started getting better a couple of days ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He's also Crushing the White Vote, and it IS an off-off year election.

      Delete
    2. Cuccunelli is running ahead of McAuliffe so far tonight. This will be called a referendum on Obamacare.

      Delete
    3. Whichever way it goes, the "Libertarian" candidate will not be the decisive issue Mr Levin would have you believe.

      Each cycle the dimwits trot it out, each cycle it proves to be inconsequential.

      Just that the Fudds want to maintain the binary nature of the System.
      Either/Or, two sides of the same coin.
      Heads or Tails, the nickel is still a nickel.

      Delete
    4. Non sense.

      Libertarian candidates always take more votes from the republicans than the democrats and it often makes the difference.

      The trouble with your accusation against the 'binary system', that they are both the same, is disproved by the issue of the day, ObamaCare. Other examples abound.

      Also, we do not have a parliament. Maybe we should have but we don't.

      You live on fantasy island, alone, isolated, fearful, ignorant, troubled, angry and depressing.

      Delete
    5. ... it often makes the difference.

      Please, if you would, cite three Federal elections where it did, in the past decade.

      If it occurs "often", as you state, that should be easy enough for you to investigate, correlate and post, in verification of your assertion.
      Which I believe is a crock of shit.

      Post your facts, or you will be seen to be farting up a storm, breaking riffling wind.

      Delete
    6. To make it even easier, for you, Farmer Fudd, feel free to include, amongst the three examples any State Wide election, in any of the Fifty States where the Libertarian candidate "Made a Difference" in the final outcome.

      Delete
  38. 21% Of Obamacare Visitors Have Enrolled


    Despite all of the glitches in HealthCare.gov and, to a lesser extent, state-run health insurance exchange sites, 21% of adults who visited the state and federally operated health insurance marketplaces enrolled in a health plan, a new Commonwealth Fund survey found. Those who did not enroll said they were not sure they could afford a plan (48%), were still deciding on a plan (46%), had technical difficulties with the website (37%), or cited all three reasons. The nationally representative poll queried 680 people.

    Overall, 17% of Americans who are potentially eligible for coverage have visited the new health insurance marketplaces to buy coverage via e-mail, Internet, phone or in person, according to the research. Of those who visited a marketplace, 34% went to a state-run marketplace, and 66% visited the federally operated marketplace. Therefore, it can be inferred that the majority of those who had technical difficulties with the exchanges went to HealthCare.gov, said Sara Collins, VP of the healthcare coverage and access program at the Commonwealth Fund, a Boston-based research and advocacy organization

    http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/policy/21-of-obamacare-visitors-have-enrolled/240163520?google_editors_picks=true

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 3.5 million insurance policies have been cancelled so far.

      OBAMACARE: Uninsuring the Insured Since 2013

      Delete
    2. The U.S. health-insurance exchange is seeing improvement and can now register 17,000 customers per hour “with almost no errors,” an Obama administration official said at a Senate hearing where the website’s underperformance was targeted by both political parties.

      Fixes included speeding up the site so insurance plans are displayed “in just seconds,” Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in remarks to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee today. The agency also doubled the number of servers and replaced a virtual database with a physical one as it tries to reach a goal of 800,000 sign-ups in the first month.


      Healthcare.gov Website Issues: Hearing in a Minute

      1:10

      Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The House Energy and Commerce Committee holds a hearing on failures of the federal health exchange Web site. (Excerpts. Source: Bloomberg)
      .
      Tavenner’s comments weren’t good enough for some Republicans on . . . . . . . . . .

      17,000 apps per hour

      Delete
    3. We have to at this backwards, because of the data sets easily accessed, but ...

      Key Facts about the Uninsured Population
      Over 47 million nonelderly Americans were uninsured in 2012.


      There were ... 313,933,954 people in the US on 4JUL12

      Which means that 267,000,000 had Health Insurance in 2012

      3.5 million, out of 267 million equates to ...
      1.3% of he insured population.

      3.5 million, out of the entire population of the US 314 million ...
      1.1% of the entire population

      Delete
    4. Just to keep things in "perspective"

      Delete
    5. Your calculation presumes one person per policy.

      Delete
    6. From personal experience: something like 80% of those personal health ins policies churn every year.

      It's a horrible business.

      Delete
    7. Well, allen, that is true enough.
      Tell us what it really is.
      What is the average number of people on each policy?

      Is the ACA number an outlier or close to the norm, whatever the norm may be.
      The discussion is really meaningless without adequate background information, so as to compare.

      The numbers are not easily accessed, or I can't think of the proper key words.

      Delete
  39. .

    One more piece of evidence as to diverging trends between the 15 and the rest of us.

    Those with money determine the laws and how the game is player. The rest of us are mere pawns watching the influential do their thing.

    The EU is currently negotiating a far-reaching free trade agreement with the US, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). There are plans to enshrine extra powers for corporations in the deal as a result of a strong and persistent campaign by industry lobby groups and unscrupulous law firms to allow powerful corporations to challenge regulations both at home and abroad if they affect profits.

    The watchdog organization Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) states that EU member states could find domestic laws to protect the public interest quite useless as they become challenged in secretive, offshore tribunals where national laws have no weight and politicians no powers to intervene.

    It would enable US companies investing in Europe to bypass European courts and challenge EU governments at international tribunals whenever they find that laws in the area of public health, environmental or social protection interfere with their profits. EU companies investing abroad would have the same privilege in the US. This proposed agreement (and others like it around the world) is essentially a charter for the systematic destruction and dismantling of legislation that exists to protect the hard won rights of workers and ordinary people.

    Across the world, big business has already used such investor-state dispute settlement provisions in trade and investment agreements to claim massive sums in compensation. It is often the case that the mere threat of a claim or its submission is enough for legislation to be shelved or diluted. In fact, tribunals, consisting of ad hoc three-member panels hired from a small club of private lawyers riddled with conflicts of interest, have granted billions of Euros to companies, courtesy of taxpayers.

    With India and the EU, among others, also currently negotiating a free trade agreement, it all adds up to big companies trying to by-pass legislation that was implemented to safeguard the public’s rights. Kavaljit Singh of the Madhyam research institute in India argues that we could see the Indian government being sued by multinational companies for billions of dollars in private arbitration panels outside of Indian courts if national laws, policies, court decisions or other actions are perceived to interfere with their investments. It constitutes little more than an old-fashioned recipe for imperialist plunder by Western interests (1).


    http://www.globalresearch.ca/free-trade-agreements-the-bypassing-of-democracy-to-institute-economic-plunder/5354197?print=1

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Singh’s concerns should be dismissed at our peril because CEO provides many examples of where and when the by-passing of national legislation has already happened. Through bilateral investment treaties, US tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia over their anti-smoking laws. The company argues that warning labels on cigarette packs and plain packaging prevent it from effectively displaying its trademark, causing a substantial loss of market share.

      And then there is the case of Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, which launched an investor-state lawsuit against Germany, seeking €3.7 billion in compensation for lost profits related to two of its nuclear power plants. The case followed the German government’s decision to phase out nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

      When Argentina froze utility rates (energy, water, etc.) and devalued its currency in response to its 2001-2002 financial crisis, it was hit by over 40 lawsuits from companies like CMS Energy (US) and Suez and Vivendi (France). By the end of 2008, awards against the country had totalled US$1.15 billion.

      On the basis of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the US, Canada and Mexico, US company Lone Pine Resources Inc. is demanding US$250 million in compensation from Canada. The ‘crime’: The Canadian province of Quebec had put a moratorium on ‘fracking’, addressing concerns about the environmental risks of this new technology to extract oil and gas from rocks.

      At the end of 2012, Dutch insurer Achmea (formerly Eureko) was awarded €22 million in compensation from Slovakia. In 2006, the Slovak government had reversed the health privatisation policies of the previous administration and required health insurers to operate on a not-for-profit basis.

      It is also interesting to note that Chevron initiated arbitration to avoid paying US$18 billion to clean up oil-drilling-related contamination in the Amazonian rainforest, as ordered by Ecuadorian courts. The case has been lambasted as egregious misuse of investment arbitration to evade justice.

      EU and US companies have used these lawsuits to destroy any competition or threats to their profits by challenging green energy and medicine policies, anti-smoking legislation, bans on harmful chemicals, environmental restrictions on mining, health insurance policies, measures to improve the economic situation of minorities and many more.

      Various corporate lobby heavyweights all advocate the inclusion of investor-state arbitration in the EU-US free trade agreement. This is also part of a hope that an EU-US deal would set a global ‘gold standard’, a model for investment protection for other agreements around the world.

      If governments and parliaments fail to act to protect the public’s interests, powerful corporations will acquire carte blanche to rein in democracy and curb policies devised for the public good. Before long, countries across the globe could see the opening of the floodgates for GMOs and shale gas, the threatening of digital and labour rights and the empowering of corporations to legally challenge a wide range of necessary and decent regulations which they dislike and label as ‘barriers to trade’.

      This represents a clear attack on national sovereignty and democracy and is a damning indictment of the cosy and often ‘revolving-door’ nature of relationships between corporate officials/lobbyists and bureaucrats/government officials. If successful, such free trade agreements would cement corporate ability to raid taxpayers’ coffers even further or to wholly dictate national policies and legislation.

      Are we to see the concept of democracy being totally abandoned in favour of blatant corporate plunder under the guise of ‘free trade’ but which is anything but!?


      .

      Delete
    2. Are we to see the concept of democracy being totally abandoned in favour of blatant corporate plunder under the guise of ‘free trade’ but which is anything but!?

      YES

      Delete
    3. The Medical Industry stands in example of it.
      Where the profits of a few are given preference over the needs of the many.

      Immigration is a "Trade" issue, make no mistake about that.
      Labor is a major component of "Trade", which is the essence of commerce..

      Delete
    4. The point was, killer, that your Libertarian candidate was a democratic mole. That's what bob was laughing about.

      Delete
    5. When you finished med school, how did you work out paying off the $1,000,000 in fees?

      Delete
  40. Report: CNN head Jeff Zucker blames HealthCare.gov backlash on anti-Obama racism
    http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/05/report-cnn-head-jeff-zucker-blames-healthcare-gov-backlash-on-anti-obama-racism/

    ...RIGHT...

    ReplyDelete
  41. New Jersey voting overwhelmingly to raise the minimum wage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Christie Vetoed the raise in the minimum wage. SOOooo,

      The voter re-elect Christie by 60 - 40

      AND, Pass the Miminum Wage by - yep - you guessed it 60 - 40

      Delete
  42. We are nearing the blessed 200 post mark. Time to call it a day. And the local election news will be coming in soon.

    "All politics is local"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But I wanted to get this in -

      05 NOVEMBER 2013 - 12H18
      Pussy Riot convict 'transferred to Siberia'
      "Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013"Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013
      "Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013"Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013
      "Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013"Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013
      "Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013"Pussy Riot" punk band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is seen in the defendant's cage in court in Zubova Polyana, in the Republic of Mordovia, on April 26, 2013
      AFP - Jailed Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is on her way to a new penal colony in Siberia, her husband said Tuesday, following fears after two weeks without information about her whereabouts.

      Tolokonnikova, 23, who alleged major prison abuses in her previous colony in central Russia, is on her way to a new prison colony deep in the Krasnoyarsk region, her husband Pyotr Verzilov wrote on Twitter, saying the information comes from a reliable source.

      The penal colony number 50 in the town of Nizhny Ingash lies about 300 kilometres (185 miles) from the regional centre Krasnoyarsk, four time zones away from Moscow and sitting on Russia's Trans-Siberian railway.

      "Essentially, she is transferred 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) from central Russia to the heart of Siberia as punishment for the resonance of her letter" that alleged abuses, Verzilov added.

      With just months left of her two-year term for performing a "punk prayer" in Russia's main Orthodox cathedral protesting ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin, Tolokonnikova had demanded to be transferred from her prior colony in Mordovia region.

      She went on a hunger strike in protest of conditions she described as "slave labour" and constant harassment by colony administration. The strike ended when she started having health problems and was placed on a drip in the prison hospital.

      Verzilov then said he had lost sight of his wife after October 22, and complained that his queries to Russia's prison service as to her whereabouts only received a response that she was being transferred.

      Russia's rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said Tuesday that he had been assured that Tolokonnikova was in good health and had a doctor accompanying her on her long transfer.

      "She is eating and they say her health is acceptable," he told Interfax. Her transfer has her completely isolated "in the interests of security," he added.

      Russian prison service takes days if not weeks to transfer prisoners, usually on trains, and says it is standard practice not to inform the convicts' families of the process

      .....

      Delete