Tuesday, December 17, 2013

D'oh!

Remember these famous words:

Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance. - Nancy Pelosi 

Or How about these famous words:

But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. - Nancy Pelosi

Ironically, those quotes from the San Fran Nan were never talked about in this story:

With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies for New York Professionals

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS, NYT
December 13, 2013 Here's a few excerpts from the story (along with my running commentary):
Many in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise, thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers, doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable coverage, if they can find it. [Oh, pshaw, the poor darlings.  What was it San Fran Nan said.  Oh yeah, "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."]
The people affected include not just writers, artists, doctors and the like, but also independent tradespeople, like home builders or carpenters, who work on their own.  [99% of whom have never voted for anyone but a Democrat - EVER.]
But while those policies, by and large, had been canceled because they did not meet the law’s requirements for minimum coverage, many of the New York policies being canceled meet and often exceed the standards, brokers say. The rationale for disqualifying those policies, said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, was to prevent associations from selling insurance to healthy members who are needed to keep the new health exchanges financially viable.  [Yes, the healthy cannot possibly have such good insurance.  It would be unfair, unequal.  We must all share in the misery.]
Among those affected are members of the Authors Guild; the Advertising Photographers of America; the Suzuki Association of the Americas, a music teachers organization; theSociety of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators; the New York City Bar Association; and the New York County Medical Society. (One group, the Freelancers Union, negotiated a one-year exemption with the state.)  [Oh, to be in a union....]
“One of the reasons to join a society is to get health insurance,” said Dr. Paul N. Orloff, president of the New York County Medical Society. Even doctors pay a lot for coverage, he said, because the days of trading medical care with colleagues are long gone. “In the old days, professional courtesy was the norm,” Dr. Orloff said.  [Yes, he really said that.  Who knew health insurance was such an integral part of our society?  Given that health insurance was largely an invention created during & after WWII to attract workers to companies, it makes one wonder how we got along for the first 160 years.]
It is not lost on many of the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people — liberal, concerned with social justice — who supported the Obama health plan in the first place. Ms. Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong Democrat who still supported better health care for all, but had she known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney. [If only she hadn't been lied to for 4 years by the same paper that wrote this story, she might have known what she was in for....  I'll be she re-ups her subscription though.  I also bet she voted for De Blasio.  If she doesn't like Obamacare, just wait & see what her mayor has in store for her.  People like her will never, let me say it again: NEVER, vote for a Republican, or at least admit it, lest they not get invited to the right cocktail parties...]

Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Death Knell for Keystone...

This week Obama hired John Podesta as "Counselor to the President", ensuring the Keystone Pipeline never gets approval.

Why hire Podesta?  Aside from being the consummate Washington D.C. insider (former Clinton Chief of Staff, Lobbyist, co-founder of the both The Podesta Group and the Center for American Progress) he was added to the White House Staff and will have a "broad portfolio touching on the economy and congressional relations" according to the NY Times.

But, Podesta is a flaming liberal environmentalist who actually still believes in the global warming hoax and is now empowered to influence official Obama regime policy regarding all things environmental.  The official line is that Podesta has "officially recused" himself from anything regarding the Keystone pipeline.   More "transparency" from this regime...

A little about the benefits of the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline:

  • 9,000 skilled (re:high paying) American workeres will be required to build it.
  • 7,000 U.S manufacturing jobs will be supported for the production of steel pipe, valves and pumps
  • TransCanada (pipeline owner/manager) already has 50 U.S. suppliers in 18 U.S. states.
  • TransCanada currently employs 4,000 U.S. employees in OK & TX building a $2.3 billion Gulf Coast Pipeline Project
  • These pipelines will combine for $5 billion in property taxes alone
  • The Keystone XL will add $172 billion to the U.S. GDP by 2035 and will create 1.8 million person-years employment in the US over the next 22 years
  • Keystone XL will reduce the amount of oil the U.S. needs to import from places like the Middle East and Venezuela who, in case you haven;t noticed, aren't exactly our best friends
So what's so bad about the Keystone XL Pipeline?

According to guys like Podesta it'll only further entrench U.S. "dependency" on oil.  Really?  I wonder if knows of any electric powered 777's or even MD80's?  How about electric powered 18 wheeler's or container ships?  I'm just sayin'.  Come on john, I appreciate your desire to lessen our dependency on oil, though I want to more specifically lessen out dependency on Middle East and Venezuelan oil, rather than on oil in general, but really, do you have it's replacement?  I didn't think so. 

Back to the "transparency of the Obama regime.  I do need to point out, John Podesta already sits on the Foreign Affairs Policy Board and the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board both of which are VERY involved in the Keystone XL pipeline approval process.

So whats the big deal you say?  Well, let me introduce you to a board member of Podesta's Center for American Progress, Tom Steyer.  Aside from initially making a fortune trading in oil and oil companies in his hedge funds he and Podest authored an opinion piece in the WSJ: "We Don't Need More Foreign Oil & Gas".  Oh, and did I mention Mr. Steyer is also a major investor in a competing pipeline by Kinder Morgan

Mr. Steyer is also a large, no HUGE, democrat donor (through PACs).

This is all VERY complex and the best  exposé on all this is on the Free Beacon.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

It'd actually be funny if it weren't so accurate....


Mark Stein coins a new phrase...

We've all heard of the "Low-Information Voter" (ala Rush Limbaugh - Thanks, Rush), but I do believe Makr Stein just coined a new term: "Low Information Congresswomen" when pointing out just how uninformed his congress woman Representative Ann Kuster (Dem NH 2nd District).  Just watch her be totally baffled by Benghazi at a town hall, ultimately saying she was there to discuss the Middle East, not Benghazi.  Somebody buy her a globe, please!




Mark Stein is rightly disturbed by the typical empty suit poly-tic-ian look to her aide near the end of the clip as if to say, "How did you let me get this question, especially knowing I'm clueless?"