New #IRS scandal? Agency sued over stealing 60 million medical records — Updated

Remember, the Internal Revenue Service is charged with being the enforcement arm of Obamacare.

We’re in the best of hands:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

You know, we may just be a lowly state, and they may be a mighty federal agency, but it would take only a few angry superior court judges to make life miserable for the regional IRS office…

Meanwhile, what are we up to? Five scandals in the last two weeks? Six? Am I bid seven?

via Drew M.

UPDATE: Lawyer Gabriel Malor is “calling BS” on the Healthcare IT News story, describing the suit as “vague” and “lurid.” See his tweets beginning at 3/15/13 at 10:12 AM.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: But, of course. They targeted Jewish groups, too.

Jewish groups that are favorable toward Israel. We all know how close the President is to Israel, now don’t we?

This just gets better and better.

Via Politico:

The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.

The trouble for the Israel-focused groups seems to have had different origins than that experienced by conservative groups, but at times the effort seems to have been equally ham-handed.

(…)

Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010 alleging that one of its attorneys were told its application for tax exemption was delayed and sent to a “special unit…to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

“Special unit” probably refers to the same group vetting 501(c)(3) applications that’s been at the center of controversy the last few days. Seems they’re “looking into” anyone critical of Obama, his policies, or the direction of the nation.

But, really, “special unit” and “investigating Jewish groups” are thoughts you never want associated with your administration.

Ever.

More from The Jewish Press.

via Cuffé and J Hammer

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: White House counsel knew last April

Via Rick Moran at PJM, Politico is reporting that the White House counsel, the president’s legal adviser, knew about the IRS targeting conservative groups three weeks ago:

The White House counsel’s office was informed in April of an inspector general’s review of the Internal Revenue Service, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

Carney told reporters that the counsel’s office was told of the examination into the targeting of conservative groups during the week of April 22, but not given details about the review’s findings. President Obama, Carney said, was not told about the review and learned of it only after news reports emerged Friday, just what Obama said earlier Monday.

Uh huh. Right. The Treasury IG hands the president’s lawyer bombshell revelations, and yet that lawyer never tells his client? “Uh… Hi, sir! Nice morning, isn’t it? Huh? Wha…? No, nothing going on today, sir! Nothing at all!”

Care to buy some swampland in Arizona?

I’m with Moran:

I do not believe that Barack Obama first learned of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives “from news reports” on Friday. That doesn’t pass the smell test, especially since a close aide was told of the program three weeks ago. Are we to believe that the president’s own counsel didn’t immediately go to the Oval Office after learning of this and tell Obama “We’ve got a big  problem, sir”? And the fact that the White House is now in full-blown circle-the wagons damage-control mode would suggest that their primary goal is to keep the president a thousand miles away from anything having to do with this scandal.

Good luck with that, guys. Just remember — it’s always the cover-up that gets ya.

Just ask any White House occupant circa 1974.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Oh, no. This won’t set off conservative and libertarian alarm bells at all.

“The State watches over you”

I mean, what’s so threatening about a biometric database of all adult Americans being in the immigration bill, citizen?

The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.

Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf)  is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.

Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.

This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.

Emphasis added.

Nah, there are no 4th Amendment illegal search and privacy concerns here. Nothing to see, carry on. After all, wingnuts, you demanded greater security in the immigration bill and, well, here ya go! The government will make sure only bona fide Americans get jobs by keeping track of each and every one of us. And if they should find other uses for the information, well, that will be for the public good, too.

And you thought Person of Interest was just fiction.

If this Wired story is true, this provision is reason enough to kill the bill.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Congress and their aides getting an Obamacare exception?? UPDATE: @Politico jumped the gun?

If this Politico story is true, it’s pitchforks and torches time:

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

A source close to the talks says: “Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office.

Boehner couldn’t be this stupid, could he? I mean, forget Harry Reid; I wouldn’t put anything past that weasel. But Speaker Boehner has to know any deal carving out an exemption for Congress would tear the Republican coalition apart, doesn’t he? The nation overall hates Obamacare, but, to the conservative base this law is a constitutional obscenity, a legislative vampire that needs a stake driven through its heart and an anonymous burial at a crossroads at midnight. To make a deal exempting themselves from its provisions would be see as nothing less than a gross, vile betrayal, and it would cripple the Republican efforts in the 2014 elections before the campaign really got underway.

While reading the article, the cynical side of me wondered if this wasn’t a hit job by the liberal Politico, which isn’t exactly known for unbiased reporting. Throughout the article, they’re at pains to emphasize how much of a danger a deal would pose to Democrats. But, think about it: the Left will vote Democratic no matter what, because they know Obamacare is a Trojan Horse hiding within it their beloved single-payer system. They’ll let Reid cut a deal now, knowing they’ll eventually get what they want. But Boehner? What would he gain from this?Well, when I read this:

There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.

The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty.

And this:

When asked about the high-level bipartisan talks, Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said: “The speaker’s objective is to spare the entire country from the ravages of the president’s health care law. He is approached daily by American citizens, including members of Congress and staff, who want to be freed from its mandates. If the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will.“

…I fear it’s real.

Dear Speaker Boehner: You may feel real sympathy for aides who will take a severe hit from Obamacare, but so will the rest of us, and we won’t forgive self-dealing in this case. This is a terrible, terrible idea. Don’t just call it off, call a press conference for Thursday to denounce it in unmistakable terms. Harry Reid is playing you. State as clearly as you can that Congress and all who work in it will suffer under this bill the same as all Americans, until it is repealed.

Otherwise, you can kiss off your House majority.

via Salena Zito

UPDATE: Per Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, this may be much less than it seems:

If this sounds unbelievable, it’s because it is. There’s no effort to “exempt” Congress from Obamacare. No matter how this shakes out, Congress will have to follow the law, just like everyone else does.

Based on conversations I’ve had with a number of the staffs involved in these talks, the actual issue here is far less interesting, and far less explosive, than an exemption. Rather, a Republican amendment meant to embarrass Democrats and a too-clever-by-half Democratic response has possibly created a problem in which the federal government can’t make its normal contribution to the insurance premiums of congressional staffers.

Follow the link for the rest. Which is true? We’ll just have to wait and see. (h/t “ReallyNow” in the ST comments)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Boston Marathon bombing: terrorism on the cheap, financed by us?

I wrote yesterday about questions regarding the Tsarnaev brothers’ financial resources and how they could afford what at first glance appeared to be a comfortable lifestyle and prepare their atrocities without some outside support.

Well, it appears they had some help: the taxpayers of Massachusetts.

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home.

In addition, both of Tsarnaev’s parents received benefits, and accused brother bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan were recipients through their parents when they were younger, according to the state.

The news raises questions over whether Tsarnaev financed his radicalization on taxpayer money.

Gee, ya think?

Meanwhile, his younger brother financed his “lifestyle” not only through scholarships, but also, per The Globe, dealing drugs:

Tsarnaev’s younger brother never seemed strapped for cash, according to people who knew him at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where he was a sophomore. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a scholarship student who earned spending money by selling marijuana, say three people who bought drugs from the 19-year-old.

None of this was enough to finance the “lifestyles of the rich and terroristic,” but the globe goes on to point out just how little it would take to carry out the Marathon attacks:

If the brothers had outside financial or technical support for their deadly attack on the Marathon, it certainly isn’t reflected in their lifestyle or their weapons. The picture that is emerging is more like terrorism on a budget, consistent with reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators from his hospital bed that he and his brother acted alone.

“There is no barrier here to two men doing this on their own,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, a Rand Corp. adviser who focuses on terrorism. “You could easily do this for under $100 per bomb. . . . This is an investment even someone with modest means can make.”

So, it looks more and more like these walking, talking pustules did this on their own… with help from the older brother’s exploited wife, sponging off family, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the potheads of Cambridge.

I hope the younger brother remembers to thank them at his execution.

To paraphrase what Lenin said about capitalists, “We’re going to give them the money to build the bombs to kill us.” And it reminds me of Britain, though they’re much further down the path of subsidizing their own destroyers.

Way back in 1838, Abraham Lincoln made a speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in which he made an observation I think fitting for this situation:

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?– Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Only we seem to be paying for assisted suicide.

PS: Back to the question of outside assistance, the Tsarnaevs seemed to greatly admire a radical Lebanese-Australian imam, Sheik Feiz Mohammed, and the elder brother is reported to have met with another jihadist imam while visiting Dagestan. This makes me suspect their situation is similar to that of the traitorous Major Hassan and his al Qaeda imam, Anwar al-Awlaki: they received theological support and encouragement from these preachers, but were left to come up with their own attacks. Still, I’d like to know where they tested their bombs, if they did.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

One reason I may never visit New York City

This is what happens when you live in such a cultural cocoon that there is no one to tell you what a stupid idea your stupid idea is:

File this under “EW!”:

When Jada Shapiro decided to raise her daughter from birth without diapers, for the most part, not everyone was amused. Ms. Shapiro scattered little bowls around the house to catch her daughter’s offerings, and her sister insisted that she use a big, dark marker to mark the bowls so that they could never find their way back to the kitchen.

“My sister wasn’t a huge fan,” she said on Thursday.

But “elimination communication,” as the diaper-free method of child-rearing is called, is finding an audience in the hipper precincts of New York City.

Ms. Shapiro, who is a doula, a birth and child-rearing coach, says it is practically now a job qualification to at least be able to offer diaper-free training as an option to clients. Caribou Baby, an “eco-friendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store” on the border of artsy Greenpoint and Williamsburg, has been drawing capacity crowds to its diaper-free “Meetups,” where parents exchange tips like how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars.

Parents are drawn to the method as a way of preserving the environment from the ravages of disposable diapers, as well as reducing the laundering of cloth diapers and preventing diaper rash. Many of them like the thought that they are rediscovering an ancient practice used in other cultures, though they tend to gloss over the fact that many of those cultures had never heard of Pampers. But mostly, they say, they like feeling more in touch with their babies’ most intimate functions.

“I think for a lot of parents, the motivation is just to be more in tune with what their kids’ needs are,” Adriane Stare, proprietor of Caribou Baby and herself a diaper-free mother, said on Thursday, about a week after holding her most recent meetup. Another meeting was written about on Thursday on the news Web site dnainfo.com; the next is May 14.

This is one of those things that happened before Rome fell, right?

When I think of getting “in tune” with a child’s needs, I think about things like food, shelter, clothing, love, confidence-building, instill good values… Not teaching it the right way to take a whiz between parked cars.

(And what of the poor schmuck who later picks that route to get to his car?)

Nincompoopery like this makes me think of “Green warriors” who want to preserve rural villages from the ravages of technology, so they can continue to live in virtue, close to nature… and then you go ask someone in that same pesthole village if they’d like to have refrigerators, electric lights, air conditioning –and diapers!– and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts for asking and answer “Heck yes! When’s the delivery?”

Sometimes civilization is a good thing.

Even in Manhattan.

via Jonah Goldberg

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

This just in: “Master bedroom” is now racist and sexist

But, of course:

The “master suite” is being phased out — not from our homes, but from our lexicon.

A survey of 10 major Washington, D.C.-area homebuilders found that six no longer use the term “master” in their floor plans to describe the largest bedroom in the house….Why? In large part for exactly the reason you would think: “Master” has connotation problems, in gender (it skews toward male) and race (the slave-master).

The new, politically correct phrase is “owner’s suite.”  Can’t see how that’s much better, as least from the point of view of the ridiculously hypersensitive.

Sigh.

via Salena Zito and Conservative Intelligence Briefing

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Union that backed Obama calls for repeal of Obamacare

Because they’re finally realizing that it’s a crappy idea horribly implemented and that, no, fairies riding unicorns won’t bring you free healthcare after all:

Organized labor was instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but more recently has voiced concerns that the law could lead members to lose their existing health plans. The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is believed to be the first union to initially support the law and later call for its repeal.

“After the law was passed, I had great hope … that maybe the rough spots would be worked out and we’d have a great law,” said Kinsey Robinson, international president of the union, which represents 22,000 commercial and industrial roofers.

Like many unions, the roofers insure members through a so-called multiemployer health insurance plan that’s jointly managed by employers and the union. Mr. Robinson says the union’s concerns about the law began to pile up in recent months after speaking with employers.

The roofers’ union’s current insurance plan caps lifetime medical bill payouts at $2 million for active members and $50,000 for retirees. Next year, the plan has to remove those caps in order to comply with the health law. Other aspects of the retiree plan must become more generous in order to meet the law’s minimum essential coverage requirements next year. All that will increase the cost of insuring members, Mr. Robinson said, and has prompted the union to weigh eliminating the retiree plan.

It also finally dawned on these geniuses that they’re going to take another big hit when the tax on “Cadillac plans” kicks in in 2018. (You might recall that this delay was something the unions asked for, figuring it would be fixed by then. Suckers.)

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry — maybe a bit of both. Unions such as Robinson’s helped elect the worst president of the modern era, then moved heaven and earth to help pass Obamacare, a measure the majority of the nation never wanted and which the Democrats had to pass by anti-constitutional means. And now that it’s turning out to be the fiasco we all predicted it would be, he wants to say “never mind.”

You know what? I’ll be happy to work with the Carpenters or any union that wants to repeal this constitutional and economic monstrosity and replace it with a sensible plan, one based on real-world economics and that respects the liberty of the individual. Hands across the aisle, and all that.

But, I reserve one right: I get to look them in the eye, laugh out loud, and, to borrow a phrase from my good friend ST,  say “Toldjah so!!”

PS: Be sure to read the linked article. The last paragraph really will leave you laughing.

via Brian Faughnan

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Barack Obama is a petty, spiteful man-child unworthy of the title “Chief of State”

Okay, okay, Barack. You don’t like those ex-colonialist British and you have emotional issues with the way they may have treated your grandfather in Kenya. I get it, I really do. You just don’t have it in you to overcome your childish bigotry.

But the British are among our closest allies, you are President of the United States of America, charged with handling our foreign relations, and this shames your office and insults those same allies:

President Obama’s delegation to the funeral of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is drawing some flak in London.

Two former Republican secretaries of State — James Baker and George Shultz — will lead the U.S. delegation to the Thatcher funeral on Wednesday.

Some British press reports noted that the delegation does not include a former president or a member of the current Obama administration.

“Friends and allies of Baroness Thatcher expressed ‘surprise and disappointment’ last night as it emerged President Obama is not planning to send any serving member of his administration to her funeral,” reports the Daily Mail.

The Sun called it a “snub,” and said that “Downing Street is most angered by rejections from Obama, first lady Michelle and Vice President Joe Biden. And none of the four surviving ex-U.S. leaders — Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. — is coming either.

Give me a break. You mean you couldn’t ask George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to represent us? Seriously? What are ex-Presidents for?

Oh, and I just love the reason for not sending the First Lady or the Vice President (h/t Moe Lane):

‘This is a hugely significant week in terms of US domestic politics,’ a spokesman added.

He said that both the First Lady and the Vice President were ‘the President’s point people on gun control’, adding: ‘This is a week when there is a lot of movement on Capitol Hill on gun control issues.’

No. They didn’t. Why not just say “Michelle has to wash her hair and Joe’s already been to Britain this year?”

Margaret Thatcher was the second most important UK Head of Government in the 20th century. She saved Britain economically and stood side-by-side with us in the climactic phase of the Cold War and contributed mightily to the end of the Soviet Union. (1)  The British government has every right to be affronted. Mere decency and respect calls for a high-level delegation.

Instead they get the same level of official representation as was sent to the funeral of Hugo Chavez.

Some men grow into the office of President, rising to meet its challenges. Harry Truman, for example.

Barack Obama demeans and diminishes it.

via Legal Insurrection

Footnote:
(1) And maybe that’s another reason behind the slight: what she did would have upset Frank.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Welfare Handouts for Promoting Terrorism

Reblogged from International Liberty:

I don't think the federal government should be in the business of redistribution income. Simply stated, the welfare state has been a disaster for both taxpayers and recipients.

But our system, with whatever flaws it might have now or in the future, presumably will never be as crazy as the system in the United Kingdom.

A reader sent a story that blows my mind.

Read more… 363 more words

Every time I read about something like this --the UK welfare system handing out money and support to people whose goal it is to destroy the UK, as if it's their right-- I have to shake my head in wonder. This is another victory for cultural jihad.

NY school district: “We’re sorry for teaching Jews are evil”

School has certainly changed since my day:

An upstate New York school district is reportedly apologizing — and mulling possible disciplinary action — for a high school writing assignment that asked students to “argue Jews are evil” while making a persuasive argument blaming them for the problems of Nazi Germany.

The Albany Times Union reports that some students at Albany High School were asked to research Nazi propaganda before assuming their English teacher was a Nazi government official who had to be convinced of their loyalty. In five paragraphs, they were required to prove that Jews were the source of Germany’s problems, the newspaper reports.

“You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich,” the assignment reportedly read. A third of the students refused.

Wow. I’ll be charitable and assume a stunning lack of sensitivity and plain good sense on the instructor’s part. There are, after all, good uses for exercises that ask the student to explore and defend the other side or other points of view. But when you’re talking about one of the most monstrous atrocities in the history of humanity –the Holocaust– the only point of discussing the attitudes that lead to it is to criticize them and show their utter evil, not to learn how to be an apologist for them.

Yeah, I’d say this teacher deserves at least a suspension, if not termination, but someone should pointedly ask that school district why they don’t supervise their employees’ lesson plans more closely.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Chicago cops for rent?

And that’s not a metaphor for police corruption; these are uniformed police officers “financially sponsored” by individual citizens or groups. In other words, rented:

A philanthropist or business could sponsor a police beat and put more off-duty cops on the streets under a plan being put forth by a downtown Chicago lawmaker on the City Council.

Alderman Brendan Reilly originally pitched the idea last October but is pushing it again following weekend incidents of teen mob activity on the Magnificent Mile, an upscale area of the city.

Under his plan, off-duty officers would work minimum six-hour shifts and make $30 an hour. The money would be paid by businesses, civic groups and churches at a time when city finances are stretched thin. The officers would be in full uniform and under the command of police supervisors.

“This is a way to make use of well-trained police officers who are moonlighting doing other things, bringing them back on the street to do what they do best, which is great police work,” Reilly said.

To say this is a bad idea would be to insult bad ideas. Moe Lane provides one answer to “what could go wrong?”

Those would be rented cops, and the difference will become clear the moment that somebody very important from one of those “businesses, civic groups and churches” happens to commit a trivial, surely-not-worth-mentioning, purely technical violation of the law.

Look at it another way: Order in a society such as ours depends on the law being applied equally — blindfolded Justice holding the scales, and such. And that includes the police serving all the public, because, in large part, all the public pays for the police. While we all know there are imperfections and exceptions, the acceptance that this is generally so is important to social order.

Alderman Reilly’s proposal, regardless of his protests otherwise, would break that perception. I don’t care how much anyone might say “they’re still Chicago police and they still enforce the law,” the fact is that their pay will come from individuals, not the public. As Alexander Hamilton said:

In the main it will be found that a power over a man’s support (salary) is a power over his will.

In other words, “You work for me.”

You can imagine what wonders this could work on a society based on the rule of law and its equal application.

That a loony idea such as this can even be floated is indicative of how far down the drain liberal, Blue-model governance has taken a once-great city like Chicago. (Detroit, on the other hand, is at the end of that drain…) The city’s finances are so strapped by out of control pension costs and greedy unions, as well as businesses fleeing high-tax Illinois, that they are having trouble paying for basic services such as police.

Is the next step RoboCop?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare: Wasn’t it supposed to simplify things?

“Need a navigator, bub?”

Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to relieve us of the burden of worrying about our healthcare? With the government making our choices for us, with mandatory coverage for all, and with subsidies given to all who couldn’t afford the new plans, weren’t we all supposed to breathe a sigh a relief at how easy it had all become?

Well, if the road to healthcare nirvana has become so smooth and straight, why do we need tens of thousands of “navigators?”

Tens of thousands of health care professionals, union workers and community activists hired as “navigators” to help Americans choose Obamacare options starting Oct. 1 could earn $20 an hour or more, according to new regulations issued Wednesday.

The 63-page rule covering navigators, drawn up by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also said the government will provide free translators for those not fluent in English — no matter what their native language is.

Sixty-three pages for one rule. Remind you of anything? No wonder they need make-work jobs for their union clients “navigators.” Magellan couldn’t find his way through this mess.

They’ll need navigators for the navigators.

Not only is this farcical on its face, but consider the cost: each “navigator” will (1) get $20-$48 per hour to help people through this morass. California alone has estimated it will need 21,000 “navigators.” (2) That’s an estimated $420,000 to $1,008,000 per hour, every day during the implementation period, just for one state.

Oh, and the translators. Naturally, they’ll be well-paid, especially if they speak multiple languages. Here in Los Angeles county, there are over 224 languages spoken as of the 2000 census, so you know demand will be high. And they’re mandatory: if your primary language is something as obscure as Nenets, and even if you are the only person in the area who speaks it, they have to get you a translator.

So tack that on to the hourly cost of “navigating” our brave new healthcare world.

Can I get a navigator to take me back to someplace sane, please?

via Jim Treacher

PS: A Twitter commenter reminds us that the article also mentions a voter-registration provision as part of signing up for Obamacare. I imagine all these community organizers and union members will be quite willing to help people “navigate” this part. But, don’t worry. The law requires them to be unbiased. (Yeah, I’m rolling my eyes, too.)

Footnotes:
(1) States aren’t required to pay at this rate, but, come on. You think these groups will work for less, or even gratis? I have some swampland for you, real cheap.
(2) And you can bet all of them will be dues-paying public employees union members, too.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The death of common sense in America

Writing on the rolling global financial crisis, the Diplomad shakes his head at the foolishness reigning in the US today:

The western world continues on a totally unnecessary suicidal path. What was once common sense is no more. Everywhere one looks, the insanity is evident: The refusal to deal with real issues and the insistence on taking up marginal or even totally extraneous issues instead is stunning. Here in the USA, our economy remains stagnated for no logical reason. Instead, for example, of freeing up the exploitation of our vast fossil fuel resources, we continue to push money at phony green industries, throw road blocks in the way of our private sector’s ability to get those fuels, block importation of fuel from our friends in Canada, and blather on and on about discredited, voodoo science global warming. Our leaders rulers take lavish vacations on our dime, push ruinous tax and spend policies, including the criminally destructive Obamacare, and avoid cutting even a bit of our bloated spending. A hypothetical “threat” to reduce ever so slightly the rate of growth in spending is declared disastrous and the equivalent of a nuclear attack. 

Well, when you put it that way…

Instead, we allow ourselves to waste our energies on issues of far less importance, such as same-sex marriage (1) or “assault weapons bans,” or whatever false crisis the left raises to distract us from their near-criminal mismanagement of the nation’s affairs.

And the truly frustrating this is that it often works. At least for now, common sense is truly dead.

Read the rest for a discussion of Europe even-worse state and for an explanation of how the Greek banking crisis lead directly to the Cyprus bailout.

Footnote:
(1) My apologies to supporters of allowing same-sex marriage (I’m one, too), but I simply do not believe this is one of the crucial issues facing our country, today. Not when our national debt is astronomical (and growing), our national borrowing to support out of control entitlements resembles a heroin addict needing his fix, Islamic jihadists want to reach paradise over our corpses, and crazed dictatorships that hate us are desperately seeking nuclear weapons. There are far, far more important things demanding our attention as a nation.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Britain’s Green chickens are coming home to roost, as will ours, soon

Christopher Booker in last Saturday’s Telegraph: “It’s payback time…”

As the snow of the coldest March since 1963 continues to fall, we learn that we have barely 48 hours’ worth of stored gas left to keep us warm, and that the head of our second-largest electricity company, SSE, has warned that our generating capacity has fallen so low that we can expect power cuts to begin at any time. It seems the perfect storm is upon us.

The grotesque mishandling of Britain’s energy policy by the politicians of all parties, as they chase their childish chimeras of CO2-induced global warming and windmills, has been arguably the greatest act of political irresponsibility in our history.

Three more events last week brought home again just what a mad bubble of make-believe these people are living in. Under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants Directive, we lost two more major coal-fired power stations, Didcot A and Cockenzie, capable of contributing no less than a tenth to our average electricity demands. We saw a French state-owned company, EDF, being given planning permission to spend £14?billion on two new nuclear reactors in Somerset, but which it says it will only build, for completion in 10 years’ time, if it is guaranteed a subsidy that will double the price of its electricity. Then, hidden in the small print of the Budget, were new figures for the fast-escalating tax the Government introduces next week on every ton of CO2 emitted by fossil-fuel-powered stations, which will soon be adding billions of pounds more to our electricity bills every year.

Be sure to read the rest. Not only is the government in London heavily subsidizing uneconomic wind farms and granting needless subsidies in tribute to get nuclear plants built, but they’re doing all they can to drive coal plants out of business, even though coal plants are necessary as backup for those times when the wind doesn’t blow. Hence the warnings about blackouts in the dead of winter. Britain is looking at a new Dark Ages, one wholly of its own doing.

And before we cluck our tongues at our cousins’ folly, this is just the future Obama and the environmentalist movement would lead us to:

Booker is right that Britain’s energy policy is insanity. But what can we say about a nation –us– that sits atop almost unimaginably immense energy resources, enough to restore the cheap energy needed for prosperity and make us nearly energy independent, and yet fights tooth and nail  against developing it in the name of battling a problem that does not exist?

Madness!

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The horror of sequester: congressional aides might have to pay more for subsidized lunches

“House cafeteria, post-sequester”

Have those heartless House Republicans no mercy, no soul? How could they do this to poor, starving congressional staffers?

Speaking at a hearing of the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, [Debbie] Wasserman Schultz worried that prices of meals in House restaurants are getting so high that aides are being “priced out” of a good meal.

At the carry-out cafe in the Cannon Office Building, where Wasserman Schultz has her office, you can get an 8oz bowl of Ham and Bean soup for $2. You can buy gourmet sandwiches and wraps for around $5. Both of these are cheaper than I can get at delis down the street from my house.

Her aides could walk across the street to the Longworth Building, which has a large sit-down cafeteria. Today, it is featuring a roasted stuffed Chicken, with asparagus and mashed potatoes, for around $7. Or, one could opt for a heaping 12oz bowl of Chicken Chili for $3.

There is also the tried and true method enjoyed by millions of workers around the country: a brown-bag lunch.

Curse you, Tea Partiers! Have you no sympathy for long-suffering, hard-toiling aides who make more than the median salary in the US?

You can imagine that I, who lives the life of luxury –bringing my breakfast four out of five days to work, my lunch every day, going out to a cheap dinner with friends just once per month– Well, dear readers, you can picture just how my heart breaks for people who might have to pay $8 for roasted stuffed chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus, instead of seven.

I weep.

Actually, I don’t. In fact, Wasserman-Schultz and her overpaid entourage of whiny self-entitled oligarchs can go do something anatomically impossible to themselves. It was her party’s leader who thought of the sequester, it was her party’s leader who fought tooth and nail any effort ease what little real pain it would cause, and it was her party’s leader and his minions (including Debbie) who tried desperately to scare the American people with a “sequester terror” that turned out to be a giant nothing. If she and her staff now have to live a tiny bit more like us great unwashed, don’t expect sympathy from me.

Honestly, this is a glaring example of just how (to use a cliche) out of touch and removed from the everyday life of Americans those who live within the Beltway must be, especially the progressives. If the Republicans don’t use this monumental example of elite cluelessness as a populist  club to beat the Democrats over the head with from now until November, 2014, they don’t belong in politics.

UPDATE: Mockery via Twitchy — #SaveTheStaffers

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

At least the President knows his priorities

National debt approaching $17 trillion? North Korean nukes and the threat of war on the peninsula? America’s credit rating?

Nah, it’s March Madness, baby! And Barack Obama, President of the United States, tweeted this morning to remind everyone to get in on the fun:

Finish your bracket: It’s time for #MarchMadness. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 21, 2013

Now, as others have pointed out, the @BarackObama account has been transferred to OFA, his former campaign group, now turned into a national community organization, but, hey, it still has his name on it and it’s still “verified” by Twitter, so why not assume this represents what he truly values?

You can read the reactions at Twitchy telling him to finish his danged budget, first, but here’s one that best reflected my feelings:

For once in your miserable Presidency be a leader; not a pop culture figure MT @barackobama Finish your bracket: It’s time for #MarchMadness

— LilMissHoosier (@LilMissRightie) March 21, 2013

Yup.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The greatest issue facing America: a cruise-ship passengers’ bill of rights

And Chuck Schumer is on the case:

Sen. Charles Schumer is calling on the cruise ship industry to adopt a “bill of rights” to guarantee passengers certain protections while aboard their ships.

The New York Democrat says Sunday he’ll be asking industry leaders to voluntarily adopt the guidelines which include guarantees that ships have sanitary conditions, back-up power, medical staff and other standard procedures.

Schumer’s plan would also include the right to a full refund if a trip is abruptly canceled due to mechanical problems.

And thus we see the modern Democratic Party’s priorities in action: no budget from the Senate in more than 1,400 days? Bah! The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran or North Korea? Don’t waste my time! Food-stamp usage at an all-time high while labor force participation is at a record low? Small potatoes, friend.

No, as we see from the senior senator from New York’s example, what really matters is grandstanding whenever possible and wherever cameras and mics are available, so that you can pretend you’re fighting for the little guy and convince enough saps to vote for you again.

This also shows the different mindset of the limited government advocates on the one hand, and the statists on the other.

Limited Government Advocate:

“A company that provides poor service will eventually put itself out of business, and those who feel harmed by it have access to the civil courts. Annoying as these incidents are, it’s really none of the federal government’s business, and we should get back to tending to what properly is.”

Statist:

“This is an outrage! People need our protection against evil corporations; the government must do something! What? They already have redress under the law? They can take their business elsewhere? Insufficient! We must pass new laws, because that’s what we’re here for — to pass laws! Not in our purview? Nonsense! We’ll pass a law to make it our business! Call a press conference!”

Is it any wonder people are disenchanted with our political class, when so many of them ignore the real problems we face and instead go chasing butterflies?

via Liberty Unyielding

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Disgraceful: UK sailor humiliated by Virgin Atlantic

“Welcome to fight for us, not welcome to fly us.”

If this had happened in the US… Well, let just say it wouldn’t happen here:

For 15 years she has proudly served her country as a Royal Navy engineer, risking her life in Afghanistan when she fought against the Taliban.

But far from showing Nicky Howse the respect she deserved as she flew back to her latest posting, Virgin Atlantic staff chose to humiliate her – by demanding that she remove her uniform because it was ‘offensive’.

They warned the 32-year-old helicopter technician she would not be allowed to fly unless she took off her combat fatigues and wore a sleep suit instead.

Petty Officer Howse is on a three-month deployment with a helicopter unit in the US, but had been home on compassionate leave to attend her grandfather’s funeral. She had worn her uniform without any problems on a Virgin flight from America to Britain the week before.

The incident happened as she waited for her return flight to Los Angeles from Heathrow on Monday.

She was confronted by a G4S security guard and Virgin Atlantic staff, who ordered her to change into pyjamas before boarding the jet.

They told her – wrongly – that it was the company’s policy not to allow military personnel to travel in uniform.

As Petty Officer Howse herself put it:

‘To clarify, a British airline who claims to be Britain’s flag carrier won’t allow a member of Britain’s armed forces to travel on their airline in uniform.’ Armed Forces rules state that a serviceman or woman can wear their uniforms voluntarily from their ‘residence to place of duty, irrespective of whether they travel by public or private transport, or on foot.’

That’s a fine “thank you for your service,” isn’t it?

A commenter at the Daily Mail site pointed out that G4S is the same firm that couldn’t properly handle security for the recent Olympics, necessitating the deployment of the British Army. Maybe their customers should reconsider hiring the services of such a bunch of incompetents.

Virgin has admitted the error and apologized to Petty Officer Howse. They ought to comp her a couple of free flights, too, while explaining to their staff that the British military is not the enemy.

Read the rest for further examples of the ill treatment of men and women who wear the Queen’s uniform. Something is very wrong in the UK, these days.

via ST’s Hot Headlines