Obamacare Might Have Enrolled Only 2.3 Million; Spent $73 Billion to Save Less Than $6 Billion in Uncompensated Care

 

& who's surprised? :)

---

According to the latest report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), it looks like the number of people who bought subsidized private insurance on Obamacare’s exchanges is only 2.3 million: “Based on an estimated 10.3 million decrease in the total number of uninsured and an estimated 8 million increase in the number covered by Medicaid, ASPE estimates that hospital uncompensated care costs will be $5.7 billion lower in 2014 than they otherwise would have been.”

The difference between 10.3 million and 8 million is only 2.3 million, and that is quite a comedown from HHS’s May estimate that 8.1 million people “selected” private coverage in exchanges.

More @ The Independent Institute

Docs join to help girl attacked by dogs after KFC hoax accusations

Via LH

A trio of big-hearted doctors is helping 3-year-old Victoria Wilcher, the Mississippi girl who was mauled by her grandfather’s pitbulls and then thrust into the national spotlight when her family was accused of perpetrating a hoax at a local KFC.

The doctors come from three states and are donating their efforts to reconstruct the face of Victoria, who lost an eye in the attack earlier this year. A Florida doctor made Victoria a prosthetic eye, a local physician reconstructed the girl’s eyelid and a Las Vegas plastic surgeon has signed on to perform a series of operations that could continue for years.

"We are extremely optimistic about Victoria's recovery,” said Dr. Frank Stile, of Las Vegas. “We continue to track her progress as her facial bones and scars continue to heal."

More @ Fox

Blacks being taught that Islam is their Original Religion

 

Little girls kidnapped by one group of IslamoNazis are chained by female IslamoNazis and sold into sexual slavery to another group of IslamoNazis. But of course, this has nothing to do with Islam. It’s really the Republican war on women that we have to worry about.

In my last article, White Privilege, White Slave, I highlighted the truth about slavery in America and the fact that white Europeans, not blacks from Africa, were the first slaves on the shore of the new world. This is not to say that the African continent  had not be raided for slaves through the centuries, its just that white Europeans were not the ones doing it. The truth is that Muslims had conquered the African shores as early as the seventh century. This same author, who calls himself “Wrath,” from the “Godless and Black” blog also writes that the religion of Islam was spread through Africa because African chieftains were bribed into accepting it in order to gain political favor from the Muslims raiding their countries.

Muslims had been taking African slaves for nearly eight centuries before the Transatlantic slave trade, and this continued for nearly one hundred years after America had abolished the practice. Finally, while we see the left accuse America of being a racist country because of our past with slavery, they idolize Islam even though African slavery was legal in Saudi Arabia until 1962.

The hypocrisy of the left is truly astounding.

More @ For Truth's Sake

Goodies from Ol' Remus

Ol' Remus

1948 magazine ad for Pullman

  The palace on the Potomac

I've had more than enough of government of, by, and for the government.  I hear a lot of empty praise for “the people who work hard and play by the rules,” but in practice the Ruling Class regards such people as pinatas to be beaten for money.  They keep coming up with examples of People Who Work Hard and Play By the Rules who nevertheless deserve to get worked over, because they're too successful, they're doing something legal the Ruling Class disapproves of, or even merely because they lack the organized political clout needed to protect themselves from political banditry, says John Hayward in this article, Wanted: an American government that puts Americans first, at Human Events. 

Trust us. Remain calm. Don't panic.

Over the last few years the divergence between what the government promises and what it delivers, between what it says is happening or will happen and what actually is happening and does happen, between what it determines to be important and what the public wishes to be important—this gap has become abysmal, unavoidable, inescapable. For the last two years it has suffered nothing but blows, traumas, national and international concussions. The response by our government has been denial and delusion. Maybe it is time for the political class to panic too, says Matthew Continetti in this article, The Case for Panic, at The Washington Free Beacon.

  Black Mob Violence: So many Stories, not enough Room, by Colin Flaherty at American Thinker.

Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Sept. 26, 2014 - Within minutes, radar feeds, flight plans and other data controllers rely on to direct more than 6,000 aircraft a day above five U.S. states had vanished as a fire was being set in a communications room one floor below. The attack was thorough and carried out by someone who knew the system intimately—down to removing steel sheathing on data cables to destroy them... The attacker also knew the system’s multiple backups and was able to damage or destroy those key links in a short period of time.
Alan Levin at bloomberg.com

Vector - Q: Could Ebola have spread on the airplane?
A: No, it is only spread to medical workers wearing protective biohazard suits.
Number 156, comment 5275106 at zerohedge.com

Stay in touch - If and when Ebola reaches your county, be prepared to hunker down at home for several months, folks. Keep in mind that you can collect your mail from your mailbox with disposable exam gloves and then put both the gloves and the mail in your microwave oven for 90 seconds to decontaminate them.
James Rawles at survivalblog.com 

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States - President Barack Obama told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Thursday night he was accompanied to the convention center by two illegal aliens, whom he called "dreamers."
Susan Jones at cnsnews.com/news 

Dupes - Many of the snarkier, radicalized neo-Marxists that emerged in the recession's wake are furious at “capitalism” for the fact that they owe $100,000 in student loans yet can't find jobs, when they should be furious at themselves for digging a $100K debt to bankster gangsters all for the dubious privilege of tacking up useless sociology degrees to their studio-apartment walls.
Jim Goad at takimag.com

Trans everything - The whole debate is blitheringly idiotic. There is no such thing as "transgender". There are male psychological freaks pretending to be women and female psychological ruins pretending to be men. That's it... The amusing thing about the Left is that they subscribe to all this ludicrous anti-definitional nonsense, and then turn around and call themselves "the reality-based community". The truth is that their only connection to reality is their mass rejection of it combined with an enthusiastic embrace of perversion.
Vox Day at voxday.blogspot.com

The cult - In order to mask the madness, they changed the language. If you let the lunatics control the language, everyone eventually sounds like a lunatic. That way, the lunatics no longer have to wonder if they are the crazy person in the room. Political correctness is a form of self-medication.
thezman.com/wordpress

Bowfisherman’s Monstrous 809-pound Mako Shark Certified as World Record

 

In a photo posted to Facebook back in August, Jeff Thomason, an experienced hunter and the host of Predator Pursuit, posed with a massive mako shark that he had caught off the coast of California. At that size, many may presume that Thomason hooked it on a traditional rod and reel, but the compound bow he held in the same photo said differently. In the world of bowfishing, catching an 809-pound shark is beyond impressive—it is record-shattering. According to the Bowfishing Association of America, Thomason’s catch beat the current bowfishing record for mako by more than 260 pounds.

“He was so big. We had five of us on the boat and it took all of us doing everything we could to get him in with the pulley system,” Thomason told Lone Star Outdoor News. “It took another 15 minutes just to get him on the swim step.”

More @ Outdoor Hub

Supreme Court Clears the Way for Gay Marriage Expansion

 

The Supreme Court unexpectedly cleared the way Monday for a dramatic expansion of gay marriage in the United States and may have signaled that it's only a matter of time before same-sex couples can marry in all 50 states.

Rejecting appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans, the Supreme Court effectively made such marriages legal in 30 states, up from 19 and the District of Columbia, taking in every region of the country.

Challenges are pending in the other 20 states.

Almost immediately, exuberant couples began receiving marriage licenses previously denied to them. "This is the dream day," said Sharon Baldwin, a plaintiff in a challenge to Oklahoma's ban, as she and her partner got their license in the Tulsa County Clerk's Office.

Directly affected by Monday's orders were Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia. Officials in those states had appealed lower court rulings in an effort to preserve their bans. Couples in six other states — Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming — should be able to get married in short order since those states would be bound by the same appellate rulings that have been on hold.

More @ Newsmax

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ebola But Were Afraid to Ask

Via LH

 Had a good speaker on this at the PATCON.

There is a lot of confusing – and often contradictory – information about the Ebola virus circulating.

Hopefully this Q&A will clear things up.

Q: What IS the Ebola virus?

A: Ebola is an infection with a virus of the family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. So far, only two members of this family of viruses have been identified – Marburgvirus and Ebolavirus.

Five subspecies of Ebolavirus have been identified, four of which can cause disease in humans:

• Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus)
• Sudan virus (Sudan ebolavirus)
• Taï Forest virus (Taï Forest ebolavirus, formerly Côte d’Ivoire ebolavirus)
• Bundibugyo virus (Bundibugyo ebolavirus)
• Reston virus (Reston ebolavirus): This is the one that has not caused disease in humans (but it can be fatal in non-human primates). This is the strain that killed dozens of lab monkeys at a research facility in Reston, VA, in 1989. Four workers at that facility tested positive for Ebola. In 1996, nine lab workers were exposed to this strain after handling infected animals. None of those infected developed symptoms or became ill, but they did develop antibodies to the strain. It is possible that the Reston strain can be transmitted via small-particle aerosols (airborne), but that hasn’t been confirmed.

Q: When – and how – was Ebola discovered?

More @ The Daily Sheeple

Good Samaritan Returns Fire and Wounds Robber, Leads To Capture of Three More

 

A good Samaritan in Cleveland was helping two women change a flat tire when a carload of teen thugs targeted them for a robbery.

The criminals pulled a gun on the man and two women and thought that they had an easy score.

They didn’t expect the good Samaritan to pull his own gun and drop the gunman  in an exchange of fire:

More @ Bearing Arms

Massive blast reported at suspected Iranian nuke facility

Via Iver

 

Two people were killed in an explosion at a defense ministry plant east of Tehran for the production of explosives, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported Monday.

The Defense Industries Organisation, quoted by IRNA, said the fire broke out at the plant on Sunday night but it gave no further details.

More with video@ The Times Of Israel

Maryland, My Maryland!

Mike Scruggs

Following the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter at Charleston on April 9, 1861, Lincoln ordered Governors of the remaining Union states to call up their state militias and supply an army of 75,000 to invade and subdue the seven Southern states that had seceded. While this was received enthusiastically in many Northern States, the Border States viewed this order as a tyranny they would not follow.

(54. “I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South as in violation of the Constitution and a gross usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.” -- N.C. Gov. Ellis- In response to Lincoln’s Sec. of War call for troops to invade South Carolina.)

 Consequently, the border states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas seceded and secession efforts were underway in Missouri and Kentucky. The order was likewise not well received in Maryland.

One of the first steps of the Lincoln administration was to secure the Capitol in Washington, although the Southern States wished to secede peacefully and had indicated no aggressive intentions against the Northern capitol.  In order to get to Washington, the mustered Union regiments had to come through Baltimore. As the railroad did not go through the city of Baltimore, they had to disembark their troop trains north of the city and proceed by wagon, horse, and foot through the city, and then embark on other trains.  on the south side.

Unfortunately, on April 19th, the 6th Massachusetts chose to march through the city fully armed and in military formation. They were jeered by unsympathetic crowds of bystanders. Furthering the misfortune, the troops fired on the crowds killing twelve people. Fire then began to be returned from the crowd, and four soldiers were killed. These twelve civilians and four Union soldiers, whose blood flecked the streets of Baltimore, were the among first deaths of a war that would take the lives of 620,000 Union and Confederate soldiers and an estimated 50,000 Southern civilians from all causes.

(First Confederate Soldier Killed In The WBTS)

By May of 1861 Lincoln, his cabinet, and generals had already begun to close down dissenting newspapers all over the country from Chicago to New York. Lincoln also took it upon himself to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus, a constitutional guarantee of the Bill of Rights with precedent dating back to the English Magna Carta.  Habeas corpus is a fundamental liberty which prevents arbitrary arrest and imprisonment indefinitely without defined charges, trial, or means of release. 

Suspension of habeas corpus under conditions of civil disorder can only be temporary and must be authorized by Congress within 30 days.

In that same month of May a resident of Baltimore, John Merryman, who had been arrested on the order of Union General George Cadwallader and held at Fort McHenry without charges or trial, petitioned U. S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for a writ of habeas corpus.  Taney granted a writ and set a date for a hearing, but it was ignored by Lincoln and his generals. Cadwallader responded by letter that Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus, so there would be no compliance with the Supreme Court.

Taney ordered a federal marshal to Fort McHenry to enforce the writ, but Union Army officials refused his entrance.

Taney responded by writing a blistering court opinion, a constitutional classic, that held Merryman’s arrest to be unlawful and a violation of the Constitution, and that only Congress could suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus.  The Chief Justice stated that if Lincoln’s actions were allowed to stand, “…the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds, life, liberty, and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.”

 Lincoln not only ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling, he wrote out an order for arrest of Chief Justice Taney.  This arrest, however, was in the end not actually carried out for fear of extremely adverse public opinion and political consequences.

With these developments, a sizeable portion of the Maryland public was becoming sympathetic not only to the South but even to secession.'

  Therefore, there was much talk of it among Maryland State Legislators. Consequently, Northern informers were asked to identify members of the Maryland Legislature that might support secession in the coming legislative session. Secretary of War Simon Cameron then issued an order to Major General Banks in Maryland that “all or any part of the Legislative members must be arrested to prevent secession.”

On the night of September 12-13 all suspected Southern sympathizers in the Maryland Legislature were arrested and imprisoned in Fort McHenry.  In all fifty-one persons were arrested and imprisoned. Ironically, among those arrested and imprisoned was the grandson of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner.

(The Grandson Of Francis Scott Key Arrested By Lincoln

"We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation [for] the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution that ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort.")

To further tighten Union political hold on Maryland, all members of the Union Armed Forces were allowed to vote in the November election, although they were citizens of other states. Voters had to walk through platoons of soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets to reach their polling place.  The London Saturday Review noted:

“It was as perfect an act of despotism as can be conceived.  It was a coup d’etat in every essential feature.”

The story of this despotism is reflected in the lines of Maryland’s state song from the poem written by James Ryder Randall in 1861.  Few now realize the lines were directed against Abraham Lincoln, his cabinet, and generals. Here are the most famous lines:

“The despot’s heel is on they shore,

Maryland, My Maryland!

His torch is at thy temple door,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Avenge the patriotic gore,

That flecked the streets of Baltimore,

And be the battle queen of yore,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Dear Mother!  Burst the tyrant’s chain,

Maryland, My Maryland!

Virginia should not call in vain,

Maryland, My Maryland.”

Twenty thousand of Maryland’s sons were able to escape the Union occupation of their mother state and distinguish themselves in the Confederate Army.

Unwilling To Abide Stupid Texas Gun Laws, Hero Kills 2 of 4 Armed Robbers

 

Citizens of the Lone Star State are quick to tell you how wonderful their state is in every way. They may be right in many respects, but not on the on the issue of gun rights, where they remain surprisingly backward among freedom-loving states.

We all know thanks to the antics of open carry groups that there is not a right to open carry a holstered handgun in Texas. Texas also remains one of the states that refuses to allow concealed carriers to carry guns in bars.

Because of this absurdity, a regular patron in a Houston bar that had the gentlemanly habit of walking female bartenders to their cars after their shifts were over is facing felony charges for saving their lives during an after-hours robbery.

More @ Bearing Arms

Foreign born employment up 1,028,000. Native employment down780,000

Monthly U.S. Worker Displacement Report

October 3, 2014

Mike Scruggs

Edwin S. Rubenstein, President of ESR (Economic) Research, reveals some employment statics each month that you probably won’t see in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or your local newspaper. In fact, you probably won’t even see them in the Wall Street Journal.

Mainstream media and many bank economists are chattering about what a good month September was. Jobs were up 236,000, or 0.167 percent, and the official U-3 unemployment rate is down to 5.9 percent.  

That sounds great on the surface, but inside they are actually alarming. Rubenstein breaks the numbers down into native born employment and foreign born employment. For September, foreign born employment rose a whopping 369,000 or 1.52 percent. Native born employment actually dropped 137,000 or -0.11 percent.

The difference between native and foreign born employment in the last two months, August and September, is shocking. The net gain was 248,000, but foreign born employment was up 1,028,000 or 4.32 percent, while native employment dropped 780,000 or -0.6 percent  

Since January 2009 (Obama inauguration) foreign born employment has increased 3,314,000 or 15.1 percent, while native born employment increased by 1,065,000, slightly less than 1.0 percent.

Do you wonder what is going on here?  Who loses? Who gains? What further consequences will there be? Who wants to hide it and why? 

Foreign born employment is rising sharply, and U.S. workers are being displaced. This same rise in cheap foreign labor is also driving incomes down for native born workers, whose wages are close to $2,800 lower per year (my computation using Borjas data and U.S. BLS statistics) because of continuing waves of cheaper foreign labor.

All this is very alarming and bodes ill for real per capita growth in the economy. Importing cheap foreign labor also increases the welfare burden on taxpayers. 

Do you think Congress and State Legislators should be concerned about American worker displacements and declining wages? Do think voters should be concerned? 

Odds and ends

Via mpopenker

 

Via  u_96d

 

Via pent_racoon

  

Citizens Seem Primed to Retaliate Against Memphis Teen Mobs

 

Recent mob attacks by African-American teens on innocent people has left Memphis, Tennessee on edge.

In the first attack, the mob attacked a man walking into a Kroger and two young employees that attempted to come to his aid, beating them unconscious.

In the second incident, they attacked a woman in her car, leaving her to issue the ominous warning that if the mobs weren’t brought under control soon, that, “Memphis is going to burn.”

Memphis’s NewsChannel 3 seems intent on trying to deescalate the situation by telling citizens that there isn’t much you can do, legally, in terms of self-defense:

More @ Bearing Arms

Communist Core: HSLDA The Parent Interviews

Eyewitness says Islamic Boko Haram burned mother alive

This is absolute evil.  In a shocking video posted to YouTube Sunday, a young eyewitness told BBC the Islamic terror group Boko Haram shot her father.

When she was captured, they forced her to watch other killings, and burned her mother alive in front of her.

More @ Conservative Firing Line