Take That Vladimir

It seems that the policy of Russia's president Vladimir Putin to side with the Assad regime in Syria has produced some concrete results elsewhere in the Arab world.  The Russian embassy in Tripoli was attacked by armed men today; the attackers used small artillery, mortars and assault weapons.  latest reports say that no one inside the embassy compound was hurt and the Russian security forces in the embassy held off the attack.

Libya, of course, is a Sunni Moslem nation, the same religious group as the rebels in Syria.  On the other hand, Assad is an Alawaite, a sect that is an offshoot of the Shiites.  That is the same religious group as the overwhelming majority in Iran.  Most likely, the attack on the Russian embassy was in retaliation for Russia's support for Assad.

Before long, we may see other attacks on Russian interests around the world. 

Just One Obamacare Story

I tried again today to get on the Connecticut Obamacare Exchange site.  This time I was successful.  I got to see what it would cost me for health insurance under Obamacare, and the results were not good.  Right now, I buy my own health insurance which covers me for in-network doctors from the first visit with just co-pays.  The comparable plans offered on the Connecticut exchange all had deductibles before the co-pays kicked in.  Those deductibles ranged from $2500 to $6000 per year for in-network medical visits.  For out of network, my current insurance has a $1000 deductible; the Obamacare policies had a deductible of $6000.  My current policy includes coverage of lab tests; the Obamacare policy has a co-pay of $45 for each test.  There are other differences, but based upon my usage of the healthcare system, it would cost me about $3000 more per year under the Obamacare policy than under my current policy.  Of course, were I to have some sort of acute sickness that resulted in hospitalization, the extra cost under Obamacare would rise to something more like $6000.

On top of the coverage differences, there was a difference in the premium.  My monthly premium under the Obamacare policy would be about $180 more.  Simply put, the cost for a wonderful new Obamacare policy for me is about $5000 per year more than I am currently paying.

Remember, with the current structure of the tax code, all of these medical costs get paid with after tax money.  I doubt there are many folks out there who can afford to pay another $5000 per year in medical costs without having to give up something else important in their lives.

It should have been called the "Unaffordable Care Act".

Owning The Epithet

I have been struck in recent days by the constant use of epithets in American politics.  To be clear, I am not referring to words like hypocrite or liar; those are constants on the political scene (and with good reason).  No, I am talking more about things like the headline in the New York Daily News that reads "House of Turds" over a picture of John Boehner.  I am talking about the constant description of Republicans as terrorists, hostage takers, extortionists, and other versions of criminals that has been coming from president Obama and his party for months now.  There's much more, but there is no use in repeating it all.

I have also been struck by the one-sidedness of all of this.  Imagine if you would what would happen were a prominent Republican to call Obama a murderer or a rapist (terms that have been thrown at Republicans just in the last week by prominent Democrats.)  The "Racist" chorus would be screaming.  Indeed, if anyone even calls Obama incompetent (something that is indisputable), there is a group that immediately pounces with charges of racism against whoever dared to criticize the president.  Charges of racism have become, perhaps, the last defense against criticism of Obama's record.  After all, the man has failed in his presidency.  He has not gotten the economy to recover even to the levels of five years ago.  He has not managed to win or even bring much success to the "good war" in Afghanistan, a singular promise from his 2008 campaign.  He has not managed to end the risk to America from the too big to fail banks, a problem that led to much of the economic downturn.  He has not restored transparency or ended partisanship like he promised.  He has made a shambles of our foreign policy and greatly reduced respect for America around the globe.  He has not been successful in stopping terror attacks here at home (after 9-11, Bush saw no attacks in seven and a half years while Obama has seen many in his four and a half years.)  Even Obama's only "accomplishment," Obamacare, is teetering on the brink of failure with exchanges that do not work, sections that are illegally postponed and huge numbers of folks losing hours at work or even their jobs as a result.  But since I wrote all that, in the eyes of many Democrat spokesmen, I must be a racist.

Just this morning, I saw an article by Joan Walsh of Salon in which she discusses what she calls fifty years of Republican racism.  Think about that.  Fifty years ago was 1963.  George Wallace (Democrat) was "standing in the school house door" to prevent integration.  Bull Connor (Democrat) was using fire hoses on civil rights marchers in Birmingham.  The governors, sheriffs and other officials of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and a host of other states (all Democrats) were fighting tooth and nail to prevent any possibility of equal rights for African Americans.  In Washington, civil rights legislation was being blocked by a coalition of senators who were over 90% Democrats.  Sure, there were Democrats who were in favor of the civil rights movement, but the fight for civil rights was actually more a civil war within the Democrat party.  Republicans were overwhelmingly supportive of all of the civil rights legislation.  In other words, the racism was all coming from Democrats, not Republicans.  But for Joan Walsh, the truth does not matter.  In her mind, Democrats own the right to call their opponents racist.  The logic of the situation is that the head of the Democrat party is black, therefore all opponents must be racist.  By that logic, since most Republicans are Christians, that would make all opponents anti-Christian.  It is ridiculous.

 

 

It's Taken Them Long Enough to get Here

The House is going to vote on three bills today to fund parts of the government including the National Park Service and the District of Columbia government.  Because the House wants to rush these bills through, they are going to use a procedure which will require a two-thirds vote for passage.  This will put House Democrats in the position where they will have to vote for or against funding the national parks, among other things, at levels that everyone agrees are appropriate.  The House Republicans are finally adopting the strategy of breaking government funding into pieces and presenting this to the Democrats for approval.  They took forever to get here and they are still not doing it correctly, however.

Ten weeks ago, I wrote a piece detailing the strategy of breaking the continuing resolution into separate pieces by Department or agency.  The idea was to pass appropriations bills in the House if possible or, failing that, to pass separate continuing resolutions for sections of the government.  Had the House adopted this plan, it would have avoided a large part of the current problems.  After all, if there were a continuing resolution to fund the Department of the Interior at the levels that both sides agree is proper, it would be extremely difficult for the Democrats to claim that the GOP was shutting down that part of the government.  All that Reid and the Democrats would have to do is pass the same measure and send it to Obama to sign; at that point, Interior would be funded.  If everything were sent over in that manner, it would put the onus on the Democrats to refuse to fund anything unless they got funding for everything they wanted.

It is still not too late to do this.  It would require the House to move just a bit more slowly and pass continuing resolutions by simple majority for everything but HHS and send them to the senate.  It would surely put the ball in the court of the Democrats.  They could have their full funding from that point on without needing anything further from the GOP.  Indeed, if the GOP wanted, it could even send a measure for HHS that contained the Obamacare funding restrictions.  The Senate would reject that one, but the others could still go ahead.

 

Connecticut's Obamacare Exchange

I just tried to access the exchange for the state of Connecticut to see what my health insurance would cost were I to purchase it there.  The system failed.  I do not mean that it was difficult to understand or hard to use.  No, I mean that the entire site was unavailable.  I tried three times to get access to the site, and each time I was unable to do so.

I was able to get on the site that gave some details about the plans which could be purchased.  The problem, of course, is that these were just the minimum standards for the policies rather than the actual policies themselves.  As a result, there was no information about what companies were offering policies or how much they would cost.  There also was no information about which doctors would be "in network" and which ones would be hit by a huge deductible as "out of network".

After working for years to set these sites up, the government has totally failed.  No surprise there.

 

The Bias Flows

There is a partial government shutdown this morning.  After weeks of hype about how much of a disaster this would be, I was wondering if the sun would even come up, or if it had been placed on furlough.  (Hey, is that a remedy for global warming?)  We have watched news reports with countdown clocks in the corner and minutes and hours ticking slipping away until the calamity of a government shutdown occurred.  We have been told that the stock market would crash due to the terrible uncertainty of such a shutdown.  And we have also been told that this entire problem is the result of the GOP Tea Party conservatives being unreasonable and essentially criminal.

So what has happened?  The sun came up and it is a beautiful day.  The futures for the stock market indicate that the markets will open higher, an indication that investors don't care if the government is partially shut.  There are no riots in the streets.  Nothing much has happened.  Oh, Obamacare exchanges have opened (why are they funded?) and some of them have already crashed.

For the media, however, it is Armageddon.  And it is all the fault of Republican conservatives.  CBS radio reported at length this morning that the standoff would continue until Republicans were "willing to compromise".  You cannot make this stuff up; CBS actually said that.  The truth, of course, is that president Obama and the Democrats refused to negotiate at all.  The GOP made a series of offers and got no response but a resounding NO!  When CBS says "willing to compromise" it actually means that the Republicans have to surrender and accept the opening position of the Democrats.  Then there is the New York Times.  It too is slanted in its reporting.  (OK, no surprise there.)  Yesterday, one of the items sought by the Republicans was to end the special treatment for members of Congress and administration officials and their staffs; the GOP in the House passed a measure that requires that the government people be treated like every other American when it comes to getting subsidies for healthcare.  That move was required because president Obama waived provisions of Obamacare for these folks and arranged for them to get subsidies even if they make six figure salaries.  The Times, however, reports this attempt to treat government honchos the same way that everyone else is treated in this way:  Republicans seek to have government workers pay more for healthcare.  For the Times, a battle about ending special privileges for Congress, the president and their staffs becomes an attempt to squeeze the poor federal workers (many of whom make $175,000 a year.)

Obama Duped on Iran

If you have listened to president Obama's recent statements about negotiations with Iran, especially those after Obama spoke with the Iranian president, you have undoubtedly heard that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a "fatwa" is an Islamic religious edict.  Obama cited this fatwa as an indication of Iran's intentions.  There is only one problem with Obama's statement:  THERE IS NO SUCH FATWA!!

Here is a detailed article by The Middle East Media Research Institute or MEMRI that makes clear that the supposed fatwa does not exist.  You should read it.  If MEMRI is correct, and it usually is, then president Obama has bought into a disinformation campaign run by the Iranians.  He looks like a fool.  No, he is a fool. 

America deserves better.