Archive for the ‘Media Watch’ Category
Friday, November 8th, 2013
Time for another LinkSwarm, still top-heavy with ObamaCare failure news:
Have insurance through your employer? Don’t worry, ObamaCare will screw you as well.
“Can the Obama-loving media really bring itself to report that their Beloved is simply lying about every single aspect of his signature program?” Beyond a few iconoclasts like Sheryl Atkinson or Chris Wallace, I think we all know the answer to that one.
ObamaCare was bad enough to start out, but the Obama White House intentionally made it worse.
Short and no doubt woefully incomplete list of businesses that have already cut back hours and hiring due to ObamaCare.
ObamaCare demonstrates “timeless demonstration of the failure of central planning, government regulations, and the entitlement state. It is a failure so total, so comprehensive, and so multifaceted that it will be studied by schoolchildren 50 years from now when their teachers explain to them why the giant welfare and regulatory state built up in the second half of the 20th century collapsed in the first half of the 21st.”
Krauthammer on ObamaCare’s continued unpopularity: “And unless they stop the avalanche here, the Democrats are going to get buried in this.”
And now the ObamaCare website is dishing out gibberish?
A quarter million Coloradans have their health insurance ObamaCared.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find Chicago’s Democratic machine abusing bonds to paper over deficits.
Having Dana Milbank say that Obaama lives in a reality bubble is like the guy who just mugged you saying “Man, this is really a high crime neighborhood! You should watch out!”
Philadelphia man adds two more to the dead goblin count.
If you’re the son of the most famous Fascist* in British history, maybe it’s best not to participate in Nazi-themed S&M sex orgies.
Voters in Amarillo and Houston rejected spending money for sports complexes.
Another hammer drops on Prenda Law.
Things to make you furious: Cops killing puppies.
And speaking of dogs, I missed this from a week ago: Giant George, RIP.
Heh.
*Real Fascist, not just in the liberal name-calling sense.
Tags:Charles Krauthammer, Chicago, Colorado, Country Music Awards, Crime, Dana Milbank, dogs, fraud, Max Mosley, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Prenda Law, self-defense, video, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Crime, Media Watch, ObamaCare, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
ObamaCare is the failure that keeps failing.
How many Americans might lose their insurance coverage due to ObamaCare? Try 68% of privately insured Americans.
Republicans tried to fix the rule that’s causing so many insurance companies to cancel policies due to ObamaCare. Democrats said no. Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich all voted against grandfathering in insurance policies that didn’t have ObamaCare’s precious taxpayer-funded abortions.
Stage 4 cancer survivor Edie Sundby is among those having their policies cancelled due to ObamaCare:
Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.
My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.
My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don’t have a clue how to best proceed.
Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.
Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.
But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market.
ObamaCare is great at one thing: Revealing your personal information. (Via Ace.)
ObamaCare is estimated to increase premiums about 41% across 49 states. State with largest hike? Nevada, at 179%. How’s that decision to reelect Harry Reid working out? (Also via Ace.)
That map shows Texas rates rising 26%, but for some Texans that hike will be as much as 158%.
Here’s notice to a man whose monthly premiums doubled to $934.99 thanks to ObamaCare.
Flowchart of President Obama’s “You can keep your plan, period” defenses. (Via Instapundit.)
The Humanitarian Tragedy of ObamaCare: “Before passage of the ACA, we had no free market in insurance or medical care. Both industries had long been cartelized in the states through licensing and other regulatory barriers to free competition. When people say that the medical market failed, they really should say that a government-business partnership failed. In light of that failure, it makes no sense to expand the partnership further under the central authority of the federal government, as the ACA does.”
Hey, lets put some liberal policy wonks in charge of a complex technical project. What could possibly go wrong? It’s like putting the guy who writes shipping regulations in charge of designing and building an aircraft carrier.
Like his employer, Paul Krugman is too dumb to admit he’s wrong.
Tags:Democrats, Jeanne Shaheen, Kay Hagan, Mark Begich, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Media Watch, Nevada, ObamaCare, Paul Krugman, Texas
Posted in Economics, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, October 28th, 2013
Well, this should break the story wide open. If you haven’t already, see the whole thing.
And here’s the transcript.
Tags:60 Minutes, Benghazi, Jihad, Libya, Media Watch, Obama Scandals
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Obama Scandals | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013
While the Grambling football team is back practicing, from Dwight comes news that Grambling fired David Lankster, online editor ofThe Gramblinite student newspaper, supposedly over posts made on the official Twitter feed. Lankster played a key role in exposing the deplorable facilities football players were complaining about. (Fox News has pictures of the facilities.) Lanskster’s firing was overturned, but he plans to resign.
I do wonder if I had some small hand in Lankster’s firing, since he used his personal Twitter account to retweet my suspicion that someone in the Administration was embezzling funds:
And it’s not just the athletic department; large parts of the rest of the university are falling apart. And as a well-known book collector, this picture just breaks my heart:
Just budget cuts and the higher education bubble bursting? Maybe, but that doesn’t seem to explain everything. If I were Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal or Treasurer John Kennedy, I’d seriously consider auditing Grambling…
Tags:Bobby Jindal, education, fraud, Grambling, Louisiana, Media Watch
Posted in Media Watch, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, October 16th, 2013
Slowly but surely I’m digging out from my post-Worldcon backlog, so I hope to do more on various statewide races soon-ish (for certain values of “soon-ish” that work out to “before the end of the year”).
Greg Abbott reaches out to Hispanics.
He also promises to keep the Texas economy rolling.
Liberal fossil Paul Burka reiterates that Wendy Davis is doomed.
Battleground Texas is all in on Davis.
And speaking of Battleground Texas, proving they’re super classy, they made fun of Abbott being in a wheelchair.
Official Abbott announcement on Wendy Davis entering the race.
Abbott further said that he’s not worried about Wendy Davis.
Today Davis announced fundraisers in Conroe, Magnolia, and Waco. Ha, just kidding! She’s raising money in New York and Washington, D.C.. Good. The more money she takes from national Democrats, they less they can spend on races they might actually win.
Davis’ “true, natural constituency is the national, mainstream media.”
Davis used to be all-abortion, all the time, but that issue is now strangely missing from her speeches.
Longshot Tom Pauken is touting an Amarillo forum straw poll where he garnered 57% of the vote. Longshot Libertarian Kathie Glass came in second. I think these results are about as significant as that one straw poll Glenn Addison won in 2011.
Republican longshot Lisa Fritsch enters the Governor’s race. Here’s her website.
I do wonder why none of these longshots have considered taking on George P. Bush in the Land Commissioner’s race.
David Dewhurst calls for Obama’s impeachment. Somehow I sincerely doubt that U.S. Senator David Dewhurst would be making such a declaration…
Jerry Patterson suggests kicking four states out of the union. The piece notes this proposal was tongue-in-cheek. It also notes that Patterson was author of the Texas Concealed Carry law back in 1995, which I had forgotten.
Attorney General candidates Ken Paxton and Dan Branch roll out dueling legal endorsements.
Paxton campaigned in Midland.
Kinky Friedman is going to run for Agricultural Commissioner again as a Democrat, running on a marijuana legalization platform.
George P. Bush raised money for his Land Commissioner’s race in Dripping Springs.
Tags:2014 Attorney General's Race, 2014 Election, 2014 Governor's Race, Dan Branch, George P. Bush, Greg Abbott, Jerry Patterson, Kathie Glass, Ken Paxton, Kinky Friedman, Lisa Fritsch, Paul Burka, Republicans, Texas, Tom Pauken, Wendy Davis
Posted in Elections, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 23rd, 2013
Sometimes you see a troll attempt so shamelessly blatant that, like the ludicrous science in a Sy Fy channel movie, you can’t help but laugh at the obvious, naked stupidity.
Today’s example of trolling comes from that renowned redoubt of Euroleftisms, The Guardian:
“American gun use is out of control. Shouldn’t the world intervene?”
One can only smile at the image of wave after wave of UN troops, each bearing ammo cans laden with Strongly Worded Letters, landing on America’s shores to liberate their oppressed liberal brethren.
The article itself is the usual insular ruling-class assumption of Absolute Righteousness on the part of the far left agenda and the simultaneous assumption of Evil Incarnate on the part of their political opponents.
In the comments, a few worthies like Clayton Cramer have undertaken debunking some of its more obvious idiocies, but this is really a piece that need only be labeled with the “Maximum Trolling” tag and then ignored.
Tags:Clayton E. Cramer, Guns, Media Watch, The Guardian
Posted in Guns, Media Watch | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 20th, 2013
Here’s a Friday LinkSwarm. I have a big piece brewing on the ObamCare battle I may or may not have out on Monday.
Poland seizes half of private retirement funds.
Republicans in the House actually manage to cut something.
On the other hand, if you’re a Republican congressman, and you make $172,000 a year, you don’t get to complain about it. That means you, Rep. Phil Gingrey.
Ted Cruz says the ObamaCare fight is just beginning.
Speaking of Cruz, nothing says class quite like the Communications Director of the Sacramento Democratic Party wishing for the children of a Ted Cruz staffer to die of a horrible disease. If a Republic staffer said that about Obama’s children he’d be gone faster than Domino’s could get there. (Bonus: An extra evidence to Allan Brauer’s extreme classiness, he also refers to a woman as “cumrag.”) Sacramento Democrats have taken down Brauer’s page, but you can still find it on the Wayback Machine.)
“Like your health care plan? Then you can keep it” suck it up and get shoved into an ObamaCare exchange by your employer.
The IRS scandal just keeps getting worse.
Congressional Budget offices says that the deficit is going to get much, much worse.
Biggest story you’re not hearing much about? German elections this weekend. If Angela Merkel’s party should lose, and be replaced with a party less enthused with endless PIIGS bailouts, well, things could get interesting.
Obama official refuses to release information pertaining to a a Freedom of Information Act request. Stonewalling the press and withholding evidence? Obviously he must be bucking for a promotion.
Obama Express busted for paying cash for food stamps.
FEMA grounds UAVs, preventing them from providing mapping of Colorado flood victims for free.
Mainly read this Ann Althouse piece on “lean-in” circles for the catty comments.
Amarillo restaurant closes, evidently pens insulting message to patrons?
Remember China’s “Ghost Cities”? They’re bigger, and emptier, than ever:
Tags:Allan Brauer, Amarillo, China, Colorado, FEMA, Germany, Ghost Cities, Phil Gingrey, PIIGS, Poland, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Republicans | No Comments »
Thursday, September 19th, 2013
Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared on Crossfire yesterday, and by all reports he got the better of Maryland Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley.
Though not all of the episode appears to be on YouTube yet, you can judge for yourself based on what is available.
Some fact checking here.
Tags:Crossfire, Economics, Martin O’Malley, Maryland, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Rick Perry, Texas
Posted in Economics, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas, video | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 17th, 2013
Via Dwight comes a link to this Jonathan Chait piece in New York magazine. Which contained this gem of prevarication:
Bloomberg’s health crusade is so unusual because it embraces a political mode usually associated with the right. Conservatives favor regulation of vice and personal behavior, especially related to sex, because they believe that the state has a legitimate role in shaping the culture. Traditional social values, they believe, undergird stable families and a well-functioning community. Liberals traditionally want to remove the government from regulating personal behavior and to deploy it only in the economic realm.
That quote might have had some nodding relationship to reality in, oh, 1980 or so. But it’s certainly not conservatives who have been pushing to:
Ban civilian firearms ownership
Increase tobacco taxes
Ban incandescent light bulbs
Force Catholics to pay for abortions
Ban “high flow” toilets
Ban “hate speech”
Ban plastic bags
Ban transfats
Ban crosses and managers on public land
Ban liquor stores in black neighborhoods
Ban talk radio
Ban government use of the word “Christmas”
Ban SUVs, or any other vehicle that get insufficiently “virtuous” gas mileage
Ban genetically modified foods
Ban foie gras
And don’t forget that the “War on Drugs” was an extremely bipartisan affair, with Hubert Humphrey, Joe Biden and Tip O’Neil all among its enthusiastic backers.
Etc.
This poster makes many of the same points:
The idea that modern (as opposed to classical) liberals “want to remove the government from regulating personal behavior” is a naked, vainglorious, self-flattering lie on Chait’s part, and only someone living in the coastal Liberal Reality Bubble could possibly type it with a straight face.
Tags:Democrats, Jonathan Chait, Media Watch, Nanny State, Regulation
Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, Regulation | No Comments »
Friday, September 6th, 2013
Obama’s call for attacking Syria is meeting such heavy opposition that he already has a domestic quagmire on his hands getting it approved. Here’s a mini-roundup of Syria news:
I can’t really start quoting this Charles Krauthammer takedown of the incoherence of Obama’s Syrian policy, because there’s so much good stuff here that it will be hard to stop. OK, one quote: “There’s no strategy, no purpose here other than helping Obama escape self-inflicted humiliation.”
There’s a word for what Obama and Kerry want in Syria: War.
Iran wants to attack us if we attack Syria. If this is Obama’s masterful scheme to jujitsu Iran into giving him cover to take out their nuclear program I may have to revise my opinion of him. But how likely is that?
Obama’s serial Syrian blunders. “The only nation contemplating joining the United States in military action is France. That’s 38 fewer allies than joined the United States after the supposed unilateralist George W. Bush, with congressional authorization, ordered troops into Iraq.”
Obama has changed the military’s strike plans against Syria 50 times. Does he think he’s planning the perfect Zerg Rush in Starcraft?
The world set a red line in Syria? Well then, let the world enforce it.
Democrats in congress will be dragooned into voting for war to “save the president’s hide.”
Was Samantha Powers really dumb enough to think that Iran would abandon Syria over chemical weapons? (Hat tip: Ace.)
Obama’s road to Damascus. The goal of the POTUS: “ultimately we have a transition that can bring peace and stability, not only to Syria but to the region.” Peace and stability in the Middle East. Well, nothing too naive or ambitious about that goal, is there?
When John Kerry says that the Syrian rebels are “mostly moderates,” he’s using the rhetorical device know as lying.
The New York Times has some disturbing intelligence on some of Kerry’s “moderates.”
Lindsey Graham continues his downward spiral into irrelevance by declaring that failure to bomb Iraq would mean an Iran-Israel war within 6 months. Honestly, I’m a lot more enthused about that possibility than us bombing Syria, if only on the off-chance an Israel-Iran war might actually accomplish something.
As I’m not one who credits the left for, well, much of anything, really, let’s give credit where credit is due and give the anti-war types some points for consistency: Moveon.org opposes a strike against Syria.
George Mitchell of The Nation says no thanks as well, citing Obama and Kerry’s many Syrian lies.
Even Obama’s own OAF is twiddling its thumbs rather than voicing support or opposition.
Syria’s war spills into Lebanon.
Tags:Charles Krauthammer, Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, Jihad, Lindsey Graham, Military, MoveOn.org, Obama, Samantha Powers, Starcraft, Syria
Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military | 1 Comment »
