More than two-thirds of Obamacare enrollees unsatisfied with coverage: survey. Now, will these people be able to make the link to Obama?

More than two-thirds of Obamacare enrollees unsatisfied with coverage: survey

Obamacare has offered insurance to millions of people, but they’re unhappy with the coverage they’re getting and are particularly upset about the costs, according to a survey released Monday that suggests the health care law continues to struggle to win over Americans.

Just 30 percent of customers on Obamacare’s exchanges were satisfied with their coverage, the health care research arm of the Deloitte consulting firm said.

Only a quarter of Obamacare customers in the survey were confident that they could get care when they needed it, and just 16 percent felt “financially prepared” to handle future health care costs, Deloitte said.

“Those are not high numbers,” said Paul Lambdin, a director for Deloitte’s work on insurance exchanges and retail practices.

Analysts said it is hard to tell at this point whether dissatisfaction is the inevitable byproduct of a new customer base or whether the law itself has structural problems.

“I think you’d have to go a lot deeper to really discern that at this point. They’re muddied together,” Mr. Lambdin said in an interview.

The polling contradicts findings in other surveys that seemed to show higher levels of satisfaction, including a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, that found three-quarters of people on exchange plans rated their overall coverage as “excellent” or “good.”

The discrepancies could result from how the surveys measure satisfaction and how much weight is given to people who feel lukewarm about their plans.

Deloitte asked more than 3,800 adults, including 406 exchange enrollees, to rate their satisfaction from one to 10. More than half of exchange customers said they were in the “somewhat satisfied” range of four to seven.

Fourteen percent of exchange users said they were “not satisfied.” By comparison, those who have coverage through Medicare, Medicaid or plans through their employers had dissatisfaction rates in the single digits.

Obamacare customers were twice as likely as the uninsured to see a primary care doctor, suggesting that the coverage is paying off in trying to create a more healthy population.

Also, 35 percent had a high level of confidence that the exchanges are providing good information.

The Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is officially known, set up marketplaces in each state where those who lack insurance but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid can purchase plans, usually with government subsidies in the form of tax credits.

The Supreme Court has upheld the broad outlines of the law as constitutional, and in June issued yet another ruling finding that the law allows tax credits to be paid nationwide, putting Obamacare on surer footing.

Still, the law has suffered from a number of self-imposed hiccups, including potential fraud, lax verification and potentially rising costs for customers as insurers figure out the economics.

Going forward, Obamacare exchange plans will have to balance consumers’ “overwhelming” preference for low premiums with a plan that minimizes risk to out-of-pocket costs and lets patients see the doctors they want, said Elizabeth Carpenter, a vice president at Avalere Health, a Washington-based consultancy.

“A low-premium plan may work well for some consumers, but over time, others may view this trade-off differently,” she said.

Republican lawmakers said the Deloitte results reflect their critiques that high costs, mainly through big deductibles and copays, have left Obamacare’s customers functionally uninsured.

“The fact that so few people receiving large subsidies to purchase Obamacare coverage are satisfied is another testament to how the law has been an expensive failure,” Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, said in response to the study.

Sometimes the hiccups with Obamacare have prevented people from signing up.

Two in five uninsured respondents to the survey said they experienced technical difficulties in trying to enroll on an Obamacare website, and 27 percent said they eventually stopped trying because of the glitches.

“Potential buyers report facing substantial technical and usability barriers, and need better decision-making support,” the survey said.

Several states are going after tech vendors for faulty exchanges that spoiled the early rounds of enrollment, particularly in the first year.

A trio of Republican senators led by Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, urged Andy Slavitt, acting administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, on Monday to return any dollars recouped from faulty Obamacare contractors to the federal taxpayer.

“These wasted dollars originally flowed from the federal Treasury, which is where they should return when they are recouped from contractors,” they said.

Government paid for anti white racist rant at federal agency. By the way, he's not to fond of Jews either.

U.S. Pays Black Comedian to Deliver Anti-White Racist Tirade at
Fed Agency
AUGUST 03, 2015

The U.S. government paid a controversial civil rights activist/comedian to deliver an anti-white racist tirade at a major federal agency during Black History month and Judicial Watch has obtained the disturbing transcript of the offensive political rant.
It took place at the United States Census Bureau earlier this year
and the paid speaker was Dick Gregory, a self-professed
humanitarian and drum major for justice who claims that his
social satire changed the way white Americans perceive African
American comedians. But Gregory’s angry outburst at the Census
Bureau was not funny to some employees and the agency was
forced to explain that it will thoroughly review its procedures for selecting future speakers to “ensure their views are appropriate for the federal workplace.”
Based on Gregory’s well-known reputation as a fiery race-baiter, it’s unlikely that the government officials who booked him didn’t know about his discriminating, shock-based performances. The Census Bureau paid Gregory $1,400 to “share a wealth of history as a Civil Rights Activist,” according to the records obtained by JW under the federal public records law known as the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instead, American taxpayers funded a disgusting stand-up routine filled with the “N word” and replete with conspiracy theories about whites and the U.S. government targeting prominent blacks—including Martin Luther King and Malcom X—for assassination or career destruction (golfer Tiger Woods and beleaguered comedian Bill Cosby).
Gregory also said whites stole black inventions, such as ice hockey and the cotton gin, and accused the U.S. government of conspiring to kill Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio. The movie King Kong is really a depiction of former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson dating white women, Gregory claimed at the Census Bureau performance, and whites treat President Obama “like dirt” and “like he’s a Redneck Cracker that can’t read or write.” Gregory delivered most of his routine in Ebonics (also known as African American Vernacular English) and advised his black audience not to obey “white racist cops,” which he also referred to as “filth.”
The rioters who destroyed Ferguson after a cop fatally shot a black man with an extensive criminal record who had just committed a robbery, didn’t steal enough merchandise from the businesses they looted, Gregory told his government audience. “I was complaining about Ferguson because the N_ _ _ _ _ _ wasn’t getting enough,” Gregory said, according to the transcript obtained by JW. “Did you see the brother go in there and walk out with a half-pint, I said ‘Get some tips.’ And, y’all be trying to trick them White folks and say rebellion. No rebellion is put together, predicated, on some White person shooting a Black person and that tips it off. Those was riots, riots.”
Gregory also told his audience of public servants that if he were president of the United States no white people would be in his cabinet. “Had I been elected to be the President, listen good White folks, none of y’all would be in my cabinet,” he says. “Now don’t worry about Black folks who be saying ‘oh, he didn’t mean it.’ So, I’ll say it ten times, non of y’all be in my cabinet, none of y’all be in my cabinet, none of y’all be in my cabinet.” 

Cybersecurity bill could 'sweep away' internet users' privacy, agency warns

Homeland Security admits Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act raises concerns while corporations and data brokers lobby for bill as it returns to Senate

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Monday said a controversial new surveillance bill could sweep away “important privacy protections”, a move that bodes ill for the measure’s return to the floor of the Senate this week.

The latest in a series of failed attempts to reform cybersecurity, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) grants broad latitude to tech companies, data brokers and anyone with a web-based data collection to mine user information and then share it with “appropriate Federal entities”, which themselves then have permission to share it throughout the government.

Minnesota senator Al Franken queried the DHS in July; deputy secretary of the department Alejandro Mayorkas responded today that some provisions of the bill “could sweep away important privacy protections” and that the proposed legislation “raises privacy and civil liberties concerns”.

Much of the attention on Cisa has been directed at companies such as Google, Facebook and Comcast, which have large hoards of internet user behavior. But arguably more important are data brokers. Among the groups lobbying for the passage of Cisa are Experian, which tracks consumer trends using information from loyalty cards and other sources and licenses the information to help target advertising; Oracle, whose Data Cloud product works similarly; and Hitrust, which aggregates healthcare information.

The paragraph generating the most concern can be found in section 4 of the bill: “[a] private entity may, for cybersecurity purposes, monitor A) the information systems of such a private entity; B) the information systems of another entity, upon written consent of such other entity […] and D) information that is stored on, processed by, or transiting the information systems monitored by the private entity under this paragraph.” 

Debate on the bill could start on Wednesday with a vote on Thursday.

Privacy concerns are already significant in the private sector, where the use of personal data at scale is largely unregulated. “With respect to data brokers that sell marketing products, the Commission recommends that Congress consider legislation requiring data brokers to provide consumers access to their data, including sensitive data held about them, at a reasonable level of detail, and the ability to opt out of having it shared for marketing purposes,” wrote the FTC in a whitepaper titled Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability last May. Such legislation has been introduced, but is repeatedly referred to committee.

Data brokers are anxious to avoid losing the ability to aggregate vast quantities of personal data - the sale and licensing of consumer databases is a lucrative practice, as web advertising booms and TV advertising becomes more sophisticated.

It’s also a practice that prefers not to disclose exactly what information it is holding. Mike Seay, an Illinois man whose child died the year previous, received in 2014 a junk mail flier from OfficeMax addressed to “Mike Seay, Daughter Killed in Car Crash” (this was indeed how his 17-year-old daughter had died).

Cisa’s mandate would seem to cover the publicly used interfaces of the health insurers and banks – including SunTrust, Prudential, American Express, Aflac and Bank of America – that lobbied on the bill.

Drew Mitnick of digital advocacy organization Access Now pointed to language in the bill that would give participants in the proposed information-sharing program immunity not just from prosecution, but from regulatory action. “The transparency requirement is so narrow that, if you met the requirements within the bill to get protection, it would give [participating companies] broad range to collect data and then send it to the government.”

Lobby group the Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) on Monday launched an advertising campaign, stopcyberthreats.com, aimed at tackling an online campaign by privacy activists who have dubbed Cisa “the Darth Vader bill” and are worried by the sweeping legal immunity corporations will receive under Cisa.

If the bill were to pass and enough of those companies were to cooperate with any given agency, the amount of information floating free within the federal government could easily extend to credit card histories (collected by data miners at Argus), lists of goods purchased (aggregated from customer loyalty cards by companies including Acxiom and Experian), and healthcare records (tracked by insurers).

Credit check giant Experian said that the company would like to see the legislation pass. “Experian supports legislation that would facilitate greater sharing of cyber threat information among appropriate private and government entities,” said a company spokeswoman in a statement to the Guardian. “Such sharing arrangements, under parameters set by law, could improve our mutual efforts to better detect and respond to emerging cyber threats.”

The company also laid the duty to walk the knife’s edge between citizens’ information security and their personal safety at the feet of their elected officials. “Congress has the responsibility to balance the need for facilitating greater information sharing, and thereby enhancing cyber security, with important consumer privacy concerns. We encourage and support Congress’ effort in striking this balance.”

British teachers union spreads anti Israel, anti Jew Palestinian propaganda to children as young as three.

Schools teaching 'pro-Palestinian extremist agenda’

The National Union of Teachers is accused of 'spreading political propaganda' in classrooms to children as young as three

By Camilla Turner

12:02AM BST 03 Aug 2015

An “extremist agenda” is being taught to children as young as three, it has been claimed, with the National Union of Teachers accused of “spreading political propaganda” in classrooms by promoting Palestinian “resistance”. 

The NUT has designed and promoted a teaching resources pack, under a partnership with Edukid, a children’s education charity, which asks teachers to explore themes of Palestinian “occupation, freedom and resistance”. 

The resource pack, titled “My Name is Saleh”, and a video were launched at the NUT annual conference in April. 

Writing in the pack’s foreword, Christine Blower, the NUT general secretary, explains the project was “inspired by a union delegation visit [to the Palestinian territories] in 2013”. 

^{Edukid and NUT teaching resource pack}

However, concerns have been raised that the resource pack gives a “one sided” and “divisive” view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Images in the pack’s appendix feature a Palestinian child who has been “assaulted by settlers” and the video contains a reference to “Jews” as opposed to “Israelis”. 

• Thousands of primary school children suspended for assaulting adults 

Tom Wilson, from the Henry Jackson Society, a think-tank, called the project “overtly agenda driven” and warned: "We need to be more vigilant about the politicisation of British classrooms”. 

The resource pack’s accompanying video contains references to “Jews” as opposed to “Israelis” was described as “extremely troubling” by Mr Wilson, who added that it carries a risk of “inciting tensions between faith communities in the UK”. 

^{The education charity Edukid say on their website that they have partnered with the NUT on the project (Edukid)}

“It is a particularly shameless example of political activism masquerading as a legitimate form of education,” he said. 

“When dealing with a subject as complex as the Israeli Palestinian conflict, it is so important to avoid giving young people a distorted or one sided account." 

Sam Westrop, the director of Stand for Peace, a counter-extremism think-tank, said that by teaching school children that Palestinian “resistance” against Israel was a worthy cause, the “NUT’s political propaganda and misrepresentation serves the extremist agenda”. 

• A-level results: System ripe for reform following 'shambles'

The Charities Commission said it would contact Edukid to assess whether regulations had been breached. 

A Department for Education spokesman said: “The law is crystal clear all political discussions in school should be unbiased and balanced.” 

An NUT spokesman declined to comment on the specific concerns, but said: “We work in partnership with many organisations, including the Holocaust Education Trust, to produce materials for schools. We have a very strong record on producing well regarded materials dealing with difficult issues, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, teaching around issues in the Middle East and recently on the Prevent agenda.”

'Hundreds of civilians killed' in airstrikes on 'Islamic State.' Silence from the anti war media. Obama/Hillary created the disaster in Syria.

'Hundreds of civilians killed' in airstrikes on 'Islamic State'

An independent monitoring group has said that hundreds of civilians have likely been killed in a US-led air campaign against "Islamic State" militants. The US-led coalition had no immediate comment on the report.

The group, Airwars, which describes itself as a "not-for-profit transparency project" said in a report posted on its website on Monday that it had evidence to suggest that between 459 and 591 civilians had been killed in the US-led air campaign since it was launched one year ago.

The report, entitled "Cause for Concern," said that these had come in 57 incidents, in which it believed there was enough evidence on the public record to indicate coalition responsibility for their deaths. It added that 48-80 members of "friendly forces" had also been killed.

The report noted that the fact that the United States has so far only conceded that two non-combatants had likely been killed in the air campaign "indicates a worrying lack of urgency on the part of all Coalition members regarding civilian deaths."

"Almost all claims of non-combatant deaths from alleged Coalition strikes emerge within 24 hours –with graphic images of reported victims often widely disseminated across media and social media. In this context, the present Coalition policy of downplaying or denying all claims of non-combatant fatalities makes little sense and risks handing Islamic State and other forces a powerful propaganda tool," the report concluded.

A year of airstrikes

Almost a year ago, the United States began conducting airstrikes against "Islamic State" (IS) jihadistsin Syria, who have seized control of large swathes of territory in the country. In September 2014, the US expanded its campaign to target IS positions in northern Iraq. Later, 12 US allies, including Britain and France but also Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates joined the coalition, which has launched more than 5,800 airstrikes in Syria and Iraq in an effort to support ground forces fighting against the militants.

Airwars said its primary source for the data used in the report was military briefings from the US and its allies taking part in the airstrikes. It also used information reported by other monitoring groups, such as the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

pfd/jil (AP, dpa)

All This for .01 Degrees Celsius? No, it's for power!

All This for .01 Degrees Celsius?

By Joe Bastardi · Aug. 3, 2015

As the president reveals his plan to reduce greenhouse gases to save us from an apocalyptic atmosphere, I wish to remind people of three things:

1.) The true hockey stick of the fossil fuel era: Global progress in total population, personal wealth and life expectancy.

This is truly amazing. To show how fossil fuels played a roll in expanding the global pie, there are many more people alive today living longer and enjoying a higher GDP. One has to wonder if someone against fossil fuels is simply anti-progress. Ironic since many in the camp of anthropogenic global warming like to label themselves “progressive.” They’re certainly anti-statistic given something like this staring them in the face.

2.) The geological time scale of temperatures versus CO2.

As much as I struggle, I can’t see the linkage. Maybe it’s like one of those books where you have to stare at it and cross your eyes to see the picture.

3.) EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy admitted that the steps being taken would only prevent .01 degrees Celsius of warming, but it was the example that counted for the rest of the world.

This article sums that up pretty nicely.

This in addition to the fact that, in 2011, she admitted she did not know how much CO2 was in the atmosphere. And its lines of evidence for this are provably false!

Given the facts, I can’t help but wonder: Did policymakers ever take Economics 101, or a course in how to read a chart?

When I see simple questions that can raise doubts, if not outright debunk all this, it’s like watching the opening from the old Twilight Zone Series: “You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!”

---

Joe Bastardi is chief forecaster at WeatherBELL Analytics, a meteorological consulting firm.

Citizenship: Irrelevant?

Huntington Park Councilman To Appoint 2 Undocumented Immigrants As Commissioners

The 32-year-old lawmaker told CBSLA onlineproducer Deborah Meron that he promised voters while running for office that he would create more opportunities for undocumented residents.

“Huntington Park is a city of opportunity and a city of hope for all individuals regardless of socioeconomic status, race, creed, or in this case, citizenship,” the councilman said in a statement. “Both these gentlemen have accomplished a great deal for the city. For that, on behalf of the city council, mayor, and our city, I want to say thank you to them both and I am confident they will do an excellent job on their commission posts.”

Pineda says he cleared the upcoming appointments with the city attorney, who confirmed there’s nothing that requires a commissioner to be a registered voter, a documented citizen or even a resident, which, technically, means someone here without legal residency can serve.

Appointees must first, however, pass a LifeScan background check.

Medina and Zatarain would not be paid for the volunteer positions and would not have a direct hand in constructing policy, but would help advise the council on legislation. Other commissioners receive a $75 monthly stipend on months when they hold meetings.

Coming the same year that California allowed residents to apply for a driver’s license, regardless of immigration status, this move is the latest in an effort to recognize an increasingly sizable demographic in the state.

Pineda says at 13 years old he immigrated alone to the United States. He established legal residency and told Meron he feels blessed to have been able to come here and work. He’s served as a district representative on the California State Senate and legislative assistant for the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently is president of the California Latino Leadership Institute, an organization designed for young professionals interested in leadership development and serving their community.

This is Pineda’s first year on the Huntington Park City Council.

The councilman touched on his childhood in Central America and says there would be nights he’d come home to a house with no food.

He says the criticism of people who immigrate here illegally often comes without understanding the hardship they leave behind.

When asked whether he expected any reaction to his commissioner selections, Pineda said, “Having worked at the federal level, I understand that not everything that you do reflects good on the entire nation. Of course, we’re going to have people who disagree with me, but I’m fine with that.”

Pineda says he selected Medina and Zatarain primarily for their tremendous contributions to the city.

A graduate from California State University Dominguez Hill with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and Chicano studies, Medina interned for then-Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, who now serves on the Los Angeles City Council, Pineda says. Medina also organizes immigration forums aimed a helping working-class communities.

Zatarain is a student at Santa Monica Community College who first came to the U.S. in 2007, according to Pineda. At Huntington Park High School, he served as ASB President and graduated with the highest GPA of his class. He acted as campus representative for English as a Second Language program and created a club to help ESL students prepare for college. Pineda says he created a local chapter of the Red Cross and organized several blood drives. Zatarain wants to attend law school.

Pineda says the decision will be announced at the city council meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday and will become official after being processed by the council.

A lefty LA Times writer and cartoonist feels entitled to lie. He continues to lie even in the face of audiotape evidence that counters his claim. Liberals have no shame

The L.A. Times’ Ted Rall Versus the LAPD: He Made It Up. And He Got Caught.

Posted By Jack Dunphy On August 2, 2015 

Try to imagine the shock of it: You’re walking along without a care in the world when suddenly, for no reason at all, a motorcycle cop roars up, hops off his bike, grabs you and slaps you in handcuffs, shoves you against a wall, and then writes you a ticket for something you didn’t do.  And in a final gesture of contemptuous insult, he tosses your driver’s license in the gutter before making you sign the ticket.  It must have been a harrowing experience.

Or it would have been, if it had actually happened.

Ted Rall is a writer and cartoonist whose work, until recently, regularly appeared in the Los Angeles Times.  He would not argue with my characterization of him as a leftist, though he would likely dispute my description of his artistic style as that of an animator from The Simpsons who has just polished off a fifth of bad gin.  (Examples can be found at his website ^[1].)  On May 11, Rall wrote an opinion piece for the Times in which he criticized a recent campaign by the Los Angeles Police Department to crack down on pedestrian traffic violations ^[2] such as jaywalking.  In so doing, he recounted his own unpleasant experience at the hands of an LAPD motorcycle officer in 2001.  “This one is personal,” he begins, and then goes on to describe his mistreatment:

Just over 10 years ago, I was ticketed — and handcuffed — for an alleged pedestrian violation while crossing Melrose Avenue.  Ironically, this was one of the rare times that I was innocent of even jaywalking, something I do every day.
Anyway, I had done everything right. I waited for the green “walking man” signal before stepping off the curb.  I walked between the crosswalk lines.  I got across the street just as the flashing red signal began.
All of a sudden, a motorcycle officer zoomed over, threw me up against the wall, slapped on the cuffs, roughed me up and wrote me a ticket.  It was an ugly scene, and in broad daylight it must have looked like one, because within minutes there were a couple of dozen passersby shouting at the cop.
Another motorcycle officer appeared, asked the colleague what the heck he was thinking and ordered him to let me go, which he did.  But not before he threw my driver’s license into the sewer.

This tale of oppression prompted someone in the LAPD to look into the matter and determine if a complaint had been filed.  And yes, it was discovered that Rall had indeed written a letter to protest his abuse, which was assigned to a sergeant for investigation.  The results of that investigation have come back to haunt Rall, prompting the editors at the Times to drop him from the paper ^[3].

It seems that Rall took some liberties in his retelling of his encounter with the motorcycle cop, an encounter which, inconveniently for Rall, the cop recorded on audiotape.  The LAPD provided the Times with a copy of the tape, which, strangely, Rall presents in his defense in a post at aNewDomain.net ^[4].  The tape begins with the investigating sergeant describing what is recorded, which is three separate stops the officer made, of which Rall’s was the second.  (The relevant portion begins at 6:38.)  You can hear the officer say, “Ped [for pedestrian] stop, Gardner and Melrose.”  The officer asks Rall for his identification and explains to him why he is being stopped.  “You got a red light,” the officer says, “and you just walked across just as free as you wanted to.”  What follows for the next five or so minutes is the sound of passing traffic as the officer writes out the citation.  The officer can be heard whistling and humming a bit, and a man and woman can be heard talking, but what they are saying and to whom isn’t clear.  After writing the citation, the officer asks Rall to sign it and tells him to read the information on the back of it.  Though Rall’s next words are unclear, he apparently asks the officer for a recommendation on a place to eat.  The officer explains that he is newly assigned to the area and doesn’t know “any of the local eateries.”  The encounter concludes with the officer telling Rall to “have a good day.”

There is nothing on the tape that in any way even hints that the encounter was anything other than a routine stop for a minor violation.  There is nothing to indicate that Rall was handcuffed, roughed up, thrown against a wall, or in any way mistreated by the officer, nor is there any indication of the “couple of dozen passersby shouting at the cop” that Rall claimed.

He made it up.  And he got caught.

But that hasn’t prevented him from trying to dispute ^[4] the accuracy and even the authenticity of the officer’s audiotape.  A follow-up post at aNewDomain.net appears under the sensational headline, “Ted Rall-LAPD-LATimes Battle: New Tape Proves Cops Lied ^[5].”

It doesn’t prove any such thing, actually, but the story makes for interesting reading for the way it reveals Rall’s desperation at having been revealed as a fabulist, at least as it concerns his 2001 encounter with the police officer.  He imagines some sinister plot within the LAPD to exact revenge on him for his years of criticism of the department, a plot involving whistling cops and doctored tapes and all manner of subterfuge aimed at removing this burr under the LAPD’s saddle.  And the editors at the L.A. Times, Rall seems to believe, were so gullible as to fall for it.

No, it’s much simpler than that: He made it up.  And he got caught.

And in the newspaper business, unlike, say, politics, it only takes one lie for people to call you a liar.

Hat tip PJ Media

Venezuela: Reinforcing failure. Venezuela and Greece share large socialist leaning populations leading to expected results.

Reinforcing Failure

Posted By Richard Fernandez On August 3, 2015 

Pop quiz.  Suppose a whole country decides to live off an imaginary inexhaustible stash promised by its president. One day it runs out of other people’s money and begins to starve. Hospitals start to close. Even the beer runs out. What do you do? What do you do?

According to the International Crisis Group ^[1] that is the problem the world faces in Venezuela. “Some economists predict a sudden collapse in food consumption and widespread hunger, and public health specialists already say that some surveys are showing chronic malnutrition.”  If the Colossus of the North doesn’t save it, then all hell with break loose.  Can’t let that happen can you?

Aside from purely humanitarian concerns, Venezuela’s neighbours and the wider international community have pragmatic reasons for acting. If a solid institutional and social welfare framework can be restored through a negotiated settlement, and economic measures taken to deal with inflation and scarcity, a humanitarian crisis can be averted. If not, the collapse of the health and welfare infrastructure is likely to make political conflict harder to manage and could lead to a further erosion of democracy and an increasing likelihood of violence.
This in turn would have an impact beyond Venezuela’s borders. Potential risks include large-scale migration, the spread of disease and a wider foothold for organised crime. Without a change of economic policy, the country is heading for a chaotic foreign debt default, probably in 2016. An unstable Venezuela unable to meet its international commitments could destabilise other countries in the region, particularly Caribbean nations that have come to rely on subsidised energy from Caracas. It would also have a direct impact in Colombia, along a border already under multiple threats.

Venezuela should have been rich what with being the “12th largest oil producer in the world … and a beneficiary of the most sustained oil price boom in history”.  Instead it is flat broke. It’s currency, the Bolivar ^[2] is worth 1% of its official rate on the black market and 1/1000th of what it was before Hugo Chavez assumed power.

The country may be on the verge of hyperinflation. Most economists reckon that the inflation rate is already 120% a year (the central bank stopped publishing price data, so no one is sure). Some expect it to reach 200% by the end of 2015.

The Bolivar has essentially stopped working as legal tender and now everything is doled out by the state in an effort to make things “affordable”. “The government uses a labyrinthine system of price and exchange controls to shield Venezuelans from soaring prices. But these make matters worse. Price ceilings have devastated local production; factories are operating at half-capacity and more than two-thirds of food is imported. Affordable goods are in short supply.”

The result has been food riots. Desperate gangs of looters ^[3] are roaming the streets, forcing the remaining businesses to shut down. “One person was killed and dozens were detained following looting of supermarkets in Venezuela’s southeastern city of Ciudad Guayana on Friday morning, according to Venezuelan authorities. Shoppers seeking scarce consumer staples including milk, rice and flour broke into a supermarket warehouse on Friday morning, leading businesses in the area to shut their doors.”

This has prompted the government to seize the remaining food stocks in the country and parcel out the contents to the population. What else is it going to do?  It has already printed all the money it can crank out so it is essentially looting whatever is left. CNBC ^[4] says “Venezuelan troops occupied a Caracas warehouse complex used by local food giant Empresas Polar and Nestle to distribute food and beverages …. Workers said dozens of national guard and police took over the building on Wednesday evening. National Guard troops remained within the complex.”

Asked to explain the situation, the Venzuelan government has pointed the finger at the United States. “President Nicolas Maduro said the violence was premeditated and blamed the United States as being behind it.”  Conspicuously absent from the list of those responsible are Hugo Chavez and his socialist “Bolivarian” policies.

The International Crisis Group foresees an eventual collapse. “To forestall the severe consequences of a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela” it urges the regime to  admit its errors and begs the opposition not to exploit the situation  for political advantage. It calls upon “the broader international community”.

• [to] abandon their reluctance to act, and explicitly press for restoration of the rule of law and of institutional checks and balances, beginning with close oversight of the December parliamentary elections.
• They should also help alleviate the social costs of the current crisis by offering food and medical aid and helping Venezuela cope with and control existing epidemics and prevent future ones.

The advice amounts to forgiving the guilty, restraining the innocent and billing whoever has any money.  This is the universal solution to all political ills. But as to causes of the plague, there is still some controversy over why things went so wrong in the Caribbean country.   The British public TV Channel 4 ^[5] reports that things started off well but suddenly things took a turn for the worse.

Under the government of the late President Hugo Chavez, the authorities did invest enormous sums of money in a pioneering health project called Barrio Adentro.
They built thousands of small clinics in low income areas, bringing free basic healthcare to large numbers of impoverished people who had never had any. It was a pioneering project, with limited impact.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s public hospitals remain forgotten, under-resourced and now on the brink of collapse. …
Few were able to talk to me openly, or felt comfortable giving me their names, for fear of losing their jobs for talking without official permission. But the situation they described was shocking.
In some hospitals, they had less than a third of the medical supplies they require. Almost every patient told me they had to buy at least some of their drugs on the street.
Oncologists said that people who were diagnosed with breast cancer sometimes had to wait more than 18 months for treatment, while surgeons said that other patients often die while waiting for operations.
It’s not just a lack of medicines that is making life difficult. Spiralling inflation, which topped 600 percent in July 2015, has meant that doctors’ salaries are now worth less than £10 per month.
The NGO Venezuelan Medical Societies Network estimates that in the last few years approximately 10,000 medical graduates have left the country.

It was a program of consumption with no thought given to creating replacement wealth on the assumption that “someone” could always foot the bill. Printing money should have worked, and the mystery of why raising the number of Bolivars by ten to the third power did not correspondingly increase the wealth is still a puzzle to Marxist economists. There is the vague sense that if only the pueblo had more money they would have succeeded in providing free everything and doubtless they would have won through if the capitalists had not been so stingy.

For now Venezuela is not only out of food and medicine but out of beer. It is not even possible to solve the problems of the world over a bottle of cerveza. The Guardian ^[6] reports that troops have been ordered to seize the breweries after President Nicolas Maduro accused them of economic ‘sabotage’.

Things are looking grim what with the world price of oil has been collapsing. The Latin American Tribune ^[7] notes that the price per barrel is scarcely half of what it was in 2014.  All the indicators spell doom, doom, doom.

Venezuela’s average oil price for 2014 was $88.42, down from 2013′s $98.08, 2012′s $103.42 and 2011′s $101.06, but higher than 2010′s $72.43, and much higher than 2009’s average price of $57.01, which the current average is now below.
In 2014, WTI averaged $93.06 while Brent averaged $99.61.
So far this year, Venezuela’s oil basket hit its highest price of $57.00 during the week ending May 15.

Venezuela is a problem similar but more severe than the challenge Greece poses to the European Union. In both cases you have countries with large voter blocs of socialist believers.  They are charming, sympathetic and economically hopeless. Nobody even pretends to believe that another bailout will help Greece.  Realistically no amount of charity will sustainably help Venezuela either, if the 12th largest oil reserves on the planet could not.

About all a handout will do is simultaneously reinforce failure and obscure its causes. Once the bailout money runs out the crisis will return with each side determined to blame the other for it. Of course that doesn’t mean the president won’t try. Bloomberg’s Nicole Gaouette ^[8] reports, “the Obama administration’s charm offensive with unfriendly states has rolled through Myanmar, Iran and Cuba. Next stop: Venezuela.”

State Department officers have been meeting quietly with officials in the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro since April to develop what Secretary of State John Kerry has called “a normal relationship.”
The outreach is another test of President Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural pledge to “extend a hand” to repressive and corrupt regimes if they are “willing to unclench” their fists.

Unclench your fist so that we may grease their palms and thereby get these regimes out of a jam. One can make the case for rescuing Iran, Cuba and Venezuela in the name of preventing “black holes”. You can’t have them feeling like losers or they’ll make trouble.  In the past American presidents were criticized for supporting dictators against Marxist insurgents on the theory they were preventing chaos. Today the new theory holds that we must prop up dictators to prevent chaos. The more things change the more they stay the same.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to let Venezuela fix its own problems, however messy that might be. But Western politics makes that unlikely. Once Maduro’s men finish handing out what’s left in the warehouses then starvation — real starvation — will start to stalk Venezuela and the Western politicians will find the visuals impossible to resist. They’ll do something whether it helps or not.

Harry Temple: All right, pop quiz. Airport, gunman with one hostage. He’s using her for cover; he’s almost to a plane. You’re a hundred feet away… Jack?
Jack: Shoot the hostage.

Nah. Pay the ransom.  Forgive the guilty, restrain the innocent and bill the taxpayer. You just know that’s the only way it ends.

Hat tip PJ Media

Here is the epitome of "not the sharpest knife in the drawer"

Carjacker Tries To Steal Unmarked Cop Car

Knife-wielding suspect was surprised by armed detectives

AUGUST 1--A knife-wielding Florida man who attempted a carjacking Thursday night quickly discovered that the vehicle he targeted was an undercover cop car occupied by a pair of armed plainclothes detectives, according to an arrest affidavit.

Dominique Albert, 27, allegedly approached the car on a St. Petersburg street around 9:45 PM and yanked open the passenger door. Albert, pictured at right, leaned into the auto while holding a steak knife in his right hand.

While Albert’s would-be victims were initially startled by the interloper, they quickly rallied.

“Police!,” shouted Detective Daniel Torok from the driver’s seat as he drew his handgun and leveled it at Albert, who “turned and fled on foot.”

Torok and his partner then chased after Albert, who dropped his knife during the pursuit. When the cops caught up with Albert, he “fought Police with violence, but was finally taken into custody after a lengthy fight.” Albert, who allegedly continued to struggle after being handcuffed, stopped resisting after a backup officer “deployed his Taser.”

A search of Albert turned up two other “large, fixed blade knives,” police reported.

Charged with carjacking, resisting arrest, and aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, all felonies, Albert is locked up on $170,000 bond.

At the time of the alleged carjacking, the hapless Albert was free on bond in connection with an arrest last month for shoplifting at a Walmart store.

Note the first instinct is to fight the police.

They Hate Your Guts

P.J. O'Rourke once again hits the nail on the head and provides the best reason to vote Republican, because they suck at politics. In the battle between the evil party and the stupid party, the stupid party does less damage in the long run.

I would like to address myself to the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refugees teeming to America’s shore, the homeless, the economically, socially, and mentally tempest-tossed. Also, I’d like to address the young, the hip, the progressive, the compassionate, and the caring. I’d like a word with everyone who votes for Democrats.

GARY LOCKE

Democrats hate your guts.

Democrats need your vote and they’ll do anything—no matter how low and degrading—to get it. They hate you the way a whore hates a john.

All politicians hate people. Politics is a way to gain power over people without justification for having that power. Nothing in the 11,000-year history of politics—going back to the governing elites of Mesopotamia—indicates that politicians are wiser, smarter, kinder, more moral, or better skilled at any craft (aside from politics) than we are.

But political rulers need the acquiescence of the ruled to slake the craving for power. Politicians hate you the way a junkie hates junk.

Politicians gain power by means of empty promises or threats, or both when they’re on their game. Should you vote for people who are good at politics? No. You should vote for Republicans. We’re lousy.

Believe me, I know why you don’t vote for Republicans. You see the Republican candidates and they look so .  .  . Bush-League, Dog Walker, Rubio Rube, Get-Outta-the-Carson, Hucka-Upchuck, Ap-Paul-ling, Cruz Control, Fat-Fried Christie Crispy, Son-of-a-Kasich, Dingleberry Perry, Flee the Fiorina, Sancta-Santorum, Graham Cracker, and Nervous 7/11 Night Shift Manager Jindal.

And never mind the busted flush Trump Card who should be spray-painted with Rust-Oleum primer, have a squirt gun super-glued to his hand, and kicked through the front door of the Ferguson, Mo., police station.

You think, “I don’t want to vote for these people.”

Just between you and me, we Republicans think the same thing.

Republican politicians stink. This is because real Republicans don’t go into politics. We have a life. We have families, jobs, responsibilities, and it takes all our time and energy to avoid them and go play golf. We leave politics to our halt, our lame, and our feeble-minded. Republican candidacies are sinecures for members of the GOP who are otherwise useless and/or retired.

Democrats, on the other hand, are brilliant politicians. And I mean that as a vicious slur. Think how we use the word “politics.” Are “office politics” ever a good thing? When somebody “plays politics” to get a promotion, does he or she deserve it? When we call a coworker “a real politician,” is that a compliment?

“But,” you say, “Republicans don’t love us either.” And we don’t. As voters you are demographic groups. Republicans do not love demographic groups. Actually, Republicans do not love groups at all, with a few exceptions: The guys in the combat unit they commanded. Blood relations old enough to have been dead for years. Intimates of their private clubs. Golf buddies. Fellow guests at the Alfalfa dinner. And everybody in Bohemian Grove. But this love is proclaimed only after copious drink has been taken.

Read the rest here.

Profoundly ignorant Democrat Hillary voters.

VIDEO: HILLARY SUPPORTERS CALL FOR REPEALING BILL OF RIGHTS

"You can't have the rules of yesteryear now"

by PAUL JOSEPH WATSON | AUGUST 3, 2015

---

Hillary Clinton supporters in San Diego would support a move by the 2016 presidential frontrunner to repeal the bill of rights, another shocking illustration of how many Americans are completely ignorant on basic issues.

Asked by Mark Dice whether they would advocate Hillary’s ‘primary campaign promise’ to “help with the new world order,” virtually all were in agreement.

“Do you think it’s time we get behind her and support the repeal,” Dice asked one woman, who responded, “I think it is, I think we need change like they’ve been promising us for so many years, I think it’s time to get behind Hillary Clinton and support her.”

Referring to the bill of rights, the woman added, “You can’t have the rules of yesteryear now, so much has changed….we live in a different world now,” before again emphasizing that she supported Hillary’s plan to repeal the freedoms outlined by the founding fathers.

Another woman concurred that it was a “good time to look at” repealing the bill of rights, another young lady agreed that it was necessary to “move America forward.”

Yet another individual remarked that the bill of rights was, “somewhat outdated,” while another two women blithely supported abolishing the founding document to “help America progress.”

An African-American man who said he “agreed with a lot of Hillary’s policies” said he wouldn’t repeal the entire bill of rights, just part of it, namely the ones that “are related to injustices to the blacks.”

Suffice to say, the man couldn’t actually name any of the bill of rights or why they were unjust towards black people. After he implied that the bill of rights itself was racist, the man acknowledged, “this is just coming from a guess.”

Dice’s video once again illustrates not just how profoundly dumb many Americans are when it comes to any political issue, but how ignorant they are of their own country’s history and the hard fought freedoms they now enjoy, as well as how easy it is to attain consent from the general public for the most outrageous things just by using trendy buzzwords.

"Russia Is Upgrading S-300 Defense Missiles Intended For Iran". Another downside of the deal with Iran

Russia Is Upgrading S-300 Defense Missiles Intended For Iran 

Russia is modernizing its S-300 missile system to supply to Iran, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on July 30, RIA news agency reported.

Vladimir Kozhin, a presidential adviser on military matters, said the S-300 air defense missile systems will be upgraded before being delivered to Iran, since the original contract was signed a long time ago. He wouldn't offer specifics or say when the delivery would take place.

Russia cancelled a contract to deliver the advanced missile system to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West. But Putin lifted that self-imposed ban in April following an interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Moscow is hoping to reap economic and trade benefits now that a more comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and world powers has been reached, allowing for an easing of sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed Israel's "dismay" at Russia's decision to supply the S-300s to Iran, and the United States also has expressed concern.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and RIA Novosti