Day: October 26, 2016

The Sky’s The Limit

For about 6 years there has been a wealth of criticism of Obamacare….there has been about 50 attempts to end it….all failed….and a relentless drumming of “repeal and replace”….the problem is that NO one has any idea what to replace it with if it were ever repealed…..and in that lies the problem…..

Personally, I wanted a single payer….not only would it be efficient but it would also have been equal for all…..but instead we got a piece of crap that was basically written by the medical and drug industry….and thanx to them it will never work out to be a good program…

And now there is more news that will turn up the volume on “repeal and replace”…..the cost of the program…..

Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Obama’s health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That’s sure to stoke another ObamaCare controversy days before a presidential election, the AP reports. Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25% across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. Some states will see much bigger jumps, others less.

Major national carriers such as UnitedHealth Group, Humana, and Aetna scaled back their roles, meaning about one in five consumers will only have plans from a single insurer to pick from. Republicans pounced on the numbers as a warning that insurance markets created by the 2010 health overhaul are teetering toward a “death spiral.” “It’s over for ObamaCare,” Donald Trump proclaimed at a campaign rally Monday evening in Tampa, Fla., promising that his own plan would deliver “great health care at a fraction of the cost.” Administration officials, however, stress that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will protect most customers.

Guess what?  You would not be having this problem with a single payer system…..just stating the obvious….

It will be up to the next president to handle this situation and personally I cannot see either candidate capable of finding an adequate solution……

So for the next 4 years there will be that endless mind numbing crap of “repeal and replace”…..something to look forward to in the coming months…..while the rest of society goes down the toilet…..lucky us.

Why Progressives Love the New Cold War

First, there is NOTHING progressive about Democrats….so stop using the term to describe a bunch of center-left cowards. (And center left is being kind to them)

Second, NO true progressive would be in love with a war either hot or cold….

The Clinton campaign’s full-scale effort to turn this election into a referendum on Vladimir Putin is causing liberals like Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, and Glenn Greenwald, the energizing force behind The Intercept, much heartburn. Here is Ms. van den Heuvel wondering what the heck is going on: “How does new Cold War […]

Source: Why Progressives Love the New Cold War – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

Democrats are nothing more than a neo-liberal……and neo-liberalism is a failed concept…..no matter how the Dems try to spin the thing they are nothing but war hawks and should be in bed with the GOP.

Yemen And The Attacks

I am always writing and the good people at Ace News Room seem to always want an op-ed from me…..this is one I wrote awhile back when the news that missiles had been fired at a US Naval vessel…..

I could go into the barbaric conflict that the Saudis are forcing on Yemen….or I could write about the Yemeni deaths, the starvation, the destruction….but no….I want to talk about…

Source: Yemen And The Attacks

After I wrote this op-ed more news has come out….

US warships have once again attacked Yemen’s Red Sea coast after reporting for the third time in a week that they came under fire from the area by anti-ship missiles, a large number of which were fired but none of which actually hit anything. At least, that was the story initially.

After once again attacking Houthi targets along the coast, in spite of any evidence that the Houthis fired the missiles at them, officials are now saying they’re not even sure about the missiles, and are looking into the possibility that the USS Mason, which has claimed all the attacks, has a radar malfunction which is generating ghost signals.

This raises the possibility that the US warships are not only retaliating against the wrong people, but that there was nothing to retaliate against in the first place. Though there was some speculation that remnants of the Yemeni military were involved in firing missiles, by way of explaining why the Houthis were denying it, this must inevitably raise questions if anything happened at all other than the heavy-handed US reaction.

(antiwar.com)

If there was NO proof on who launched the missiles then why did we attack?  Did we attack to help the Saudis in their destruction of Yemen?

Oops will not get it!  Time for someone to answer some tough questions….questions that will never be asked.

Syria: Lies And Damn Lies

This election there is a wealth of solutions for the problems in Syria….they range from “making the sand glow” to a no-fly zone……the problem is that most of these brilliant ideas ill do nothing to solve any problems…..

Let me illustrate the 5 biggest damn lies about Syria……

1. Lie Number 1: The world will not forgive us for inaction in the face of mass atrocities in Syria. Nothing dries faster than a politician’s tear. International relations are unsentimental. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. The world has “forgiven” us for inaction while Stalin and Mao collectively murdered over 100 million, genocides unfolded in Rwanda and Cambodia, and Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews. At present, the world is not rebuking us for inaction during the killings of more than 5 million Congolese in an ongoing civil war and during the mass atrocities and starvation that are besetting the South Sudanese people. Today, we enjoy a semi-alliance with Vietnam despite dropping 388,000 tons of napalm and killing more than 2 million civilians during the Vietnam War.

2. Lie Number 2: The carnage in Syria would be diminished if the United States provided military assistance and intervened on behalf of moderate Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, the Russians, and Hezbollah. There are no moderates in Syria dedicated to the rule of law and democratic norms. All Syrian fighters are driven by ulterior motives to make their tribe dominate others. Internecine warfare rages amongst the rebels. A $500 million Pentagon plan to vet and train 15,000 moderate fighters collapsed because no qualified enrollees could be discovered.

3. Lie Number 3: Russia will gain at our expense. The opposite is the truth. Conquest or occupation of a hostile population weakens the conqueror or occupier. The annexation of Crimea has proven an economic albatross to Russia. The Soviet Empire disintegrated in 1991 because the costs of occupying and subsidizing Eastern and Central Europe were prohibitive. President Vladimir Putin is losing money and men to support Syrian President al-Assad in exchange for the fleeting and juvenile thrill of projecting power for its own sake. The United States loses nothing by inaction. Thus, after we refused to rescue South Vietnamese President Thieu from defeat by North Vietnam in 1975, sixteen years later the USSR—our arch-enemy—fell without our firing a single shot. We were left as the sole superpower in the world in large measure through masterly inactivity.

4. Lie Number 4: If Aleppo succumbs to President Al-Assad and President Putin, international terrorism against the United States will spiral. This is nonsense on stilts. Assad and Putin are enemies, not allies, of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Their takeover of Aleppo would be a setback for international terrorism. President Reagan withdrew our troops from Lebanon in 1984 after the Hezbollah terrorist attack on our Marine barracks in Beirut, but no spike in international terrorism against us ensued.

5. Lie Number 5: The credibility of the United States as the leader and defender of the free world will be devastated. This argument if the last refuge of a scoundrel eager to risk the lives and fortunes of others to gratify a craving for power or domination. Our withdrawal from Vietnam made us stronger, not weaker. Ditto for Lebanon. The argument’s premise is also flawed. As the United States Constitution and patriotism require, we pursue self-interest abroad like all other nations. Freedom is made subservient to Realpolitik. We have sold a staggering $90 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia in recent years despite its oppressive monarchy, military intervention in Bahrain to suppress freedom, and war crimes in Yemen. We recognize the dictatorial People’s Republic of China at the expense of the democratic Republic of China on Taiwan. We are snug with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi despite his totalitarian methods. Other examples are endless.

Read a bit more about these lies……Source: Five Stupendous Lies Told By Buglers for Military Intervention in Syria | Huffington Post

One more thing…..the US spy master has waded into the fray and commented on Clinton’s pet solution to the problem in Syria…..thew No-Fly Zone…….

A proposal backed by Hillary Clinton could cause Russia to lash out and shoot down American planes over Syria, the nation’s top intelligence official said on Tuesday.

Clinton has repeatedly called for a no-fly zone to halt the chaos in Syria and prevent Russian and Syrian government forces from launching air strikes on the war-torn country, in a break with the Obama administration’s policy.

But doing so could trigger a backlash from Russia that might put Americans at risk, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said.

“I’m not a mind reader, but I do take seriously the very sophisticated air defense system and air defense coverage that the Russians have,” Clapper said at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Maybe now would be a good time to go back to the drawing board, Mrs. Clinton.

The New “Commander-In-Chief”

We will soon go to the polls and vote for the one person that we trust to be out new commander-in-chief……but in this day and age do we need a commander-in-chief?

Maybe it’s the phrase — “Commander in Chief” — that best captures the transcendent absurdity and unaddressed horrors of the 2016 election season and the business as usual that will follow.

I don’t want to elect anyone commander in chief: not the xenophobic misogynist and egomaniac, not the Henry Kissinger acolyte and Libya hawk. The big hole in this democracy is not the candidates; it’s the bedrock, founding belief that the rest of the world is our potential enemy, that war with someone is always inevitable and only a strong military will keep us safe.

Source: Commander In Chief: Not Needed – LA Progressive

The voter needs to wake up top the fact that we are in a perpetual war footing…..we need to find a way to take ourselves out of this ever expanding equation…..all in all it is a world gone mad……(good title for an article)……

The relentless drumbeat against Donald Trump continues. The Washington Post on October 14 endorsed Hillary Clinton for president while also including in the print edition nine articles, three op-eds, and three letters blasting the GOP candidate, including pieces in the Style and Metro sections of the paper. On the following day there were five articles, a lead editorial, three letters, two op-eds, and two cartoons. And the Post is not alone, with the New York Times doing its bit in running news articles on Trump’s alleged sexual proclivities while the television media continue to run with the stories relating to earlier revelations. When Trump raised the possibility that all of this activity is being coordinated and possibly in part fabricated by the Clinton campaign, he was castigated for even suggesting such a thing.

More disturbing, in my opinion, is the role the White House has been playing in the drama. President Barack Obama has been active in speaking for Hillary and damning Trump, describing the GOP candidate as both unfit for office and lacking in the experience necessary to become head of state. There is a certain irony in Obama’s assertions, as he himself entered office as probably the least experienced president of the past hundred years, but it is the White House’s taking the lead in an electoral campaign that is at a minimum troubling. Traditionally, the president as head of state should be above the fray, as he is paid and empowered by the people to run the country, not to campaign for his successor. It is to be presumed that the Democratic National Committee foots the bill when Obama engages in campaign whistle-stops, but one has to wonder if that includes all the infrastructure costs involved in moving the president from place to place. And, undoubtedly, it would be difficult to winnow out costs when Obama combines campaigning and his official duties.

Source: A World Gone Mad | The American Conservative

Your vote can decide whether the world continues to go mad or if sanity can return of our foreign affairs……

Me?  I’m thinking Green!