One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.
The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.
Similar scenarios will unfold all over the country in coming months. Those who don’t understand business have no business writing law that effect business outcomes…what a colossal mess!
One of the first items to be revealed in the latest round of wikiLeaks:
“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme, according to leaked US diplomatic cables that describe how other Arab allies have secretly agitated for military action against Tehran. The revelations, in secret memos from US embassies across the Middle East, expose behind-the-scenes pressures in the scramble to contain the Islamic Republic, which the US, Arab states and Israel suspect is close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Bombing Iranian nuclear facilities has hitherto been viewed as a desperate last resort that could ignite a far wider war.” – “Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran to stop nuclear programme,” by Ian Black and Simon Tisdall – Guardian (UK)
Who was it that got in trouble for singing “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb…Bomb, Bomb Iran”?
By now you’ve probably read about Somali born Mohamed Osman Mohamud. He’s the latest homegrown terrorist to fancy himself as a destroyer for Allah. Portland Oregon was the site of his deadly plot and the time and place were chosen in part for religious symbolism; what a spectacular show a car bomb would make when it blew up several thousand Oregonians attending a Christmas tree lighting event! One of his remarks to FBI agents pretty much sums up this man’s state of mind:
“Do you remember when 9/11 happened when those people were jumping from skyscrapers? I thought that was awesome.”
As it turns out Mohamud wasn’t at all worried about being discovered and why would he be? The totally PC City of Portland decided shortly after 9/11 to opt out of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force training for law enforcement officers.. It’s also been a favored opinion that big east coast cities were targets but not friendly, welcoming cities like Portland! Mohamud took that sentiment to heart in planing his deadly scheme:
“People say, you know, why, anybody want to do something in Portland, you know, it’s on the west coast, it’s in Oregon, and Oregon’s, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it.”
The citizens of Portland imagined that they could turn a blind eye to the Islamist enemy. Thanks to good work by the FBI they have been spared a lesson learned the hard way by the enemy living amongst them.
Posted by Tina
Without firing a shot someone has created havoc and put a temporary stop on Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. The intruder makes for fascinating reading:
Intelligence agencies, computer security companies and the nuclear industry have been trying to analyze the worm since it was discovered in June by a Belarus-based company that was doing business in Iran. And what they’ve all found, says Sean McGurk, the Homeland Security Department’s acting director of national cyber security and communications integration, is a “game changer.”
The construction of the worm was so advanced, it was “like the arrival of an F-35 into a World War I battlefield,” says Ralph Langner, the computer expert who was the first to sound the alarm about Stuxnet. Others have called it the first “weaponized” computer virus.
Simply put, Stuxnet is an incredibly advanced, undetectable computer worm that took years to construct and was designed to jump from computer to computer until it found the specific, protected control system that it aimed to destroy: Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.
Now, who do you suppose had the chuzpah to do this?
Here’s one almost too controversial for our hometown newspaper:
Liberals allow you to do more things, they want progress and conservatives cling to old fashion ideas that have outlived their usefulness. They’re stuck in tradition with no original ideas. It is the liberal thinker that inspires us to be more and achieve greater! This is the knee-jerk response those on the left want you to think, but is it really true? Let us examine how lib-er-al liberals really are… and lets measure their deeds, not their words.
The Democratic Party in America is the iconic symbol for liberalism so it’s logical that we should look at their history first. The rise of the party was in the early 1800’s and they were the side that championed slave ownership and violently opposed the emancipation proclamation. What’s so liberal about that? Well, maybe they were not quite ready to wear that noble mantle of a progressive, inspired liberal. Let’s move forward to the turn of the 20th century and see how they are evolving?
The President of the United States is now the former President of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson. He’s the self declared leader of the progressive movement and when war breaks out in Europe he does what liberals do, he follows his pacifist ideals and we stay neutral. Afterall, war is unhealthy for birds and trees and other living things, right? So Wilson declines to side with Britain and France who are locked in a deadly stalemate with Germany and her allies and the war drags on and on. America is finally compelled by self interests and an attack on a passenger ship that killed a number of our citizens to enter the war in 1918. This was at a time when the heavy losses was overcoming both sides and we made the critical difference for peace by projecting America’s power . Within 12 months the war was over.
It should be noted that when we joined the war President Wilson immediately took exception to the first amendment and suspended free speech. There was to be no criticism of his administration, no idle chatter critical of the war even among individuals, lest they pay a fine equal to $170,000 in today’s money and risk up to 20 years in prison.
Can you imagine that if you were an antiwar protestor in 1918 you would be instantly labeled anti-American? The greatest liberal of the day brought you that and now protesters were subversives and subject to severe penalties!
Wilson demanded and obtained two acts be passed by Congress restraining free speech and redefining sedition and treason. The two sedition acts forbade the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. The new laws also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver any mail he suspected that might meet those same standards. Of course, this only applied to times “when the United States is in war, but in his day over 1000 war dissenters were convicted an imprisoned. No doubt, Wilson would have jailed tens of thousands during the Vietnam War or thousands more during the Iraq war.
Wilson also brought us the progressive income tax that was only to be kept until the debt from World War I was paid off or so we were told. That has been one of the biggest drains on wealth ever and it’s allowed government to grow beyond all expectations of our founding fathers. It has been the vehicle to pass more regulations, laws and add layer upon layer of bureaucracy. Moreover, with each new law, each new regulation a little more freedom is eroded away forever as government increases its authority over us. And a liberal did it to us.
Skipping forward a few more years to the Great Depression, we find another progressive democrat on his way to historic prominence because of fear and crisis.
In 1930 he was promising to create jobs, bailout industries and even guarantee us an old age pension for every American. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who served four terms as President. He brought us the Keynesian formula for economic recovery and spent the nation’s wealth on farm subsidies, government work projects, pork projects and he raised trade tariffs by 50% that started a trade war. This had the unfortunate effect of forcing a sharp decline in American exports. The hardest hit because of this protectionist policy were those whom least could afford it, our small farms. Their exports virtually stopped overnight and this caused many American farmers to default on their loans leading to even more defaults on rural banks. Historians would later use this to characterize the early years of the Great Depression. Roosevelt failed time after time to ever spend enough on government programs to raise America out of depression, that is, until world war two began.
The forwarding of emails without some research is contributing to a credibility factor of the sender as well as the subject. People will read an email from someone and agree with content without any research and send it off to others who in turn repeat the process.
Eventually someone will research the facts, and delete the email which has actually given more dubious credibility to the subject enclosed, and just caused proponents to use any information as reported on the subject by the email in effort to disguise the truth and factual information on the subject.
If your research proves it to be a spoof or convoluted then consider returning it to your original sender with a link to the facts as you find them, and a even polite note stating this was what you found and thought they might like to review it and resend it to those who received the first one. I would suggest any email that seems ‘too good to be true’ or inflammatory be checked for fact. Then if its correct send it on to those you think would benefit from the article.
If nothing else people doing this meaningful act could help clear up a lot of misinformation, and some of that information I believe to be intentionally generated by the discussed subject in an attempt to confuse real facts once uncovered.
We have enough media bias, ‘TV or print with opinions’ being reported verse the story’s actual facts. Think about how many times we hear ‘this information is just coming in’ and you have to recognize than it is less then credible, but timely enough to help the broadcast ratings. Again, the end result is too many people making decisions or giving opinions based on misinformation, which obviously causes mistakes. I would encourage everyone to take some time and investigate emails prior to passing them on, All of us will still occasionally make errors but we can reduce the amount of them with a bit of effort
As we gather with family and friends to give thanks and celebrate our Heritage and good fortune we at Post Scripts take a moment to wish each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving…Jack, Steve and Tina
Posted by Tina
The following story is appropriate for the eve of Thanksgiving as we all prepare to give thanks for our many blessings. It comes to us via IBD’s Investors.com and it features a man whose values and heart match those of the freedom fighters who won our independence as well as those who continue in the fight to this day.
Don Alejo Garza Tamen is a Mexican whose home was on the border in Mexico. I hope you’ll read about this gentleman’s last stand in the article, “Don Alejo’s Stand” – Investors.com:
Resistance hasn’t been common in Mexico, where gun ownership is banned and the state is charged with protecting people.
The public and media rapidly recognized Garza for a hero, and the story stirred the country. Garza drew attention because he died defending so much of what is under attack in Mexico.
God bless this brave land owner for standing up for his rights.
Americans believe in justice for all people but we don’t like being taken for a ride. When our own government acts as an agent for those who seek to scam the public the intolerance level rises considerably. Unless something is done taxpayers will be on the hook for billion or so of our hard earned bucks.
The original case, Pigford vs. Glickman, was a class action suit brought against the USDA for discrimination against black farmers who had applied for loans. One billion dollars has already been paid out to over 16,000 people. Now quesions are being raised about the validity fo these cases which have greatly increased in recent years. At a time when caution and careful examination would make sense legislation, conceived by Eric Holder and Tom Vilsack, is instead making its way through Congress to grant additional payouts to claimants without the trouble and bother of a determination through the courts. This poses a very big problem. The Daily Caller has the scoop:
Despite numerous allegations of fraud, the Senate approved legislation by a voice vote Friday to fund. $1.15 billion worth of settlements to black farmers who claim the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against them.
The legislation now makes its way to the House, where Republican Reps. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Steve King of Iowa, and Bob Goodlatte of Virginia have made it clear that they will be pushing hard to prevent its passage and will be calling for investigations into every claim prior to allowing any payoffs.
Much of the cause for concern is the fact that there have been vastly more claims of discrimination than there are even black farmers in America. Sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by the president of the National Black Farmers Association, John Boyd, put the number of black farmers in America at 18,000.
To date, more than 94,000 individuals have filed discrimination claims.
This legislation should be stopped immediately and all claims should be investigated with criminal charges brought where fraud has been committed.
Do you know what an EMP is, as in an EMP bomb? Great, then you’re one of the few that does, but for the rest of us let me explain. It’s an “electro-magnetic pulse” and EMP’s come from a highly specialized bomb that delivers magnetic radiation that can fry electrical circuits, but does little else to humans, animals or buildings.
An EMP is a common occurence in nature. When it happens we call it a CME event or a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME’s come from our sun – see photo on left). Just think of it as a solar storm of sorts. A moderately large event could take out half or more of all geosynchronous satellites and not just GPS. No more satellite navigation and for many of us no more cable TV..that would be a fate worse than death!So why should should we get our shorts in a bunch over something that is hardly likely to EVER happen, right? Well, heeeeere’s why: It’s actually likely to happen and probably not all that far into our future! This could be a mega-Katrina and spell the deaths of hundreds of millions..
In the scope of 12 months our population could be reduced by 225 million.
But, before we get into sun storms and what we can do about it, lets take a brief look back to the 70’s when the Russians tested both nuclear and non-nuclear EMP bombs on all sorts of electrical things. They were the first to realize the full potential of an EMP airburst from a fairly small nuclear device. Such a blast produces enough electromagnetism that it could knock out all the electrical devices for hundreds of miles. A slightly larger device (typically a nuke, but could be a conventional explosive) and at a slightly higher altitude could knock out even more. A really large device at high altitude could knock out the entire power grid on the entire North American continent. However, it would not cause any immediate deaths or destroy any structures. It all starts as a simple power outage. It’s a silent event and at first hardly anyone would be alarmed, the nas the hours ticked by and there was no restart and no emergency personnel people would begin to get a little worried. Now take this a whole month forward and imagine the fear, stress and panic. An EMP blast or major CME would immediately wreak havoc on the inner workings of vital electrical devices – we would be helpless one second later.
Got a little nest egg put away in the bank, either in the form of a bank account or in the safety deposit box? Good luck trying to get it if an large EMP or CME hits us. All records are stored electronically these days. The bank vaults couldn’t be opened without a power source and imagine the chaos of people trying to get their valuables out of the bank’s vault?
Scary huh? But, that’s not the whole story! You see, right now Iran, North Korea, China and Russia have all demonstrated they can build and detonate an EMP weapon over almost any place on earth. Currently Iran is the one to watch. They are the most motivated to something that stupid thanks to their fanatical leadership that doesn’t fear retaliation because Allah is on their side.
You say, hey if they tried to get us with some EMP bomb we would make short work of them with a real military strike that would do a lot more damage than EMP’s. Mmmm..well, maybe and maybe not. We might be able to retaliate with some submarine nukes located near them, but most of our arsenal at home would be knocked out of action for a time, some for a long time. So, it wouldn’t be the massive response you might like to think. And would we really use a nuke to respond to an EMP bomb where no lives were lost? Probably not. We might not even know who delivered it.
Consider this – If an EMP weapon was to knock out our power grid in the USA and Canada and most of Mexico, scientist estimate that in 12 months time 90% of our population would die. That’s right 90%. It’s estimated that 98% of all our electrical devices are currently not shielded and once fried it would be years before we could get them back up. Where do you get your water, from a well, right? And water is pumped to you by electricity. And how do grocery stores get food on the shelves and how is food made in our factories, that’s right, everything depends on electricity and all that would come to a sudden nationwide halt!
Tell me, how many of you have more than a month’s worth of food in your home in case of an emergency? About 2-3% is the latest DoD guess, so at least 98% of us are not prepared for a month without power let alone 12 months or even longer without power for basic services. Can you last 12 months without power of any kind, competing with others who are starving to death?
But, even if you say the chances of Iran or somebody else detonating an EMP bomb over America is extremely slight, then what about the biggest EMP generator of all, our sun? Every day the sun’s ejecta causes CME storms that produce vast amounts of magnetic radiation that strikes the earth and If it were not for our own magnetic shield that blanket’s the earth we would be exposed to enough current almost any day of the week to fry circuits on half the planet and in a matter of seconds! This would be an event that would virtually shut down all essential power sources and send us back to the horse and buggy days in an instant.
Some day the sun will produce a large enough discharge at just the right moment that we will find ourselves at just the wrong place at just the wrong time and not even our magnetic shield will save us then. This is not a matter of if, but when. Fortunately we’ll know in advance if such a storm is headed our way, but unfortunately we’ll only have about 8 minutes notice to take emergency action. So whatever the plan we better be quick about it so we can save what we can.
Our government knows all this and they have heard scientists testify in Congress about the probabilities of an EMP bomb hitting us or being in the wake of CME storm so large that it would knock out satellites and fry everything from toasters to computers over thousands of square miles in a massive voltage overload. They know and they have known all these potential risks for close to 30 years or more. And I’ll bet you’re saying well, that’s a good thing, right? They probably have shielded a lot of our critical infrastructure, right? RIGHT? Nope, not even close friends – they’ve decided to roll the dice year after year and simply do. . . nothing. Oh, sure some of the power plants around D.C. have been protected, so at least our dear leaders and their secretaries will have a safe place to hide and shall be among the 10% of survivors, but for the rest of us we are left to fend for ourselves. But, you will have to consolation of knowing our leaders will be safe. And for us peons left alone in the dark it’s Mad Max time, better lock and load and board up the windows angry looters are headed your way. Now you’re getting a better idea of why only 10% of us are likely to survive after a year.
It is almost impossible to visualize all that would come to a complete halt if we were hit by a huge EMP, man-made or from a natural cause. Instantly, no radio, no television, no lights, no air conditioning, no heat, no cars, almost nothing moviing. Only those with a diesel engine and then they would have to be hand cranked to start. Gas stations would shut down and hospitals might as well close their doors. No police, no fire, no FEMA, just us. And to complicate matters further all those big power generators that form our power grid would need specialized parts to restart. Where do we get them? Most of the stuff for power plants are not even made in the United States anymore, we’ve outsourced all that. Maybe our dear friends the Chinese would be glad to come to our rescue…for a price?
