I Pledge Allegiance, to the Constitution, of the United States of America...
Now doesn't that make more sense, folks?
This thought came to me yesterday as I was scrolling down Face Book posts and comments.and came upon one dealing with the question of whether starting each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance was appropriate.
Funny... it's taken me more than 51 years... but for whatever reason... it "clicked" yesterday. The "problem" with "The Pledge" isn't centered upon free expression or even patriotism. No. The true PROBLEM with "The Pledge" is that the PLEDGE... the ALLEGIANCE... is being given to a symbol of government, not to the underpinning of government... the one and only foundation of LEGITIMATE government.
Apparently I'm not the only one who understands this! My childhood friend and fellow Face Book political agitator Sandy Smith Drayton sent me the following link. (Give it a read!)
10 comments:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/health-insurance-marketplaces-signing-up-few-uninsured-americans-surveys-say/2014/03/06/cdae3152-a54d-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_print.html
The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway so far in signing up Americans who lack health insurance, the Affordable Care Act’s central goal.
* SUPPOSEDLY THE ACT'S "CENTRAL GOAL." IN REALITY... THE WHOLE POINT OF OBAMACARE WAS TO SO DAMAGE AND DISABLE THE SYSTEM THAT EXISTED THAT THE LEFT WOULD BE ABLE TO SWITCH OUT OBAMACARE FOR OUTRIGHT SINGLE PAYER... SOCIALIZED MEDICINE... UNDER THE GUISE OF "WE HAVE NO CHOICE."
A pair of surveys released on Thursday suggest that just one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private health plans through the new marketplace have signed up for one — and that about half of uninsured adults has looked for information on the online exchanges or plans to look.
One of the surveys, by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., shows that, of people who had signed up for coverage through the marketplaces by last month, just one-fourth described themselves as having been without insurance for most of the past year.
The survey also attempted to gauge what has been another fuzzy matter: how many of the people actually have the insurance for which they signed up. Under federal rules, coverage begins only if someone has started to pay their monthly insurance premiums. And, the survey show, that just over half of uninsured people said they had started to pay, compared with nearly nine in 10 of those signing up on the exchanges who said they were simply switching from one health plan to another.
The second survey, by researchers at the Urban Institute and based on slightly older data from December, shows that awareness of the new marketplaces is fairly widespread but that lower-income Americans and those who are uninsured are less likely to know about this new avenue to health coverage than other people.
So far, of 14 states that are operating their own insurance exchanges, instead of relying on the federal one, only New York has given any indication about how many uninsured people are signing up. Last month, the NY State of Health, the state’s marketplace, reported that 70% of the half-million people who had enrolled since it opened in October were uninsured at the time they signed up.
The McKinsey survey, its fourth since late November to measure the behavior of Americans in the new insurance marketplaces, is based on a national sample of about 2,100 people. It shows that 27% of people who had bought coverage by early February had been uninsured, compared with 11% a month earlier.
It defined uninsured people as those who qualify for private health plans sold through the exchanges. It does not include anyone who is uninsured and has an income low enough that they qualify for Medicaid, a public insurance program that is being expanded under the law in about half the states. The Urban Institute survey includes people eligible for Medicaid in its definition of the uninsured. McKinsey’s survey also includes people who bought insurance outside the new marketplaces.
Asked at a conference on Thursday how many Americans are buying insurance on their own, apart from the new marketplaces, Gary Cohen, the outgoing director of CMS’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said that federal health officials have not yet tried to collect such information. “I think it is a really important question because obviously the goal is to get as many people insured as possible,” Cohen said.
The McKinsey survey also found, as it had during the previous few months, that, of people who are uninsured and do not intend to get a health plan through the marketplaces, the biggest factor is that they believe they could not afford one.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/terrorism-security/2014/0306/NATO-airstrike-that-kills-Afghan-soldiers-deals-fresh-blow-to-ties
A NATO airstrike on Thursday morning killed at least five Afghan soldiers and injured at least eight others in a tragic incident of friendly fire that is likely to further inflame the battered Washington-Kabul relations.
Based on preliminary reports, the airstrike appears to have been conducted without request from the Afghan troops, the Washington Post reported, citing a Logar Afghan military spokesman.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/170026
Americans should celebrate fracking. By unleashing production of unconventional hydrocarbons, fracking has catapulted the U.S. from being a has-been producer of oil to the world’s largest total supplier in 2013 when we include natural gas liquids, biofuels, and crude oil.
(*APPLAUSE*)
The U.S. produced around an average of 12.1 million barrels a day of these liquids, 300,000 barrels a day more than Saudi Arabia and 1.6 million more than Russia, the previous leaders.
(*STANDING OVATION*)
This increase in U.S. output has not been matched since 1940 when the country was blessed with flush new primary production from oil fields in Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
* AND LO AND BEHOLD, ALL THOSE STATES ARE HABITABLE TO THIS VERY DAY!
Shale-gas production from the Bakken Formation in North Dakota, the Eagle Ford Formation in Texas, and the Marcellus Formation that crosses parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York now accounts for 44% of total U.S. natural gas output, and eventually could account for nearly 70%.
* AS TIME "THE TOOL MAN" TAYLOR USED TO GROWL, "MORE POWER!"
The hydrocarbon boom in the U.S. is driven by fracking. Hydraulic fracking is a technique whereby water mixed typically with sand and chemicals is injected with high pressure into non-permeable hydrocarbon-bearing geologic formations to create small fractures that are held open with small grains of sand. These fissures allow otherwise-locked hydrocarbons to flow to the well. Horizontal drilling is used to access oil and gas deposits away from the main vertical well.
This combination of fracking and horizontal drilling accounts for vast new production of shale (tight) gas, shale (tight) oil, and coal-seam gas. It has been a game changer by releasing hydrocarbons from rock formations 5,000 to 20,000 below the earth’s surface where there is little permeability or reservoir pressure to allow hydrocarbons to flow to conventional wells. Absent fracking, these oil and gas deposits would not be economic, but with it, they have become sources of a new bonanza for the country and the world.
* AND YET GAS PRICES AT THE PUMP ARE STILL OUTRAGEOUS...
* IN ANY CASE, FOLKS, THIS IS ACTUALLY JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF A LONGER ARTICLE ON THE HISTORY AND SCIENCE OF FRACKING... THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT OF FRACKING. I SUGGEST YOU FIND TIME TO READ IT.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/NASA-Admits-to-Selling-Discount-Fuel-to-Google-Execs-248922181.html
NASA now acknowledges what NBC Bay Area's Investigative Team first uncovered last year - that the government agency has been effectively giving a price break on jet fuel to a private company.
In a letter to an Iowa senator (PDF), NASA’s associate administrator for legislative and intergovernmental affairs admits the agency was selling jet fuel at below market rates to H2-11, a company owned by the founders of Google.
* AND... WHY EXACTLY WERE THEY DOING THIS...???
Senator Chuck Grassley says he received the letter on Thursday although it's dated Feb. 24. In the letter, NASA's Seth Statler writes, “in light of the concerns expressed with those agreements, NASA has reviewed its pricing approach and…is now charging a ‘market rate’ for aviation fuel at Ames research center.”
Last September, NBC Bay Area examined seven years of fuel records from 2007 through 2013. According to those records, NASA sold to H2-11 discounted jet fuel that was then used to fly a private 757, a 767 and 5 other luxury aircraft all over the world. H2-11’s principle owners are the same as Google's: Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.
* WHO AT NASA AUTHORIZED THIS...??? HIS OR HER NAME...???
According to the fuel records, H2-11 purchased jet fuel for prices ranging from $2.37 to $3.20 a gallon. At nearby local airports, the exact same jet fuel goes for between $5 and $8.50 per gallon.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
According to the inspector general’s report, the discount fuel saved Google’s principals between $3.3 million and $5.3 million since H2-11 was able to purchase the taxpayer subsidized fuel at Ames.
Senator Grassley has been a vocal critic on Capitol Hill of this arrangement between NASA and H2-11. He says, “It’s good news that NASA finally heeded my calls and scrutiny from the media and acknowledged its fuel pricing was wrong.
* BUT... BUT... BUT...
Like all agencies, NASA is responsible for getting the most bang for the taxpayer’s buck.”
* BUT INSTEAD SOMEONE AUTHORIZED JUST THE OPPOSITE POLICY! WHO...?!?! AND WHY ISN'T THAT PERSON - OR PERSONS - AWAITING TRAIL...?!?!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/bill-clinton-cashes-in-on-nonprofit-hospital/?page=all#pagebreak
Bill Clinton accepted a $225,000 speaking fee from the "non-profit" Washington Hospital Center (one of a number of tax-exempt organizations that have paid big money to hear the former president talk) smack in the middle of two big rounds of layoffs in 2012.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
The $225,000 payment wasn’t made public by the hospital on its annual Internal Revenue Service forms...
(*SMIRK*)
...but rather appeared among dozens of lucrative speeches by Mr. Clinton reported on his wife’s final ethics filing as secretary of state.
“No disrespect to Bill Clinton, but that money could’ve gone a long way and been put to better use,” said Dan Fields Jr., president of the Service Employees International Union Local 722 representing hospital workers.
* WHAT... A... SCUMBAG...
“Our contract expires on June 30, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to come to the table and talk about how they’re losing money, so this concerns me greatly.”
Analysts say it’s not unusual for non-profit organizations to hire big-name celebrities for conferences or fundraising efforts...
* SHOULDN'T IT BE, FOLKS? SHOULDN'T IT BE...???
(*SIGH*)
...but the fees are rarely disclosed in the annual IRS filings where organizations provide detailed reports on their profits, losses, executive salaries and other expenditures.
Former President George W. Bush was a keynote speaker at the same conference this year, but a hospital spokeswoman said she could not disclose a fee because of a contractual arrangement with his speakers bureau.
* AND IF HE ACCEPTED BIG BUCKS THAN HE'S A SCUMBAG TOO!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The hospital’s payment to Mr. Clinton would have gone unnoticed had it not come to light in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s latest financial disclosure form, which reported the dates and amounts of dozens of speeches by Mr. Clinton in 2012.
“There’s enough ambiguity in how these things are reported that it could be reported in places where there’s no requirement for a breakout,” said Marcus Owens, former director of the IRS exempt organization division. He said non-profit groups could classify big speaking fees and fundraising or educational expenses.
* FOLKS... IT'S ALL A GAME! IT'S ALL ABOUT PULLING FAST ONES ON REGULAR SCHMUCKS WHO DON'T HAVE LOOPHOLES AND SHELTERS AND OTHER SCUMBAG WAYS OF AVOIDING "THEIR FAIR SHARE" OF TAXES. ("NON-PROFIT" MY ASS; IT'S JUST HOW THE MONEY IS DISTRIBUTED - AND TO WHO - THAT THE PHONY TAG "NON-PROFIT" IS PINNED UPON.)
“It’s not unusual for charities to pay speakers. It may not be common to pay that much, but it would depend on the context,” said tax analyst John Colombo, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law.
* THE "CONTEXT" IS OBVIOUSLY THAT BILL CLINTON IS A PIECE OF SHIT.
The hospital is hardly the only 501(c)(3) organization to shell out big money to hear Mr. Clinton speak. The Naples Philharmonic Center in Florida paid Mr. Clinton $200,000. Later, the non-profit filed IRS forms showing that it lost $338,000 in overall revenue of about $24 million that same year.
* TELL ME AGAIN HOW VIOLENCE ISN'T THE ANSWER...
Another organization listed on Mrs. Clinton’s ethics form, the Bushnell Center, shelled out a six-figure check to Mr. Clinton. IRS forms show it reported a $1.8 million deficit during the same tax year it hired the former president.
* FOLKS... THE CORRUPTION IS SO BLATANT... THE CONTEMPT SO OUT IN THE OPEN...
(*SIGH*)
Mr. Clinton’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday.
For the most part, there is little price differential in the cost of speeches that Mr. Clinton gave at non-profits versus those at corporations such as Goldman Sachs, American Express and Fidelity Investments. One exception was the Salvation Army of Tulsa, which in May 2009 paid Mr. Clinton $115,000 — significantly less than his typical price tag of $200,000 or more, according to Mrs. Clinton’s ethics filings.
* WHAT A "NICE" GUY BILL WAS... ACCEPTING A "MEASLY" $115,000 FOR GIVING WHAT... A HALF-HOUR SPEECH... A HALF-DAY TOTAL COMMITMENT OF HIS TIME FROM ARRIVAL TO DEPARTURE?
* FOLKS... I'M LITERALLY SICK TO MY STOMACH THINKING ABOUT IT.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton has been following her husband into the lucrative speaking circuit. The New York Times reported last year that she is likely to earn about $200,000 per speech while being represented by the same firm that handles her husband’s speaking engagements.
* YA KNOW WHAT, FOLKS... I WOULD LIKE TO SEE "DUBYA vs. WJC," "DUBYA vs. HRC," (EVEN THROW OL' JIMMY CARTER IN THE MIX) TO SEE IF THERE'S A MEANINGFUL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOW MUCH OF A GREEDY SCUMBAG EACH HAS BEEN. I'D BET THE CLINTONS ARE THE WORST! (HOW'BOUT YOU...?)
But the speaking circuit doesn’t come without risk. In 2008, The Washington Times reported that Mr. Clinton had earned $700,000 by selling stock he was given for a speech in 2004 for a private Internet start-up called Accoona Corp., which turned out to be co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, records showed.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://news.yahoo.com/western-countries-alarmed-libya-slides-towards-chaos-080340892.html;_ylt=Av6NAUyExbmyUCPaTdMZpz_QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBsZGRwY2R1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNzcg--
Western countries voiced concern on Thursday that tensions in Libya could slip out of control in the absence of a functioning political system...
* GREAT JOB BARACK AND HILLARY!
With violent disputes between rival tribal factions disrupting exports of Libyan oil the lack of a stable political foundation is causing growing concern for energy-hungry western countries, several of which were involved in overthrowing the Gaddafi government.
* YES... I DO RECALL...
(*SMIRK*)
* SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... NAME ONE FOREIGN POLICY SITUATION THAT OBAMA HASN'T SCREWED UP.
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/23/is-obama-turning-america-into-france.html
In American politics, perhaps the worst accusation you can level against a Democratic politician is the suggestion that she is trying to turn America into Europe.
No, wait, that’s not the worst accusation. The worst accusation against any Democratic politician is that she wants to turn America into France.
Supporters of said politician typically respond with those accusations with outrage. And making such an accusation typically gives you away you as the kind of unhinged Tea Party type who wouldn’t recognize a French person if she wore a beret and carried a comically oversized baguette.
Of course Obama isn’t turning America into France!
And yet... and yet...
As a French person who finds much to like in America’s policy mix and much to dislike in my own country’s, I can’t help but shake a feeling that Obama’s policies are turning America into France. And not in the good way.
France’s healthcare system can be legitimately awesome.
* IT CAN BE! IT REALLY CAN BE! FRANCE'S SYSTEM IS A MIXED SYSTEM... (BUT BACK TO THE ARTICLE...)
But ObamaCare certainly won’t turn the U.S. healthcare system into a French-style wonderland. But ObamaCare, and other Obama policies, just might import French-style mass unemployment to the U.S.
* "MIGHT?" IT ALREADY HAS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Distressingly often, when you meet a successful French entrepreneur and ask him (and it is almost always a him) how many employees he has, he will say “Forty-nine full-time” with a wink. That is because once a company hits 50 full-time employees, all sorts of onerous regulations (like mandatory workers’ councils) start to apply to it. So many companies stay under that threshold, even though they could probably go higher, and make do with temporary workers.
That’s just one example of the thicket of well-intentioned regulations that leave France with low growth, mass unemployment, and a lumpen proletariat of temporary workers.
Well, ObamaCare mandates that companies give their workers healthcare coverage or face a fine - that is to say, companies with more than 50 full-time workers. Do you see where I’m getting at?
* YEP...
One way to get around that mandate is to fiddle around the definition of “full-time” and give workers less hours, as Megan has written. This is already bad for workers, employment and growth. But it’s not hard at all to imagine that over time, if business owners feel the mandate is too onerous (and many have adamantly insisted that it is), they would just limit their business to 49 workers. Already staffing companies are preparing for an expansion of domestic outsourcing as businesses seek to cut down on expensive full-time employment.
Another example from ObamaCare is the requirement that chain restaurants and food vendors with more than 20 locations display caloric content on their food and menus. Want to add one more location to your restaurant chain? Well, you have to redo all your menus and displays and signs. That’s an implicit tax on business growth. It’s not a big tax. It’s not the biggest deal in the world. But these countless regulations have a way of piling up. It’s not clear where the line is between can-do America and stultifying France, but it’s clear which direction America is headed in.
(*SIGH*)
The small business lobby in America is very strong, and this has led to a situation where most federal regulations on business only apply after a certain threshold of employees. It sounds commonsensical - and in many cases it probably is - but all these regulations together add up to a situation where, while things are easier for small businesses, it becomes harder to grow a small business. And job growth comes not from “small business”, but the small minority of fast-growing small businesses. Just the kind that 10% unemployment, mandatory workers’ councils France lacks, and just the kind that America has historically been so awesome at producing.
* RE-READ THE ABOVE IS NECESSARY...
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Another serious problem in France where America has always been better has been the ability of young adults to be independent early. The cultural ideal is that once children graduate high school, they will move away for college, and after a short four years of study, move away somewhere else to get a job. Now ObamaCare mandates that children can stay on their parents’ insurance until their 26th birthday. It’s a “cheap” way to expand health insurance coverage, and it will almost certainly make a serious positive difference to the lives of many people. But it also noticeably moves the needle toward a place where children stay dependent on their parents well into their mid-twenties, as in Europe.
(And in America the situation is worsened by the problem of student debt. A situation where young adults keep sucking on the parental teat well into their twenties is bad not just for the economy but creates widespread social malaise - just look at the history of student protests in France.)
It’s not just ObamaCare. Perhaps the most worrisome report of the presidential campaign, which went mainly unnoticed outside fringe right-wing media (and therefore easier to dismiss), was that the White House leaned on Lockheed Martin to delay layoffs until after the campaign was over. This was a painful flashback to the French presidential campaign, when Nicolas Sarkozy flashily bullied almost every large French company into halting layoffs during his re-election campaign.
* I BELIEVE THE UNDERLYING CONCEPT IS CALL FASCISM... GOVERNMENT ULTIMATELY BEING THE CONTROLLING ENGINE OF PRIVATE INDUSTRY WHEREVER AND WHENEVER GOVERNMENT SO CHOSES TO EXERCISE SUCH POWER (DEPENDENT UPON ITS MONOPLOY ON THE USE OF FORCE).
Beyond the crass politics of it, what is at play here is an extremely worrisome weakening of the rule of law...
* WHO DOES THIS SOUND LIKE...?!?! WHO...?!?! WHO...?!?! (AND THIS IS A GENUINE FRENCH "INTELLECTUAL!")
...and expansion of the unholy nexus between Big Government and Big Business, where each scratches the other’s back.
* NOT TO PLAY THE NAZI CARD... BUT... BIG BUSINESS WAS A KEY COMPONENT OF THE COALITION WHICH PUT HITLER INTO POWER AND MORE IMPORTANTLY KEPT HIM THERE THROUGHOUT THE '30's. (ANYONE WANNA TRY AND DISPUTE THAT...???)
In France, the President hires and fires (or at least has a veto over) the leaders of a good chunk of the biggest companies in France. The exceptions (and I wish I was kidding) are the CEOs who inherited the job from their parents.
(*SNORT*)
France may be the most corporatist rich country in the world (with the possible exception of Italy), and while we can argue about how corporatist America is, it’s hard to argue that it’s grown less corporatist over the past five years. (And yes, Bush was pretty bad on that score, too.)
America currently finds itself in a place which is very strange for Americans, and very familiar to Europeans: mass unemployment, young and marginal workers struggling, government and big business expanding hand-in-hand, a nagging sense of a dimming horizon.
America’s mass unemployment ought to be cyclical - with strong pick-up growth, it can go back to pre-crisis levels. But that’s a big if and the odds are even lower with well-intentioned regulations that make it harder to hire and harder to grow a business.
So yes, at the risk of looking like one of those guys waving a placard with Lenin’s face on it and shouting “Socialism!” - the Francification of America is a real thing... and Obama is doing it.
And... it’s very bad.
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