Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, October 29, 2014
So... just got back from the gym.
Sweaty... smelly... shoulders aching... a kink in my neck...
It SUCKS getting old!
Sticking to the post-vacation diet; so far, so good. (Ate a hard-boiled egg prior to the gym; a nutrition bar directly after.) Smaller meals more often - that's the ticket. (And by "meals" I'm talking a yogurt here, some cottage cheese there; only one "main meal" per day.)
Sound mind... sound body... (Or is is sound body, sound mind...?!?!)
In any case... I'm tryin'...!
Anyway... 'nough'bout me... ON TO NEWSBITES...!!!
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http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/ebola-doctor-lied-about-his-nyc-travels-police/
The city’s first Ebola patient initially lied to authorities about his travels around the city following his return from treating disease victims in Africa, law-enforcement sources said.
Dr. Craig Spencer at first told officials that he isolated himself in his Harlem apartment — and didn’t admit he rode the subways, dined out and went bowling until cops looked at his MetroCard the sources said.
“He told the authorities that he self-quarantined. Detectives then reviewed his credit-card statement and MetroCard and found that he went over here, over there, up and down and all around,” a source said.
Spencer finally ’fessed up when a cop “got on the phone and had to relay questions to him through the Health Department,” a source said.
Officials then retraced Spencer’s steps, which included dining at The Meatball Shop in Greenwich Village and bowling at The Gutter in Brooklyn.
* FOLKS... THIS IS WHERE CRIMINAL CORPORAL PUNISHMENT WOULD BE THE PERFECT RESPONSE!
* 20 LASHES!
* PAIN! PUBLIC HUMILIATION!
* TAKING HIS LICENSE? THAT WOULD HURT SOCIETY. OBVIOUSLY HIS PROBLEM ISN'T LACK OF MEDICAL SKILL - RATHER IT'S LACK OF CHARACTER AND IN THIS CASE JUDGMENT. WHIPPING THE BASTARD WITH A LEATHER STRAP TO CAUSE PAIN... TO HUMILIATE... (NOT TO PERMANENTLY WOUND OR EVEN DISFIGURE)... I HAVE NO DOUBT THAT THIS WOULD ACT AS AN "INCENTIVE" FOR DR. SPENCER TO ADDRESS AND CORRECT HIS OWN CHARACTER FLAWS!
http://www.today.com/health/nurse-kaci-hickox-says-she-wont-obey-maines-ebola-quarantine-1D80251330
Nurse Kaci Hickox — who remains symptom-free after spending three days in a New Jersey isolation tent after flying home from Ebola-stricken West Africa — remains under quarantine at home in Maine, but for only another day, she tells TODAY's Matt Lauer.
* DOES SHE KNOW SOMETHING I DON'T...???
“I don’t plan on sticking to the guidelines. I remain appalled by these home quarantine policies that have been forced upon me, even though I am in perfectly good health and feeling strong and have been this entire time completely symptom free,” said Hickox...
* THE AUTHORITIES HAD BETTER BE PREPARED TO FORCE THIS NUT TO REMAIN UNDER QUARANTINE - VOLUNTARILY OR NOT.
“I truly believe this policy is not scientifically nor constitutionally just, and so I’m not going to sit around and be bullied around by politicians and be forced to stay in my home when I am not a risk to the American public.”
* NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU BELIEVE. YOU'RE A MORON! OF COURSE IT'S CONSTITUTIONALLY JUST! IT'S NOT A PUNISHMENT; IT'S A PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURE; CASE LAW - AND COMMON SENSE - AND INDEED THE HISTORY OF MANKIND POINTS TO THIS!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-29/nurse-kaci-hickox-says-she-won-t-follow-maine-s-ebola-quarantine.html
Governor Paul LePage said he would try to force nurse Kaci Hickox to abide by Maine’s Ebola quarantine...
* TRY...???
* TRY...?!?!
* AND, YES... THIS GUY IS A REPUBLICAN...
(*SIGH*)
“Upon learning the healthcare worker intends to defy the protocols, the Office of the Governor has been working collaboratively with the State health officials within the Department of Health and Human Services to seek legal authority to enforce the quarantine,” he said a statement. “While we certainly respect the rights of one individual, we must be vigilant in protecting 1.3 million Mainers.”
* YOU ORDER THE STATE POLICE TO ENFORCE THE QUARANTINE! (IF NECESSARY YOU ORDER THE STATE NATIONAL GUARD TO ASSIST THE STATE POLICE!)
Government officials are struggling to calm fears of contagion while not penalizing aid workers who venture to countries at the center of the still-raging epidemic.
* IT'S NOT A "PENALTY" YOU DUMB FUCKS! IT'S A LEGITIMATE - AND RESPONSIBLE - PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURE!
Good for you! David's been doing hard boiled eggs too AND, instead of nutrition bars he's using protein drinks (he gets the muscle milk powder, chocolate I think, lol). He says it really curbs his appetite, one main meal a day, and I have to admit...about three weeks and I'm seeing a difference. He's back at his workouts, too.
No weight goal, just lose the belly basically. Still has his two beers on his days off. I really can tell he's already feeling better. I'm kinda shocked by how fast!
Proud of both of you! :)
And yes...these whiny health care workers are dumbfucks. I concur!
http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/29/la-raza-promotes-washington-post-guide-on-where-people-can-vote-without-an-id/
The pro-amnesty Hispanic activist organization the National Council of La Raza helpfully promoted a Washington Post article explaining which states people can vote in without having to use a photo ID.
“Voter ID laws are at-issue across the country, with newly Republican-controlled legislatures having passed them in numerous states after the 2010 election,” explained The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake. “Most states still request some form of ID, but don’t require it. Another 20 states don’t require identification. In case you’re wondering where your state is at in all of this, a helpful (sic) graphic from the Post’s graphics team.”
So who ended up using the Post’s helpful graphic? The country’s foremost pro-amnesty Hispanic immigrant organization.
The Chicago chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice tweeted Blake’s article with the message, “Reminder — #Illinois does NOT require #voterID to cast a ballot,” along with the pro-Democrat hashtag #TurnOutForWhat.
The tweet was helpfully retweeted by the National Council of La Raza.
* AND HERE'S THE ORIGINAL WP ARTICLE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/10/27/does-my-state-require-identification-to-vote/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/29/ralph-nader-dubs-hillary-clinton-a-menace-to-the-u/
Ralph Nader, a former Green Party and Independent Party presidential candidate...doesn’t have much love for presumptive Democratic Party White House candidate Hillary Clinton.
When asked by a writer with We Are Change what he thought of the former Secretary of State seeking the nation’s highest office, Mr. Nader’s reply was less than enthusiastic. “Well, Hillary is a corporatist and a militarist,” Mr. Nader said,
“Do we want another corporatist and militarist? She thinks Obama is too weak. He doesn’t kill enough people overseas. So she’s a menace to the United States of America.”
But he wasn’t done.
“What we need is people — regardless of whether they are libertarians or not — that pull back on the empire and make Wall Street subordinate to Main Street,” Mr. Nader said, Raw Story reported. “People have got to start thinking, doing their homework, become informed voters and not coronet another corporatist and militarist.’
* GOD DAMN! COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF!
Mr. Nader had some harsh words for Sen. Rand Paul, too.
“He’s like his father Ron Paul,” Mr. Nader said, Raw Story reported, “He is against militarism, against the bloated military budget, against empire and against these foreign military unconstitutional adventures — but Rand Paul is changing by the month as he wants the White House. He is beginning to say, ‘Well, what if we give more aid to Israel?’ … So he is beginning to change.”
* I AGREE WITH NADER THAT WE MUST KEEP AN EYE ON RAND PAUL FOR INTELLECTUAL CONSISTENCY... BUT, FRANKLY... FROM WHAT I'VE SEEN HE'S BEEN INTELLECTUALLY CONSISTANT.
* UNDERSTAND, FOLKS... BOTH THE RINOs AND THE LEFT ARE GOING AFTER RAND PAUL. DON'T TAKE ANYTHING YOU READ AT FACE VALUE. WHEREVER POSSIBLE READ PAUL'S OWN WORDS - AS WRITTEN... AS DELIVERED - IN CONTEXT. (THAT'S WHAT I DO!)
Mr. Nader had some words of advice for Mr. Paul: “What he ought to do is go back to his father, sit on his knee and become more like Ron Paul,” he said, Raw Story reported.
* AND THAT'S GOOD ADVICE! RON PAUL IS A GOOD MAN! RAND PAUL IS A GOOD MAN AS WELL!
* HILLARY CLINTON... IS A PIECE OF GARBAGE.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2812154/Defense-says-FBI-posed-tech-repairmen-ruse.html
Federal agents (FBI) turned off Internet access to three luxury villas at the Caesars Palace resort in Las Vegas then impersonated repair technicians to surreptitiously get inside and collect evidence in an investigation of online sports betting during the 2014 World Cup, according to defense lawyers challenging the practice.
The FBI employed the ruse against the recommendation of an assistant U.S. attorney, Kimberly Frayn, according to lawyers for four of eight men charged in the case.
Attorneys for the accused filed a motion late Tuesday in federal court in Las Vegas to dismiss evidence in the case.
Evidence collected improperly is not supposed to be used at trial.
The FBI in Las Vegas referred questions about the practice to the U.S. Attorney's Office there. Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden, said prosecutors were aware of the allegations being made by defense lawyers but declined to comment, citing a pending trial.
The case was at least the third to surface in recent weeks raising questions about tactics by federal agents pursuing criminal investigations.
* SOUNDS LIKE A CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION TO ME!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
* IN OTHER NEWS...
The Drug Enforcement Administration set up a fake Facebook account using photographs and other personal information it took from the cellphone of a New York woman arrested in a cocaine case in hopes of tricking her friends and associates into revealing incriminating drug secrets.
* I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS..
In another case, the FBI sent a fake news story it attributed to The Associated Press to trick a suspect in a bomb-threat case into clicking on the website link and revealing his location. The AP on Tuesday objected that the FBI's practice was 'unacceptable' and 'undermined AP's credibility.'
* HMM... WHILE I CAN SEE THE AP's POINT... I'VE GOTTA GO WITH THE FBI ON THIS ONE TOO. (THE AP IS FREE TO "OUT" SUCH TACTICS, THUS DEFENDING THEIR INTEGRITY. THEREFORE... NO HARM, NO FOUL.
* BACK TO THE VEGAS CASE...
According to the criminal complaint in the gambling case, the eight men came to the attention of authorities in late June after they requested 'an unusually large amount of electronics equipment and technical support.'
An electrical engineer employee advised security personnel at the Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino that the equipment in one of the villas 'appeared to be set up for an illegal gambling operation.'
* CAESARS SHOULD HAVE THROWN THEM OUT!
Over two days in early July, FBI agents worked with a hotel computer contractor and the state's gaming control board to shut off the Internet at different times and at one point delivered a laptop computer to try to see what was happening, according to the court filing.
Investigators eventually gained access after they turned off the Internet connection to two suites, impersonated repair technicians and recorded video inside. Authorities later used the videos to obtain a warrant to arrest the men.
* SORRY, BUT THERE'S THE VIOLATION. AS LONG AS CAESAR'S WAS ACCEPTING THEIR MONEY IN RETURN FOR LODGING THE "GUESTS" HAD A LEGITIMATE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY. THE FBI WAS UNDER CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION TO GET A WARRANT. THEY DIDN’T DO SO. THEY SCREWED UP.
In the criminal complaint, federal agents said the videos showed evidence of an illegal online sports gambling operation being run out of the villas. Prosecutors did not mention in the criminal complaint what caused the Internet outages.
* FOLKS... I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THE PURPOSEFUL INTERNET OUTAGES; WHAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH IS THE FBI's FAILURE TO GET A WARRANT.
Defense lawyer Thomas Goldstein said lawyers learned about the ruse only when they reviewed the video recordings and heard an official make reference to turning off the Internet access. 'They were trying everything they could to get inside without a warrant,' Goldstein told the AP.
A former federal prosecutor, Mark Rasch, said the ploy probably will not stand up in court. 'Police are allowed to use a certain kind of subterfuge, but what they can't do is create a certain kind of circumstance,' Rasch said.
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/barbara-boland/over-214000-doctors-opt-out-obamacare-exchanges
Over 214,000 doctors won't participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows.
That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs.
It's also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
* GEEZUS...
In January, an estimated 70% of California's physicians were not participating in Covered California plans.
Here are some of the reasons why:
1. Reimbursements under ObamaCare are at bottom-dollar - they are even lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are already significantly below market rates. "It is estimated that where private plans pay $1.00 for a service, Medicare pays $0.80, and ACA exchange plans are now paying about $0.60," a study by the think-tank American Action Forum finds. "For example, Covered California plans are setting their plan fee schedules in line with that of Medi-Cal - California's Medicaid Program - which means exchange plans are cutting provider reimbursement by up to 40%."
2. Doctors are expected to take on more patients to make up for the lost revenue, but that's not happening, because primary care doctors already have more patients than they can handle. "Furthermore, physicians are worried that exchange plan patients will be sicker than the average patient because they may have been without insurance for extended periods of time, and therefore will require more of the PCPs time at lower pay," says the study.
The study also points to two reasons that doctors might not get paid at all:
3. An MGMA study indicates that 75% of ACA patients that had seen doctors had chosen plans with high deductibles. Given that most of the patients are low-income, doctors are concerned that the patients cannot meet the deductibles and they will get stuck with the bill.
4. HHS requires that insurers cover customers for an additional 90 days after they have stopped paying their premiums: the insurer covers the first 30 - but, it's up to the doctor to recoup payment for the last 60 days.
* THIS... IS... INSANE...!!!
This is the number one reason providers are opting to not participate in the exchange plans.
* MAKES SENSE...!!!
Currently, about a million people have failed to pay their premiums and had their plans canceled.
* HMM... I DON'T RECALL THE NYT REPORTING THIS IN THEIR RECENT PRO-OBAMACARE PROPAGANDA PIECE...
So, ObamaCare is asking doctors to take on sicker patients for less money, with the risk of not getting paid at all... no wonder doctors are running from these plans!
GOD HELP US...
OMG! I was JOKING when, after the Texas judgement I quipped QUICK, move them to states they CAN vote in!
Dear GOD how BRAZEN they are about being CRIMINALS!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/articles/jon-kyl-and-stephen-moore-obama-soaks-the-rich-drowns-the-middle-class-1414537267
The curse of the U.S. economy today is the downward trend in “take-home pay.”
* WELL... ONE OF THE MANY CURSES...
When President Obama said in a recent speech at Northwestern that nearly every economic measure shows improvement from five years ago, he conspicuously left this one out.
* EASY TO SAY WHEN USING DELIBERATELY FLAWED AND MISLEADING ECONOMIC MEASURES!
Most workers’ pay has not kept up with inflation for at least six years. Even as hiring picked up over the past year, wages and salaries have inched up by 2%, barely ahead of inflation.
* SPEAKING OF DELIBERATELY FLAWED AND MISLEADING ECONOMIC MATRICS/STATS...
This probably explains why half of Americans say the recession never ended.
* IT NEVER HAS!
They are experiencing what Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen last week described as “stagnant living standards for the majority.”
* NO. STAGNANT WOULD BE IF I COULD REGULARLY AFFORD BEEF, BUTTER, AND OTHER... er... LUXURY GOODS. (LIKE HOT DOGS - BEEF DOGS AVERAGE $5.99 REGULAR PRICE WHEN NOT ON SALE! BACON...? FAGETABOUTIT...!!!
Why aren’t wages rising? There are several reasons, including that many jobs today don’t pay as well as the ones lost during the recession. ObamaCare has made health insurance more expensive for businesses — as the nation’s biggest employer, Wal-Mart, recently reported — and that takes a bite out of take-home pay.
Yet one factor is often overlooked: the tax increase on “the rich” at the beginning of 2013.
How could higher taxes on the top 2% or 3% hurt the middle class?
(*PAUSE*)
Part of the answer is that when upper-income Americans spend their money on vacations or cars, they are taxed only once - after they earn it. But if they put their money to work by, for example, building out a family business, they got socked a second time by higher investment taxes. And this discourages the investments that grow the economy.
Although the Obama administration argues otherwise, these tax hikes were not minor. The tax rate on capital gains for high-income earners shot up to 23.8% — 20% plus the 3.8% ObamaCare investment surtax.
Ditto for the tax on dividends.
Taxes on business investment rose by nearly 60% in 2013 and are nearly 20% higher than in the Clinton years.
* AND YET THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT STILL RUNS MASSIVE DEFICITS... STILL CAN'T (WON'T) LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The overall effect of the 2013 tax hike was not minor. The highest income-tax rate on small business income has risen to almost 42% from 35%. That’s a 20% spike in the small business tax for successful companies. When the government takes more, there is less to plow back into the business or invest elsewhere.
This may help explain the paradox that even as American businesses today are generally efficient and highly profitable, they aren’t reinvesting in new plants, equipment and technology or hiring more workers at the pace they normally would.
(Business investment was up last quarter — a hopeful sign — but over the recovery the trend has been sluggish.)
A comparison with the Reagan years when investment taxes were cut tells the story. From 1983 to 1988, private investment averaged 12% of GDP, one-third faster than the 9% since 2009 under Obama. And in the aftermath of the Kennedy, Clinton and George W. Bush capital-gains tax cuts (1998-2006), the investment rate rose sharply and immediately.
What does investment have to do with stagnant wages? Everything. As Paul Samuelson, the premiere Keynesian economist who sold more economics textbooks than anyone in history, once explained: “What happens to the wage rate when each person works with more capital goods? Because each worker has more capital to work with, his or her marginal product [or productivity] rises. Therefore, the competitive real wage rises as workers become worth more to capitalists and meet with spirited bidding up of their market wage rates.”
History bears this out. Workers did very well in jobs and rising incomes in the 1960s, 1980s and late 1990s when capital gains and dividend taxes fell.
The high corporate tax rate is also holding the economy back.
Twenty years ago the U.S. rate was about at the international average, but now we are about 15 percentage points above the rate of most of our competitors and nearly three times higher than countries like Ireland.
* FOLKS... THIS IS A HUGE DRAG... HUGE!
The American Enterprise Institute has found that “a 1% increase in corporate tax rates is associated with nearly a 1% drop in wage rates” because when corporations invest less here at home, worker productivity suffers.
Mr. Obama’s investment tax hike was designed to soak the rich. But it is the middle class who have taken a bath. Republicans should be telling American wage-earners that the best way to increase their take-home pay is to repeal Mr. Obama’s tax hikes and chop the corporate tax rate to the international average, so more and better jobs are created on these shores, not abroad.
* THE AUTHOR IS A WALL STREET OVER MAIN STREET GUY AND IT SHOWS. STILL... USEFUL INFORMATION. OUR ENTIRE TAX REGIME IS SCREWED UP. SO ARE OUR TRADE POLICIES AND EVEN OUR BASIC FOCUSES AS TAUGHT US IN SCHOOL AND VIA MEDIA. ANYWAY... JUST A CAUTION.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/92-marine-casualties-afghanistan-war-occurred-under-obama
As U.S. Marines withdraw from Operation Enduring Freedom (the Afghanistan war), CNSNews.com's database on casualties shows that 418 Marines gave their lives in the conflict and that 92% of those casualties, 385 deaths, occurred since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
* A HIGH COST - ESPECIALLY FOR A LOST WAR.
“U.S. Marines and service members from the United Kingdom left Regional Command Southwest in Afghanistan’s Helmand province today, turning their facilities over to the Afghan security forces,” reported the Department of Defense on Oct. 27.
* I SALUTE THE BRITS...
“We lift off confident in the Afghans’ ability to secure the region,” said Army Lieutenant General Joseph Anderson, commander of the ISAF Joint Command.
* THAT'S A LIE.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... EVEN OUR MILITARY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED UNDER OBAMA.
“The mission has been complex, difficult and dangerous. Everyone has made tremendous sacrifices, but those sacrifices have not been in vain.”
* YES. THEY HAVE BEEN. AND I HAVE NO DOUBT THE GENERAL KNOWS THIS.
In the more than 12 years that have passed since U.S. troops first entered Afghanistan with the aim of removing al Qaeda from its sanctuary there, 2,226 U.S. service personnel have given their lives in and around Afghanistan in support of U.S. military activities in that country. Among those, 418 soldiers, or 18.8% of those service personnel were U.S. Marines.
* ALWAYS FAITHFUL...
From January 20, 2009 to the end of 2009, 68 Marines died in Operation Enduring Freedom. The next year, 2010, accounted for most of the Marine casualties: 165 Marines lost their lives. In 2011, 78 Marines died; in 2012, 58 Marines died; in 2013 8 Marines died and another 8 in 2014. This totals 385 Marine casualties, which comprises 92.1% of the total number of 418 Marines who died in the Afghan war.
Sergeants and Specialists in the Army represent nearly half – 49.6% – of the total casualties of the Afghanistan War, according to CNSNews.com’s database of U.S. casualties in the war.
* WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE CORP ENLISTED RANKS IS MADE UP OF SERGEANTS AND SPECIALISTS? (I'M GUESSING IT'S PRETTY HIGH...)
Most of the service personnel who died were either Sergeants or Specialists in the Army branch of the military.
* DITTO...
There were 731 sergeants who died in Operation Enduring Freedom – which includes the ranks of Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class and Master Sergeant – and comprises 32.8% of the total 2,226 troops who died in the war.
* GOD REST THEIR SOULS...
The second largest group of casualties were Specialists in the Army. There were 374 Specialists who died in Operation Enduring Freedom, which is 16.8% of the total casualties.
There were 1,631 casualties of the Afghan war who were in the U.S. Army, which means that they comprised 73.3% of the casualties. After the Army, the Marines were the next branch of the military that had the highest number of casualties totaling 418.
In the more than 12 years of the Afghan war, there were 98 casualties in the Navy and 79 casualties in the Air Force, meaning that combined they represented 8% of the total U.S. casualties.
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