When Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, peope like myself (and by that I mean rational people) were unprepared for the fallout that would hit the Bush Administration. You see, some people are aware of the fact that some things are out of the control of humans, no matter how much power an individual possesses. Global warming paranoia aside, storms are acts of nature, not man made events. Yet liberals seized on the opportunity to blame the Bush Administration for the storm itself and the ensuing disaster in the New Orleans area.
It's amazing what having 3 terrorist attacks in a year and a half will do to a President, isn't it? BTW, whatever happened to those liberals who said that the Bush Administration was exaggerating threats of terror? Remember Al Gore? "He betrayed this country! He played on our fears!" Ah, yes. The good old days when we were deceived by our Government into thinking that enhanced interrogation techniques and a strong military was a better defense than reducing missile stockpiles and world apology tours. Yet how do we go from informing enemy combatants picked up on the battlefield that they have the right to remain silent to this?
Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former State Speaker of The House Marco Rubio faced off in a debate on Fox News Sunday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoOnuIfmcCA I just wanted to cover a few of the highlights of the debate to show why The Axis of Stevil Show is pulling for Marco Rubio to be the next Senator of the State of Florida.
AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health care law signed this week by President Obama, the most of any US company so far.
A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the noncash expense, and the company will consider changes to the benefits it offers current and retired workers, AT&T said yesterday in a regulatory filing.
John Deere & Co. said Thursday the health-care reform act signed into law this week will cost the company an extra $150 million this year.
The bulk of the costs will come in the second quarter, Deere said. The amount was not included in the company's 2010 guidance issued earlier this year that called for net revenue of $1.3billion.
NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) - 3M Co will record a one-time non-cash charge of up to $90 million, or 12 cents a share, in the first quarter as a result of the U.S. health reform signed into law this week, the company said on Friday.
This week, Verizon Communications Inc. sent a letter to employees suggesting that changes to their health plans could be afoot. AT&T and Verizon are the two largest phone companies in the U.S. and employ a substantial number of unionized workers.
Several million retirees are estimated to receive drug benefits from a few thousand companies. If those retirees were shifted to the federal Medicare program, the government would pick up the expense. It is unclear whether savings from the elimination of the subsidy would offset those higher Medicare costs.
So, what is the White House reaction to all of this? They chose to try to intimidate and muzzle those who come out and state their losses. But perhaps one of the most stunning things about this is an account from a lobbyist who sat down with President Obama to explain these losses.
"Most of these people [in the Administration] have never had a real job in their lives. They don't understand a thing about business, and that includes the President," says a senior lobbyist for one of the companies that announced the charge. "My CEO sat with the President over lunch with two other CEOs, and each of them tried to explain to the President what this bill would do to our companies and the economy in general. First the President didn't understand what they were talking about. Then he basically told my boss he was lying. Frankly my boss was embarrassed for him; he clearly had not been briefed and didn't know what was in the bill."
This won't surprise those who have followed Obama, and realize that the man has never run so much as a lemonade stand. His ObamaBot followers, of course, will be shocked by such a report if they even decide to read it. This, of course, would be followed by denial. But here is a fact. While the White House attacks companies for coming out and stating what their losses are based on this new law, they are ignoring the fact that they are legally required to do so.
Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, "In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them." In a Thursday interview on CNBC, Mr. Locke said "for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible."
Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment "appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs."
In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.
Either way, the Obama War On Wealth continues in full swing. Ironically, destroying jobs, wealth, and the economy seems to be the only thing that this man is capable of.
Figure this one out. President Obama is still trying to sell his Health Care Reform Bill even after it has past. Why? Because despite his claims, he knows it is a bad bill. He knows that the people don't like it. That having been said, I found the rhetoric he is using to attack the opponents of his new law to be rather amusing. Here is what he said to an audience in Iowa.
"You turn on the news, you'll see the same folks are still shouting about how it's going to be the end of the world because this bill passed. …. Leaders of the Republican Party, they called the passage of this bill ‘Armageddon.' Armageddon! End of freedom as we know it! So after I signed the bill I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling. Some cracks opening up in the Earth! Turned out it was a nice day!''
Now, I haven't been one of the ones that have called this bill "Armageddon". I see it simply for what it is. Socialism. But as per his claims, let's check them out. If you clicked the link, you will notice that the President delivered the speech on March 25th. By his own description, if his bill were ushering in Armageddon, we should be looking for asteroids, right? So I decided to do a little search. You know, just in case the Republicans were correct in their claims about the bill, and just in case Obama was right in his description of what we should be worried about if the Republicans were right. Here is what I found.
Funding cuts to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a U.S. radar facility, could hurt plans to precisely plot the trajectory of an asteroid with a slight risk of hitting Earth in 2036, the BBC reports. Arecibo was set to make radar measurements in January 2013 that could help rule out an impact by Apophis, but due to funding cuts, it might need up to $3 million extra per year to continue. If not, observations planned for 2011 to 2013 may have to be abandoned, the facility director Dr. Michael Nolan told the news service. While Nolan called himself “optimistic” the money could still be found, he noted that Arecibo is the only observatory worldwide that can carry out the job. “If we measure [Apophis] in 2013, there is something like a 95% chance that we’ll be able to prove that it can’t hit the Earth in 2036,” he said. The 300-metre wide asteroid has a one in 250,000 chance of impacting Earth on 13 April 2036, according to NASA projections. On that date in 2029, it would approach Earth at a distance of 29,470 km, close enough to be seen with the naked eye. If Apophis passes through a gravitational “keyhole” in space at this time, it will set the stage for an impact here in 2036. While this is likely to be missed, optical and radar measurements at Arecibo could rule it out entirely. The observatory now operates with a budget of about $12 million per year, but the U.S. National Science Foundation, which operates it, has said it will reduce the budget to $9 million starting in 2011.
Funny for this story to come out on the same day Obama decides to use those words to mock the Republicans. Now, does it mean that Armageddon is here? Of course not. Does it mean that the end of the world is coming? No. But it does mean that the President needs to do a simple news search while he is writing his jokes. Even more ironic is the fact that he heard birds chirping. Was he in Texas?
The population at a retirement resort unexpectedly skyrockets. Sun City in Georgetown has been inundated with about a thousand vultures. We've got word from residents who say the birds are causing more than just headaches. Vultures have darkened the skies over Sun City.
Yes, even the vultures now appear to be aware that Obama Care has passed. You can't make this stuff up, folks.
In all seriousness (not that those stories aren't true, they are and you can click the links to verify that) if you missed this weeks show, you should be sure to check it out. We had special guest Cristi Adkins on and she talked about how the cuts to MediCare will affect the home health business she works for. We also had a caller in the first hour who is an SEIU member complaining about Health Care Reform and wanting to know what she could do to try to help stop it. Click Here to listen to the show.
I have some friends and family who supported President Trump from early on in the process. From time to time they will ask me when I will admit that I was wrong about him. "If Trump does x... If Trump gets y... If Trump supports a policy that results in z... will you admit that you were wrong?" My answer is always "no", because I wasn't wrong. To be clear, I could be wrong in practical application, but that isn't what an election is about. Elections are about theory and speculation and, generally speaking about judging records. Trump had no record to speak of, and his history of stances on issues was all over the map. I opposed his candidacy for several major reasons, all of which are proven valid in this single issue we now refer to as the "travel ban". Here were my reasons.
If you're not familiar with Justice with Judge Jeanine, it is a show on the FOX News Network starring Jeanine Pirro. She is known for her over-the-top rants where she serves up gobs of fresh red meat for her largely hard right wing audience. While it's not unusual for her to be a little fast and loose with the facts, she has been known to occasionally return from the break with a correction from her producers. Last night, however, there was no such correction to an outright lie she told on the show, and the matter being discussed should have (at the very least) contained a disclaimer from the host. I would cut her some slack, but as a former prosecutor and judge, she should be well aware of what proper protocol should have been here.
It's not cute anymore, Republicans. The President of the United States is completely detached from reality, and you can't fix that. You can't cover it up, you can't explain it away, and let me make this as clear as I possibly can for you. You cannot possibly undo the damage you are doing to the party brand by trying to pretend this man is anything other than completely unhinged. I'm watching Sean Hannity borrow guests from the Alex Jones show in an attempt to bolster Trump's conspiratorial claims. I'm seeing relatively mainstream conservatives make themselves look like the crazed fringes of the paranoid right wing. Don't believe me? Look at this.
