Strange: President Trump’s Making It Easier For Employers To Pay Workers For Health Coverage

By William Teach October 24, 2018 – 10:30 am

Wait, I thought Trump wanted to take health insurance away from everybody? No? Shockingly, this appeared on CNN, including the graphic

Trump makes it easier for employers to pay workers for health coverage

The Trump administration is expanding employers’ ability to give workers cash to buy heath care coverage elsewhere, including on the Obamacare exchanges, senior officials announced Monday.

The proposed regulation is aimed at broadening the use of health reimbursement arrangements, which are not very well-known. Employers use them to provide workers with tax-free funds to pay for health care costs, mainly deductibles and co-pays.

Prior to Obamacare, employers used Health Reimbursement Arrangements to reimburse workers for a wider array of expenses, including premiums. The Obama administration, however, barred the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements to buy policies on the individual market.

The move is aimed at increasing health insurance coverage among those who work at smaller firms, many of which don’t provide benefits. It would also allow employers who do offer benefits to give each worker up to $1,800 a year in an Health Reimbursement Arrangement to pay for certain health care expenses or buy dental or vision coverage.

Most Democrat proposals, rules, and laws, including Obamacare, were all aimed at massive regulation and control of people and the private sector. The barring of HRAs made it tough for small businesses and those who work for them. This proposed regulation makes things easier and better, especially with the unemployment rate so low and businesses needing to use incentives to attract workers.

Unlike most of the administration’s other health care steps, this regulation could funnel more people into the Obamacare exchanges. Some 7 million more people could be insured through the individual market by the end of a decade, officials said. In total, an additional 10 million people at 800,000 employers could use Health Reimbursement Arrangements to buy coverage, including 1 million newly insured Americans.

Yeah, there is that. But, at this point, there isn’t much you can do about the exchanges. The time to really kill Ocare was the 2012 election. Now, the most the Republicans can really do is totally revamp the system. And there is a way to do that while increasing choice. That’s for another post.

Read: Strange: President Trump’s Making It Easier For Employers To Pay Workers For Health Coverage »

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Surprise: NJ Solar Industry Set To Collapse Without Massive Subsidies

By William Teach October 24, 2018 – 7:48 am

There’s a difference between tax breaks and subsidies. I’m not going to bother explaining it, the Internet is your friend, and people who constantly yammer about subsidies for oil companies are clueless fools. Especially when all these “alternative” and supposedly green industries just like solar receive both

NEW JERSEY SOLAR INDUSTRY AT RISK OF COLLAPSE AS SUBSIDIES BEGIN TO ROLL BACK

New Jersey’s solar industry is expected to plummet unless imminent action by regulators is taken, allowing subsidies to continue propping up solar installation sales.

The New Jersey solar market has grown steadily in recent years. With over 99,000 solar installations in place and around 7,000 employees currently working in the field, the state is ranked seventh in the U.S. for its solar development. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy hopes to see the industry grow even further and signed legislation in May that calls for the state’s renewable portfolio standard to reach 50 percent by 2030.

However, advocates warn the state’s solar industry is on track for total collapse.

“[W]e’re afraid that the market will crash again,” Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said in a statement on Oct. 17. “If we don’t move forward, we’ll lose more jobs and more opportunities for clean energy. We must work to become a leader once more in solar power.”

The concern comes as the subsidies that have helped propel solar installation sales in the state are due to wind down.

New Jersey’s Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program currently incentivizes solar investment by giving panel owners credits for the electricity they produce. Like other solar incentives, however, this program has become controversial as it comes at a great cost to electricity consumers. The price of the credits — currently trading at around $200 — far surpass the cost of projects.

Sadly, instead of spending the People’s Money on research and development to create solar panels that are truly affordable for homeowners that would provide a whole heck of a lot more energy capture than today’s panels, along with viable and low cost storage methods, government is just throwing money towards companies that simply put up panels that aren’t all that much different in solar conversion as they were 50 years ago. And it really keeps everything in the hands of the companies, rather than the private home owners.

If solar is so great, why do we have to pay people to install it? Why do we have to pay companies to install it? Scam.

Read: Surprise: NJ Solar Industry Set To Collapse Without Massive Subsidies »

Posted in Collapsing Science, Energy, Global Warming | 41 Comments | Trackback URL

President Trump Trolls Pro-Illegal Supporters With Obama As Second Caravan Mob Forms

By William Teach October 24, 2018 – 7:22 am

Here’s what Mr. Trump tweeted out Tuesday

(Mediaite) President Donald Trump tonight tweeted out a video of comments former President Barack Obama made about immigration back when he was a senator.

The video, which appears to come from 2005, features Obama saying the following:

“We are a generous and welcoming people here in the United States, but those who enter the country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law. We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States, undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”

Obama was correct then and the video is correct now. Meanwhile, yet another mob is forming in Guatemala, comprised mostly of young men, with a small scattering of women and children

(Fox News) A second migrant caravan is forming at the Honduran border and is expected to follow the larger caravan of more than 7,000 from Central America towards the U.S.-Mexico border, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The remaining migrants in the first group are about 1,100 miles from the border town of Reynosa, which is across from McAllen, Texas, the paper reported.

Guatemalan authorities on Sunday estimated the new group — which gathered in a Guatemalan city near the border of Honduras — to be at 1,000. But the group appears to be growing. The Journal, citing estimates from church-run charities and activists, reported that the group is now made up of about 2,500. By Monday evening the group had entered the eastern Guatemalan town of Chiquimula.

These same people are carrying the flags of their countries, burning the American flag, making derogatory remarks towards America, and appear to want to force their way into a country they don’t like. Why not stop in Mexico? Tell you what: we can put them on buses straight to Canada. Kris Kobach notes

It is a stark contrast to the typical illegal immigration we have seen for decades – namely small groups of aliens sneaking across the border in the dead of night.  Now we have thousands of aliens marching to our southern border, in full daylight with the media in tow, demanding that they be admitted to the United States.  Meanwhile the American Left cheers them on.

But we shouldn’t be surprised.  For years, our country has rewarded illegal immigration with a permissive asylum system, lax interior enforcement, hundreds of sanctuary cities and counties, and generous welfare benefits in many states (including my own state of Kansas).  In total, the federal and state governments are giving illegal aliens more than $134 billion in taxpayer-provided benefits per year.  And the open-borders Left wants even more.

He ends by noting we need to stop rewarding illegal immigration. For some reason, Democrats and a few squishy Republicans have come to the opinion that we should just let these people who break our laws in. But they never seem to want to offer to take the illegals into their own homes.

Read: President Trump Trolls Pro-Illegal Supporters With Obama As Second Caravan Mob Forms »

Posted in Barry Obama, Donald Trump, Illegal Immigration | 2 Comments | Trackback URL

Focusing On Plastics Is A “Dangerous Distraction From Climate Change” Or Something

By William Teach October 23, 2018 – 3:38 pm

Interesting. Plastic pollution is an actual real environmental problem. Regardless of whether you focus on it coming big time from India and China, there are lots of measures that we in the 1st world can do to reduce our own plastic pollution. Reusing bottles. Recycling them and other plastics. Not throwing them on the side of the road. We use a ton of plastics, and a lot of it is not good for the real environment. I’m usually not a big fan of Government, but, say, things like those plastic microbeads, I’m fine with banning them. Same with the plastic 6 pack holders for canned drinks. I reuse plastic bags. I could keep going on and on, because I am an environmentalist, and this is the kind of thing that makes me nuts about the Cult of Climastrology

Anti-plastic focus ‘dangerous distraction’ from climate change

The anti-plastic “fervour” sweeping across the UK is weakening the fight against climate change, the founder of an organic food company has said.

Guy Singh-Watson, a prominent green entrepreneur and campaigner, said more focus should be put on cutting carbon.

PM Theresa May has pledged to ban all avoidable plastic waste by 2042.

Environmental experts have said that the anti-plastic movement showed the public could be “mobilised” for action on green issues.

There has been growing awareness of the damage caused by single-use plastics after TV series Blue Planet II highlighted the issue last year.

But Mr Singh-Watson, founder of Riverford Organic Farmers, which supplies about 47,000 boxes of vegetables to homes in the UK each week, said demonising plastic could do more harm than good.

He said: “The fervour – the almost religious fervour – of some of our customers in (being) anti-plastic can actually create problems.

“Plastic is not in itself an evil material, it is the fact that we use so much of it.

“The biggest environmental challenge facing our planet is climate change – and anything that distracts attention from that is potentially dangerous.”

Nope. Hell nope. The envirornment doesn’t care about a meager 1.5F increase in global temperatures since 1850, regardless of causation. It does care when you trash it with actual pollution. These people need to piss off, and realize that they are, in fact, a cult.

Read: Focusing On Plastics Is A “Dangerous Distraction From Climate Change” Or Something »

Posted in Environment, Global Warming | 26 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 23, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is a plant which will soon die from too much carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bunkerville, with a post on the goal of socialism.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 22 Comments | Trackback URL

Bummer: 25% Of Millenials Have “PTSD” From 2016 Election

By William Teach October 23, 2018 – 10:53 am

I think the acronym they’re looking for is PEST, Post Election Selection Trauma, which first made its appearance when Democrats (and Bush hating people in other countries) just couldn’t handle the re-election of President George W. Bush, not PTSD

From the link

A quarter of students found the 2016 so traumatic they now report symptoms of PTSD, according to a new study.

Researchers surveyed Arizona State University students around the time of President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, and some had stress scores on par with that of school shooting witnesses’ seven-month follow-ups.

Twenty-five percent of the 769 students, who were an even mix of genders and races and socioeconomic backgrounds, reported ‘clinically significant’ levels of stress.

The most severe cases were seen among women, black, and non-white Hispanic students, who were 45 percent more likely to feel distressed by the 2016 run between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Lead researcher Melissa Hagan, an assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, believes the ‘divisive tone’ about race, identity, and what makes a valuable American ‘really heightened stress for a lot of people’. (snip)

In terms of how the election impacted their lives, 65 percent said there was no impact. Ten percent said they saw a positive impact.

But a quarter were so crestfallen their symptoms would be deemed a medical condition, severe enough to interfere with their work, social activities, and personal relationships.

People like this are too emotionally fragile and immature to be allowed to have the franchise.

Read: Bummer: 25% Of Millenials Have “PTSD” From 2016 Election »

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Sue Happy Warmist Group Sues Multiple Federal Agencies Over ‘Climate Change’

By William Teach October 23, 2018 – 7:17 am

The Cult of Climastrology can’t seem to win at the ballot box with ‘climate change’, at least not often. So, they want to sue to force their beliefs on everyone else

Outdoor lovers sue US government over climate change

The Animal Legal Defense Fund sued Monday to force the U.S. government to target climate change, coming days after a similar lawsuit filed by young activists was temporarily put on hold by the Supreme Court.

Those who joined the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon include scientists, nature enthusiasts and wildlife advocates who say they fear for their safety as wildfires, mudslides and other threats grow more severe, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported .

They say they have a fundamental right to be left alone “free from human interference” in the wilderness and they want a federal judge to declare that the federal government is violating that right by contributing to a dangerous concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Animal Defense Fund member and plaintiff Michael Goetz of Portland said that on a recent backpacking trip, wildfire smoke was so intense that couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, according to the lawsuit.

Outdoor adventure athlete Will Gadd also joined the lawsuit, which said he has witnessed melting ice and glaciers while climbing in conditions that are much more dangerous now than they were years ago when he first began climbing.

Well, that’s strange, because they’re not leaving animals “free from human interference” while doing their outdoor shtick’s.

“Will is harmed by the government’s actions and inactions to stem the severity of climate change because he is prevented from reasonably and safely exercising his right to wilderness on which he relies for his physical and mental well—being as well as his global status as an outdoor adventurer and educator,” the suit says.

Oh, wait, my mistake, I figured that the Animal Legal Defense Fund was about protecting animals. Alas, no, this is all about an utter freakout over a minor 1.4-1.5 Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures, which is less than previous Holocene warm periods.

I wonder if they take fossil fueled trips out to the wilderness?

The new lawsuit (as opposed to the one from the “kids” which started out suing Obama) takes a different approach, said Carter Dillard, senior policy adviser for the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

While the young people’s case focuses on constitutional rights to life, liberty and property and protection of public resources, the one filed Monday focuses on “the simple right to be let alone, the right long recognized and protected under banners like privacy and liberty,” Dillard told the newspaper in an email.

Perhaps Skeptics should counter-sue, claiming the “simple right to be let alone” from the nefarious big government, big taxation schemes of Warmists who also refuse to practice what they preach.

One thing, the lawsuit doesn’t really state what they expect the government to actually do.

Read: Sue Happy Warmist Group Sues Multiple Federal Agencies Over ‘Climate Change’ »

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How Big Is The Migrant Caravan? This Big

By William Teach October 23, 2018 – 6:58 am

This is what you get when one political party entices and incentivizes people to force their way into our country (photos by John Moore of Getty Images)

(Daily Caller) An estimated 5,000-7,000 Central American migrants have stormed past the Guatemalan-Mexican border and are marching toward the United States, according to the latest reports on the ground from Mexico.

The caravan has now swelled to many thousands, bringing into question the funding and motivation of the diverse group of migrants walking, driving and traveling by railcar to the US border.

At the White House Monday, President Trump doubled down on the assertion that the migrants had been infiltrated by nefarious elements that mean the US harm. “Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States,” Trump said, “Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergency. Must change laws!”

The most recent photos to come from the migrant mass traveling through Mexico show the sheer size of the caravan. Thousands of migrants stretch as far as the eye can see in some photos. All of the below photos were taken on the Mexican side of the border.

Pretty big, eh? Here’s one even more interesting

And this

Not a lot of women and children. Mostly men 45 and under. Strange, that. If they make it and we’re forced to take them in we should release them until processed in the city of Sacramento, the center of “resistance.”

Read: How Big Is The Migrant Caravan? This Big »

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Not A Cult: Rabbi Blesses Electric Vehicles

By William Teach October 22, 2018 – 5:23 pm

Remember, folks, this totally isn’t a religion or cult or something

From the link

Last May, Rabbi Joel Abraham drove his Chevy Volt to Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. As rabbi of nearby Temple Sholom, he joined other local clergy for an interfaith blessing of electric vehicles.

At the event, electric cars and chargers were on display. The goal was to educate faith leaders about how EVs can help reduce air pollution in Newark.

Abraham: “Newark is a huge port, so one of the problems or challenges with the port is not only do you have many diesel operated vehicles coming into the port to pick up things and take them out, but also, the large equipment that’s used – the cranes, the dock vehicles, all of those things – use petroleum products and create all these fumes for the people who live in the area.”

The event rallied clergy behind campaigns that call for electric cargo handling equipment at the port, electric buses, and more EV-charging stations in the city.

Rabbi Abraham says there’s a moral reason for clergy to lead on this issue.

Abraham: “In the Jewish context, what we usually talk about is that we are given not dominion to rule over the earth, but really given the responsibility to care for the earth.”

The good Rabbi does realize that his Volt still uses gasoline, right? And that it was made using tons of fossil fuels and other things that put out “carbon pollution,” right? In fact, there are many, many studies that say that electric cars are bad for the actual environment. If the good Rabbi and his buds really cared, they wouldn’t drive vehicles at all. They’d have no houses of worship, which use vast amounts of electricity, and for which used lots of fossil fuels to be constructed. And all those who take fossil fueled trips to worship.

Read: Not A Cult: Rabbi Blesses Electric Vehicles »

Posted in Climahypocrites, Global Warming | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach October 22, 2018 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible can infused with carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Lid, with a post on who’s pumping money in to block Conservatives on social media.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 5 Comments | Trackback URL
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