Judge Sides With Trump On Cost Sharing Payments, Refuses To Force Federal Government To Make Them

By William Teach October 26, 2017 – 7:51 am

Who would have thought that a judge would not require the federal government to not make payments to insurance companies that another judge had already ruled unConstitutional

(The Hill) A federal court in California has struck down an emergency motion that would have forced the Trump administration to continue making ObamaCare subsidy payments to insurers.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria denied the motion for an injunction, saying that he was skeptical that cutting off the payments known as cost-sharing reductions (CSR) would cause an immediate injury to residents of the state.

He noted many states, including California, saw “the writing on the wall” and took actions to mitigate any potential harm if the payments were ended.

“To be sure, the absence of money for CSR payments does not seem to be causing health care reform to come crumbling down,” Chhabria wrote in his ruling.

California allowed insurers to add a surcharge to the mid-level silver plans, which increases the amount of tax credit subsidies available. So even though premiums would spike for silver plans, consumers would have other, cheaper options.

Many other states have done the same thing, and did it in response to a judge ruling that cost-sharing, ie, insurance company bailouts, was unconstitutional, as the Democrats had made no provision to actually force funding. They did it in this manner as to keep the roughly $7 billion a year payments off the CBO scorecard.

Chhabria said the ability of states to act in advance and shield consumers undercuts the argument that people will face higher premiums because the cost-sharing payments are ending.

He suggested if states are so concerned that people will be scared away from signing up for insurance on the exchanges because of the thought of higher premiums, they should “stop yelling about higher premiums.”

It’s interesting how Democrats weren’t actually concerned about the rising cost of premiums because of Obamacare, nor the high deductibles in Obamacare plans, but are now screeching about higher premiums because the insurance companies …. at least those left in this collapsing initiative … are getting their bailout money.

This does not mean that the judge might not rule in favor of the insurance company bailouts, er, cost sharing reductions, later, as the suit will go forward, per the judge’s order. But, they are stopped for now.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Say, What’s The Point Of Climate Proofing Liberal Cities When They’re Too Darned Expensive To Live In?

By William Teach October 25, 2017 – 4:11 pm

Good thing “climate proofing” won’t make the already much more expensive liberal cities even more costly, eh? Of course, there needs to be some Trump Blamestorming, because he’s apparently at fault for not just future Democratic Party run cities being expensive, but the past as well

It Doesn’t Matter if Cities Are Climate Change–Proof if No One Can Afford to Live in Them

This hurricane season, people struggling to keep a roof over their heads are again dreading having their communities shaken by another political perfect storm. That’s because from Puerto Rico to Texas to Florida and beyond, Trumpism is poised to hit public housing hard.

The Poverty Race Research and Action Council (PRRAC), a civil rights coalition focused on urban policy, has chronicled the Trump administration’s steady degradation of environmental protections over the past year, starting with the dismantling of the basic core of Obama-era EPA regulations. More recently, President Trump’s announced, just weeks ahead of Hurricane Harvey, that his administration planned to upend Obama’s flood risk mitigation standards for federal infrastructure projects. Now, whatever rebuilding does take place in the wake of disasters like Harvey will likely rebuild communities unevenly, leaving poor neighborhoods and communities of color more exposed to climate catastrophe than ever before.

See? Trump

Public housing in flood-prone areas can’t afford to wait for the next catastrophe. After Superstorm Sandy struck New York and exposed stark inequalities between richer and poorer neighborhoods, the city got serious about disaster preparedness by foregrounding environmental justice in its climate adaptation planning. Housing authorities laid out a plan to build for equitable resilience: for example, housing authorities can ensure that when the next storm hits, seniors and people with disabilities living in public housing projects are prioritized in evacuation plans. Working-class neighborhoods should be guaranteed safe access to back-up public transit, so they’re not isolated when subway and bus lines are flooded. To prevent the next Sandy from pushing the city onto the same backward slide that post-Katrina New Orleans has undergone, housing authorities in cities like New York should institute a democratic planning and risk communication system, so that reconstruction projects do not become taxpayer-subsidized vehicles for gentrification.

Whoa! Some serious Progressive talking points going on. One has to wonder why Dem cities have so much trouble, and so much inequality. And the solution. Get this. More Government control! Shocking, is it not?

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 25, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a wonderful street empty of fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Right Scoop, with a post on not a single witness providing evidence of collusion with Russia Russia Russia.

Read: If All You See… »

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Who’s Up For An Election Anniversary Scream-a-thon From Sore Losers?

By William Teach October 25, 2017 – 10:30 am

This should be fun

https://twitter.com/WilliamTeach/status/922914262984491008

From the link

Liberals still suffering rage over the election of Donald Trump as president will have another opportunity to vent their feelings.

On Nov. 8, the event “Scream helplessly at the sky on the anniversary of the election,” will take place in Boston to mark the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. So far, more than 4,400 people have RSVPed on Facebook, with another 33,000 more making themselves as “interested.”

“Come express your anger at the current state of democracy, and scream helplessly at the sky!,” reads a terse event description.

The Boston Facebook link seems to be removed or only for those authorized to view the page, but, there is also one for Philadelphia. There also seems to be one which will perform outside of Trump Tower in NYC.

Via Chicks on the Right, we see

Yup.

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Jet Setting IMF Chief Warns Of “Dark Future” From ‘Climate Change’ Or Something

By William Teach October 25, 2017 – 8:04 am

Christine Lagarde, who likes to take lots of fossil fueled trips around the world and ride in fancy fossil fueled vehicles, says we’ll be “toasted, roasted and grilled” from Hotcoldwetdry. It’s a good thing that Warmists have taken the advice of many of their more sane compatriots to tone it down, rather than sounding like the person on the corner screaming about repenting now, eh?

(UK Guardian) The world will be in deep trouble if it fails to tackle climate change and inequality, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde has warned.

“If we don’t address these issues… we will be moving to a dark future” in 50 years, she told a major economic conference in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday.

Lagarde said that “we will be toasted, roasted and grilled” if the world fails to take “critical decisions” on climate change.

Did anyone catch where she was while making these doomy prognostications?

Lagarde is essentially turning the IMF into an arm of the Cult of Climastrology, as well as a Social Justice Warrior org with her Progressive push on “inequality”, rather than just doing the job of the IMF as it was established. Of course, their mandate was further broadened in 2012, to give them more latitude to be the types of Progressive nags they want to be.

Lagarde also called for tackling inequality between men and women and countries that are “haves” and those that are “have nots”.

If the world wants a future that “looks like utopia and not dystopia”, it needs to address such concerns, Lagarde said. She predicted that in 50 years’ time, oil will be a secondary commodity.

Funny how she took a long fossil fueled flight to a nation that 1. makes most of their money from oil, and 2. isn’t exactly a paragon of virtue when it comes to the treatment of women.

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GOP Launches Multiple Investigations Of Hillary Clinton

By William Teach October 25, 2017 – 7:48 am

Will anything come of this? Other than highlighting that Hillary (and Bill) are extremely shady people who used their influence and public offices for graft for their own enrichment, probably not. First, the GOP doesn’t seem to have the cajones to take any investigation further (hence the call for a separate special counsel), and, 2nd, there’s probably just enough separation for Hillary (and Bill) to avoid prosecution, just enough doubt in the documents

(The Hill) It’s almost been a year since the 2016 presidential election, but Republicans are putting the spotlight back on a familiar political foil: Hillary Clinton.

On Tuesday, top House Republicans launched a pair of investigations. The Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees will jointly investigate the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s handling of classified documents. Meanwhile, the latter committee with the Intelligence committee will jointly probe the sale of a uranium company to a Russian firm when Clinton was secretary of State.

The seemingly coordinated investigations — which were announced within a half-hour of each other — is sure to fire up the conservative base and infuriate Democrats who want House investigators to more rigorously probe Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump.

Well, now, that’s not written in a somewhat subtly biased manner, is it? Regardless, the Uranium One investigation itself isn’t focuses exclusively on Hillary, but on the deal overall. As for her handling of classified documents, well, when a 2nd report showed that FBI Director Comey decided not to recommend charges well before the conclusion of the investigation, and new documents come out about the tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch, more investigation is needed. Democrats and some squishy Republicans think this is old news. Well, a lot of what Weistein did was old news, as well. Things that happened decades ago. One would think that corruption, taking bribes, soliciting bribes, using the office for personal gain, and careless handling of classified material would be worth a look to try and keep government honest.

In related news to the “scandal free Obama administration”, there is apparently a smoking gun memo regarding the Eric Holder DOJ that reveals that they intentionally blocked Conservative groups from being awarded settlement payouts that were not denied to Liberal groups, which was an abuse of power, and the funds, long suspected, were being used as a government slush fund to supporting groups.

Also, the Hillary campaign and the DNC are definitively linked to the uttely-discredited Trump dossier created by Fusion GPS.

And, the Obama era unmasking of Americans, particularly those linked to Trump, and having information leaked to friendly media (violation of National Security Act), will go a step further with the testimony of Ben Rhodes. We’ll see if he pleads the 5th.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Goracle: Hotcoldwetdry Will Cause More Hurricanes Like Harvey Or Something

By William Teach October 24, 2017 – 3:01 pm

Because Al Gore and his over-sized carbon footprint have been totally right on his other predictions, right?

(Houston Chronicle)  Al Gore warned Texans on Monday that global warming will lead to more Hurricane Harveys in coming years – but he urged them not to be discouraged.

Change, he said, can be made.

“We have to realize how big this thing is,” Gore said. “We have got to change.”

You’re reading this in his voice, aren’t you? And by “we”, he means you. By government decree.

“We can’t treat the world like an open sewer,” said Gore, the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate. “Every day we’re dumping 110 million tons of CO2 in the sky, and it traps heat.”

Says the guy who flies around the world on private jets.

In fact, he said, the amount of global warming pollution produced by humans “traps as much extra heat energy in the earth … as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs going off every 24 hours.”

That has led to the warming of oceans, Gore said, which has led to more intense hurricanes that intensify more rapidly.

If reporters had any cajones, if they weren’t a part of the Cult of Climastrology, they have asked him that if this is so, then why an almost 12 year dearth in landfalling major hurricanes, why so few landfalling minor hurricanes and tropical systems.

Regardless, this Prognostication means that there will be another long period of inactivity, even though there has supposedly been a natural shift in activity towards more systems, which happens every 10-15 years, off and on, lots, few.

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If All You See…

By William Teach October 24, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…are wonderful trees sucking carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Datechguy’s Blog, with a post on NFL players feeling the results of their protests in future years.

Read: If All You See… »

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Study Highlights That People Blaming Syrian Civil War On ‘Climate Change’ Are Full Of Mule Fritters

By William Teach October 24, 2017 – 10:30 am

Seriously, everyone except members of the Cult of Climastrology (especially those who have Big Government and taxes to push) knew this. Weather happens. Droughts happen. The climate is always changing. And war happens.

Climate-Related Drought Didn’t Cause Syrian War, Study Finds

Climate change in the form of sustained drought is not to blame for the bloody and prolonged conflict in Syria, according to a new study.

But drought nevertheless plays a contributing role in creating the conditions for conflict – and a database of 1,800 riots over a cycle of 21 years delivers the evidence to support that hypothesis, according to a second study.

The idea that climate change, with consequential drought and famine in its wake, can drive conflict and topple kingdoms, empires and civilisations is not a new one: climate change has been identified as a factor in the fall of the ancient Assyrian empire and the fall of the Mayan civilisation, and the recent drought in the eastern Mediterranean has been identified as the worst in 900 years.

Interestingly, the first two mentioned were from the on-set of Holocene cool periods. Regardless, this goes to show that there is no need to assign witchcraft carbon pollution as the means

Not so, say the scholars in Political Geography. They argue that though the drought was severe, it was not necessarily caused by man-made climate change driven by profligate combustion of fossil fuels, and that although drought contributed to migration to the cities, this would have involved not 1.5 million people but no more than 60,000 families. Economic liberalisation in any case may have been the more important factor, they say.

“Our paper finds that there is no sound evidence that global climate change was a factor in sparking the Syrian civil war. Indeed, it is extraordinary that this claim has become so widely accepted when the scientific evidence for it is so thin,” said Jan Selby, who directs the Centre for Conflict and Security Research at Sussex University in the UK.

In fact, Ms. Shelby goes on to say (from the “not to blame” link above)

“Global climate change is a very real challenge, and will undoubtedly have significant conflict and security consequences, but there is no good evidence that this is what was going on in this case. It is vital that experts, commentators and policymakers resist the temptation to make exaggerated claims about the conflict implications of climate change. Overblown claims not based on rigorous science only risk fueling climate scepticism.”

So, she is a Warmist, but understands that scaremongering and simply making crap up doesn’t help.

Regardless, this doesn’t matter, facts do not matter, science doesn’t matter, reality doesn’t matter, because Warmists have their talking points, and will never abandon. Right up to the point where they each realize “wait, the bad things about Big Government and taxes and loss of freedom wasn’t supposed to happen to me.”

Read: Study Highlights That People Blaming Syrian Civil War On ‘Climate Change’ Are Full Of Mule Fritters »

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Math, Algebra, and Geometry Are Totally White Privilege Or Something

By William Teach October 24, 2017 – 7:17 am

Do you know why these types of stories bug me? Getting beyond the typical race baiting and White Blaming, general moonbattery and Special Snowflake Syndrome, what they position is that minorities, particularly Blacks, are incapable of performing long held standards of education. Math is math. It’s cut and dry. 2+2=4. But, these people, who are often racists against their own race, are perpetuating Victimhood

(Daily Caller) A University of Illinois math professor believes that algebra and geometry perpetuate “white privilege” because Greek terms give Caucasians unearned credit for the subject.

But that isn’t the professor’s only complaint. She also believes that evaluations for math proficiency perpetuates discrimination against minority students, if they do worse than their white counterparts.

Rochelle Gutierrez argues in a newly published math education book for teachers that they must be aware of the identity politics surrounding the subject of mathematics.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness,” she argues with complete sincerity, according to Campus Reform. “Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White.”

Gutierrez argues that subjects like algebra and geometry, which relate to arithmetic, also perpetuate racism and white privilege. She worries that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

See, guys? It’s the terms used! But, wait, it gets better!

Gutierrez claims that the importance of math skills in the real world also places what she calls an “unearned privilege” for those who are good at it. Because most math teachers in the United States are white, white people stand to benefit from their grasp of the subject disproportionate to members of other races.

Have you ever noticed that just when you think that the wackadoodleness with these SJWs doesn’t end, it just keeps escalating, like a verbal fight over whose sports team is better? But, based less in reality, of course. She even asks “Are we really that smart just because we do mathematics?” This is how you end up with people who can’t do basic math when you hand them a one dollar bill and a quarter to pay for $1.13.

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