Will GOP Repeal And Replace Obamacare At Same Time?

By William Teach January 13, 2017 – 7:03 am

According to Paul Ryan, the answer is yes

(CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday Republicans plan to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law at the same time they approve a GOP replacement plan.

“We want to do this at the same time, and in some cases in the same bill,” Ryan said during a town hall in Washington sponsored by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper. “So we want to advance repealing this law with its replacement at the same time.”

Ryan said Republicans are moving “as quickly as they can” to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but said he doesn’t yet have a date, and it will take “a little bit of time” to do so.

“We’re working on this as fast as possible,” he said, adding that the GOP will act “definitely within these first 100 days” of Trump’s presidency.

Democrats do have a point: after all these years, where is the one plan? In fact, there are numerous plans, some rather fleshed out, some more in the outline phase. Trump says he has one. Certainly, any plan must take into account the changes in Ocare caused by circumstances and changing rules from Team Obama. But there should be A Plan. Perhaps there is one and the GOP has just kept it under wraps to avoid the caterwauling that will emanate from Democrats and their news media compatriots?

“I clearly think there’s a role for the government in health care, no doubt about it,” the Wisconsin Republican said.

He added that he supports elements of the health care law — including that “people with pre-existing conditions, no matter how much money they make,” should have access to insurance.

But, he said, “The law is collapsing, and so we’ve got to rescue people.”

There is a role for government, especially as we’ve had a long time with government involved. There’s nothing wrong with using the government to help out some citizens. The problem becomes apparent when Government becomes heavily involved in the health insurance and health care of all of the citizens, which is what Obamacare did. The law was meant to collapse, though. That’s baked in. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And it was meant to push a public option, followed by Single Payer.

But, that’s not going to happen. Democrats probably did not count on Ocare being so unpopular overall that they’d lose enormous numbers of seats in Congress, and finally losing the White House.

Now it’s time to see what the plan actually is.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Bad News: Binge Watching Is Causing The Earth To Burn

By William Teach January 12, 2017 – 3:15 pm

Do you binge watch? I do. Lately, what with the weather closing and such, I’ve been binge watching the heck out of a bunch of shows. Masterchef Canada, Hell’s Kitchen season 11 and 12. As such, I’m Evil for carbon pollution

(Huffington Post)  Our video streaming addiction might be affecting the world outside our living rooms more than we thought.

Greenpeace released a report on Monday rating video streaming companies by carbon footprint, and a couple big ones, including Netflix and Hulu, didn’t fare too well.

That’s because all those “Stranger Things” and “Gilmore Girls” episodes are delivered to our phones, laptops and TVs via massive servers that use up a lot of energy, which can come from renewable sources or nonrenewable ones, like coal.

Although the company has made bold claims about its energy efficiency in the past ― stating that watching Netflix is greener than breathing ― it received an overall D grade. Hulu fared even worse with an F, while Amazon Prime received a C. Out of streaming companies included, YouTube (owned by Google, whose energy use the organization praises) earned the best grade ― an A. Greenpeace evaluated companies on factors including energy mix, commitments to renewable energy, transparency on energy sources and advocacy for clean energy.

Oh, hey, that’s great! I’ve been doing it on Youtube, so, I don’t need to be sent to a re-education camp! Hooray! I might have to write a Knowledge Report on my mom and a few friends, who stream the others.

These people are nags.

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 12, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible water sucking golf course which should be restricted for Everyone Else, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Farm, with a post on how Trump might improve your lives.

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Senate One Step Closer To Repealing Obamacare

By William Teach January 12, 2017 – 7:55 am

It appears as if the repeal is going to be piecemeal, rather than simply toasting the entire thing as on

(Washington Post) The Senate voted 51 to 48 early Thursday to approve a budget resolution instructing House and Senate committees to begin work on legislation to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act. The House is expected to take up the legislation Friday.

Senate Democrats made a late-night show of resistance against gutting the Affordable Care Act by forcing Republicans to take politically charged votes against protecting Medicare, Medicaid and other health-care programs. The measure narrowly passed without the support of any Democrats.

The hours-long act of protest culminated in the early hours of Thursday when Democrats made a dramatic display of rising to speak out against the repeal measure as they cast their votes. The Democrats continued to record their opposition over their objections of Senate Republicans.

Funny, they didn’t stand up for it when it counted, namely, during election season. Only a handful of Democrats campaigned on it in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016. Most wanted nothing to do with discussing it.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also voted no, in part over concerns that GOP leaders have not committed to a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act after it is repealed.

He is correct. There needs to be a replacement plan. But, what if the GOP votes to repeal certain portions, such as the Mandate? How would Democrats vote, putting themselves on the record?

Republicans blocked six amendments from Democrats within the first several hours of voting. Among the failed measures was an attempt to prevent any changes to Medicare or Medicaid, or to reduce the number of people enrolled in private health insurance.

Democrats tracked how Republicans voted throughout the night — information that could be used during coming election campaigns, according to Democratic leadership aides who would not speak on the record to divulge internal party strategy.

Well, that’s interesting. Why did they not do that during the previous election seasons? Sure, Leftist groups campaigned on it a bit, but not Democrats up for election.

Republicans have at least a dozen plans for replacement. Trump says he has a very specific one of his own. Let’s get the details down before going ahead. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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Republicans Passed The Most Dangerous Bill, To Reform Abusive US Regulations

By William Teach January 12, 2017 – 7:35 am

The Republican controlled Congress took an interesting step Wednesday

(Reuters)  Republicans on Wednesday passed a bill in the House of Representatives that touched on nearly every step U.S. agencies take in creating and applying new rules, continuing their blitz to radically reform “abusive” federal regulation of areas from the environment to the workplace.

In a 238-183 vote, the House passed the “Regulatory Accountability Act,” which combined eight bills aimed at changing how the vast government bureaucracy runs. Only five Democrats voted for it.

The legislation would give President-elect Donald Trump tools “to wipe out abusive regulation,” said Bob Goodlatte, the Judiciary Committee chairman who is among the many House leaders calling for lighter regulation and saying the costs to comply with federal rules are too high.

Republicans say there is little accountability for regulations that apply to almost every aspect of American life because they are created by appointed officials and not elected representatives. Federal agencies operate either independently or under the president’s authority.

Democrats are very much against any reform, part of which is slowing down the Executive Office rule making from unaccountable bureaucrats, leading to this bit of nuttiness from EcoWatch’s Carl Pope

The Most Dangerous Bill You’ve Never Heard of Just Passed the House

Last, week, under the cover of a media bliss-out except among Koch funded right-wing channels, the House of Representatives passed a bill which would effectively repeal future standard setting under every important environmental, public health, consumer protection, labor standards, occupational safety and civil rights law on the books.

The bill, called the REINS Act, requires that any future major regulation adopted by an Executive Agency—say a new toxic chemical standard required by the recently enacted Chemical Safety Act, or a new consumer protection rule about some innovative but untested kind of food additive—must be approved by a specific resolution in each House of Congress within 70 days to take effect.

Mention of Koch? Check. Anyhow, what is wrong with requiring the duly elected Legislative branch to approve or disapprove of major and minor rules (focusing mostly on major ones) that have an impact on the lives of Americans? We didn’t elect those bureaucrats, now, did we? Which is more “dangerous”: involving Congress, or letting unelected partisans run roughshod over the public?

To give a sense of the scale of this road-block, in 2015 there were 43 such major federal regulations passed to protect the public; among them were food safety regulations, the Clean Power Plan regulating pollution from electrical generating facilities, net neutrality rules protecting the internet from monopoly, restrictions on predatory lending and energy efficiency standards for appliances.

And those are exactly why the REINS Act is needed. The CPP will raise consumer costs. Net neutrality increases government involvement in our browsing. Energy efficiency raises our costs because it was about greenhouse gases, nothing else.

It’s time—past time—for a massive mobilization to make clear to Congress and the new President that a wholesale repeal of 40 years of progress in environmental protection, civil rights, labor standards, health and safety and consumer protection is a third rail, and that pretending that the REINS act increases accountability is a fig-leaf that public scrutiny must shred.

Ask your favorite public interest organization what it is doing today to stop the REINS Act in the Senate.

If Democrats are protesting this much, the bill must be a good one. The summary of the REINS Act starts out

The bill revises provisions relating to congressional review of agency rulemaking. A federal agency promulgating a rule must publish information about the rule in the Federal Register and include in its report to Congress and to the Government Accountability Office: (1) a classification of the rule as a major or non-major rule, and (2) a copy of the cost-benefit analysis of the rule that includes an analysis of any jobs added or lost.

A “major rule” is any rule that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget finds results in: (1) an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more; (2) a major increase in costs or prices for consumers, individual industries, government agencies, or geographic regions; or (3) significant adverse effects on competition, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, or the ability of U.S.-based enterprises to compete with foreign-based enterprises.

That seems a pretty darned good rationale for the Legislative Branch to have input, does it not? Of course, if Congress would stop passing laws that are overly broad and allow so much rule making, that would certainly be a bonus.

Of course, this has to make it through the Senate, and Democrats will surely object to involving themselves in rules that have a heavy impact on Citizens.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach January 11, 2017 – 1:08 pm

…is a sea rising because Other People drove fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is The Other McCain, with a post on intolerance in Liberal Berkeley land.

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Guardian Unintentionally Admits That Democrat Policies Are Bad For Blacks

By William Teach January 11, 2017 – 10:55 am

The UK Guardian, a hotbed of leftist politics, thinks they have something in an article on “gun violence.” They four authors, who probably did all their research online rather than heading into the actual dangerous areas, say that to fix it, you have to go local. And here’s what we get

The map of America’s gun violence epidemic can seem overwhelming. There were more than 13,000 gun homicides in the US in 2015, across nearly 3,500 cities and towns. But the toll of this gun violence was not distributed equally.

Half of America’s gun homicides in 2015 were clustered in just 127 cities and towns, according to a new geographic analysis by the Guardian, even though they contain less than a quarter of the nation’s population.

Even within those cities, violence is further concentrated in the tiny neighborhood areas that saw two or more gun homicide incidents in a single year.

Four and a half million Americans live in areas of these cities with the highest numbers of gun homicide, which are marked by intense poverty, low levels of education, and racial segregation. Geographically, these neighborhood areas are small: a total of about 1,200 neighborhood census tracts, which, laid side by side, would fit into an area just 42 miles wide by 42 miles long.

The problem they face is devastating. Though these neighborhood areas contain just 1.5% of the country’s population, they saw 26% of America’s total gun homicides.

I would highly recommend reading the entire article and viewing the accompanying graphics. Here’s just one of them for illustration

They highlight city after city, conveniently forgetting who runs the majority of these cities. That would be the Democratic Party. And the graphics show that the Democratic Party has left Blacks in poverty, low education, and violence.

BTW, the article itself is much better than the standard Guardian fare, well researched, attempting to take a somewhat unbiased view. Check it out.

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Hey, Did You Know There Are Republicans Who Want To Fight ‘Climate Change,’ But Aren’t Allowed?

By William Teach January 11, 2017 – 9:10 am

But, most of them are secret, so we learn from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has been leading the charge in assaulting people for their beliefs that ‘climate change’ is not a danger and that “carbon pollution” is not the primary cause of the current warm period

Republicans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them

Talking to my Senate Republican colleagues about climate change is like talking to prisoners about escaping. The conversations are often private, even furtive. One told me, “Let’s keep talking, but you can’t let my staff know.”

The dirty secret is that climate change is not really a partisan issue in Congress. Its history has not been partisan, with Republican senators such as John McCain, Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, Lindsey O. Graham and Jeff Flake (as a House member) having introduced climate bills in the past. Climate change became partisan in 2010, shortly after the five Republican-appointed justices of the Supreme Court upended a century of law and precedent to issue the Citizens United decision, which rejected limits on corporate spending on political campaigns. The timing is not a coincidence.

I like the way he works Citizens United in to the mix. Of course, the reality is that opposition to the Hotcoldwetdry push had been growing since the late 1990’s, but really started gaining steam around 2004, with so many people being able to truly get information out to the masses via blogs and New Media and such. No longer were people dependent on simply the majority leftist media. No longer were people reliant on one sided sources, who had skin in the game in the form of government grants and their own political beliefs. People could now read varying views and sciences. They could see the links between the far left and ‘climate science’ from the leading organizations (let’s acknowledge that not all climate scientists are Warmists. Most try and leave the politics out of it, hence, you rarely hear their names), which meant they could see that this whole push was about enacting Progressive (nice fascist) policies of greater taxation and greater government control over everything, including our lives. They could see that this meant higher costs of living and lower standards for our lives.

Big-business interests, particularly the fossil-fuel industry, led the charge. That industry’s annual U.S. subsidy is $700 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. With stakes that high, the incentive to protect the subsidy and the amount that the fossil-fuel industry can afford to spend on political influence are enormous, so the restraints of campaign finance and disclosure rules were particularly galling.

Uggggg. This subsidy thing again. Tax breaks which pretty much every company gets are not subsidies. Sigh.

The justices allowed the fossil-fuel industry to roll heavy artillery out onto the political field, not just its previous musketry. Industry operatives brag about putting hundreds of millions of dollars into each federal election cycle, though undisclosed “dark money” and identity-laundering pass-throughs make this increasingly hard to track. Most recklessly, the five justices missed the point — or didn’t care — that anyone who is allowed to spend unlimited political money necessarily can threaten to spend unlimited political money. This atmosphere has quashed any Republican effort on climate change, silenced serious climate debate in Congress and ended progress, as desired and directed by the fossil-fuel industry.

Sheldon forgets a few things. First, no one really cares about ‘climate change.’ As has been mentioned time and again, it is a bottom end issue when stacked up with other issues. Even most Warmists aren’t willing to spend much of their own money to Do Something. The people who care the most are those who want more power.

Second, most people want inexpensive fossil fuels so they can drive to work, drive to play, drive wherever, take flights, and provide energy for their homes. People like their cars. Apparently, Sheldon likes fossil fuels, too, since he refuses to give them up in his own life. Weird, right?

Republicans aren’t cowards. Many will take the side of climate principle in a fair fight. But it is asking a lot of them to take a principled stand on climate when they don’t see one corporate friend ready to help them. That’s the climate battle’s other dirty secret: In Congress, on climate, corporate America is not even trying. That’s why the fossil-fuel bullies own the place.

Got that? Unless you stand up for more government and taxation and such, you’re a coward and unprincipled. What does this say about people who refuse to give up their own fossil fuels addiction and make their own lives carbon neutral?

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NY Times: Vague Promises On Repealing Ocare Just Not Enough Or Something

By William Teach January 11, 2017 – 8:28 am

Donald Trump wants immediate repeal of Obamacare, and is pushing Congressional Republicans to do just that. Many of those Republicans are concerned and want a replacement bill, which is a pretty wise stance. The time to straight up cancel Ocare was the 2012 general election, before the majority of the law kicked in. Meanwhile, over the NY Times, we see

On Tuesday, Donald J. Trump said he wanted Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act right away and replace it with a new plan “very shortly thereafter.” But before they abandon all the work that has gone into the health care law since 2010, President-elect Trump and Republicans in Congress owe Americans a detailed explanation of how they plan to replace it. They should not repeal the law until they have submitted their replacement proposal for analysis by nonpartisan authorities like the Congressional Budget Office and the Tax Policy Center to determine how it will affect health insurance coverage, state and federal finances and individual tax burdens.

Vague promises are not enough when we are considering enormous changes in this country’s $3 trillion medical economy. Here are seven important questions that Congress must answer about its replacement plan before repealing the Affordable Care Act:

Those questions are (hit the link for the details with each one)

  1. How many millions of Americans will lose coverage?
  2. Will people over 55 pay higher health premiums for the same coverage?
  3. Will the new plan let insurers charge women higher premiums than men while offering them less coverage?
  4. What other services are likely to be cut?
  5. Will the new plan let insurers reinstate annual or lifetime limits on coverage?
  6. What will happen to the more than 130 million Americans with pre-existing conditions?
  7. Finally, how much more will those with costly illnesses or injuries have to pay in out-of-pocket costs?

They’re actually decent questions, even from a slightly left wing point of view. If only question #1 had been asked before the bill was passed. But, instead of vague promises, there were specific promises, such as

  • Ocare will cover the 40-45 million Americans without health insurance
  • “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period.”
  • “[T]hat means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period.”
  • “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.”
  • “[F]or the 85 and 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, this thing’s already happened. And their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.” (WT-all the mandates and requirements caused changes in everyone’s insurance)
  • “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.” (there are 18 different taxes and fees and penalties, most of which hit the middle class)
  • “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future.”
  • “I will protect Medicare.” (spending for Medicare was cut)
  • It will “bend the curve” of costs downward
  • “You should know that once we have fully implemented, you’re going to be able to buy insurance through a pool so that you can get the same good rates as a group that if you’re an employee at a big company you can get right now — which means your premiums will go down.”
  • “Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”
  • “So this law means more choice, more competition, lower costs for millions of Americans.” (it stayed the same for everyone not in the Exchanges, and those in the Exchanges often have two or less providers)
  • “The implementation of this is fabulous.” – Nancy Pelosi, right before billions and billions were spent to create websites that barely worked, if worked at all, and then people were kicked off their plans they liked and couldn’t see the doctor they liked.

You can read more on those specific promises and lies here, here, and here, among others. It was brought up with lies, passed with lies, and implemented with lies.

Unfortunately, it has wormed it’s Big Government tentacles deep into our $3 trillion medical economy, and, as much as some would like to just cancel it, there needs to be a method to make sure people who want health insurance can have affordable health insurance.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Women’s March On Washington Bogs Down In SJW Bickering

By William Teach January 10, 2017 – 4:49 pm

Live by the SJW, die by the SJW (via Hot Air)

(NY Times)  Many thousands of women are expected to converge on the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington the day after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. Jennifer Willis no longer plans to be one of them.

Ms. Willis, a 50-year-old wedding minister from South Carolina, had looked forward to taking her daughters to the march. Then she read a post on the Facebook page for the march that made her feel unwelcome because she is white.

The post, written by a black activist from Brooklyn who is a march volunteer, advised “white allies” to listen more and talk less. It also chided those who, it said, were only now waking up to racism because of the election.

“You don’t just get to join because now you’re scared, too,” read the post. “I was born scared.”

This all about feminist racial identity politics, with a smattering of every other type of SJW movement and far left Progressive ideology. The list of sponsors for this “grassroots” march, which I mentioned weeks ago, and you can see at Legal Insurrection, reads as the Typical Prog March. The above from the Times stems from a Facebook post by ShiShi Rose, including

I want to remind you that that is a privilege.

It’s a privilege that white supremacy wasn’t at the forefront of your reality, because you benefit from it.

I want to remind you that no ally ever got very far, in any movement, without acknowledgement of their own privilege daily. You do not just get to join the efforts that people of color have been working for their entire lives to both teach and survive, without doing work, too. You don’t just get to join because now you’re scared, too. I was born scared.

Now is the time for you to be listening more, talking less, observing, taking in media and art created by people of color, researching, unlearning the things you have been taught about this country. You should be reading our books and understanding the roots of racism and white supremacy. Listening to our speeches. You should be drowning yourselves in our poetry. Now is the time that you should be exposed to more than just the horrors of this country, but also the beauty that has always existed within communities of color. Beauty that was covered over because the need to see white faces depicted was more important.

The entire thing has morphed into a SJW orgasm march, with actually little about women. Mostly, it’s about people being Outraged about race, and some proclaiming other feminists should just shut the hell up. The heads of the march committee are social justice organizers, meaning that no one else would dare employ them, as they are lawsuits waiting to happen. One of them, Linda Sarsour, is an avowed defender of violent Palestinians and despises Israel and Jews. She refuses to condemn extremist/violent Islamists, and, as I noted in 2014

This is not to say she is an extremist. But, it is very interesting that her group receives quite a bit of funding from Qatar, a massive funder of radical Islam. She defends Islamic terrorism suspects. She has many anti-Israel statements. And likes to make hate crimes against Muslims up out of thin air.

Definitely check out the long post at Legal Insurrection, and, get a good laugh at these leftist SJWs applying their moonbattery against each other.

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