Whoops: Public Sector Restricting Work Hours, Health Insurance, Due To Obamacare

By William Teach February 23, 2014 – 8:00 am

Perhaps they’re just trying to free people so they can be poets and play the bongos and commune with nature? Here’s that ultra-Conservative newspaper the NY Times to tell us all about it

Cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, state and local officials say.

Unlike the federal government, those entities named actually have to come in on budget. Well, supposedly, considering the number of cities filing for bankruptcy in the country. They can’t easily just take money from taxpayers.

The cuts to public sector employment, which has failed to rebound since the recession, could serve as a powerful political weapon for Republican critics of the health care law, who claim that it is creating a drain on the economy.

So, paragraph two and the Times is already concerned that Democrats could be in trouble.

Even after the administration said this month that it would ease coverage requirements for larger employers, public employers generally said they were keeping the restrictions on work hours because their obligation to provide health insurance, starting in 2015, would be based on hours worked by employees this year. Among those whose hours have been restricted in recent months are police dispatchers, prison guards, substitute teachers, bus drivers, athletic coaches, school custodians, cafeteria workers and part-time professors.

This will give them time to be comedians, writers, and camera people! They can pursue their happiness! They just will have neither the money to do it nor the money to purchase health insurance to avoid the Government fee/tax/fine.

It is not entirely clear how private employers will respond, but as some government officials point out, businesses at least have the option of passing along some of the additional costs to consumers.

Much of that has to do with the public sector unions.

The Obama administration says “there is absolutely no evidence” of any job loss related to the Affordable Care Act. And the Congressional Budget Office says “there is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased” as a result of the law.

Strangely, the NY Times random act of journalism provides actual evidence with real world cuts throughout the article.

William J. Lipkin, an adjunct professor of American history and political science at Union County College in Cranford, N.J., said: “The Affordable Care Act, rather than making health care affordable for adjunct faculty members, is making it more unaffordable. Colleges are not giving us access to health care, and our hours are being cut, which means our income is being cut. We are losing on both ends.”

Hmph: a 100% Democrat piece of legislation is negatively affecting the very people (teachers, public sector workers) who tend to vote Democrat. People who supported Obamacare. Whose unions back Democrats 100%. Ironic.

There is entirely too much to excerpt from the article, much of it direct measures and stories of how Obamacare, the “Affordable” Care Act, is affecting workers in the public sector. I suppose now these folks do not have to worry about “job-lock” due to health insurance, eh?

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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NJ Looks To Limit Magazines To 10 Bullets

By William Teach February 22, 2014 – 3:07 pm

Here’s a test for Chris Christie if the legislation makes it to his desk vis a vis running for President as a Republican

(NJ.com) Democratic lawmakers in both house of the legislature have struck a deal that would allow passage of a measure restricting gun owners to a 10-round magazine, down from the current limit of 15, two sources with knowledge of the deal said today.

Fewer rounds in a magazine means more reload time, gun control advocates say, and more time for people involved in a mass shooting to stop the shooter or run away.  The drop, they say, means only an inconvenience for gun owners, while it could save lives.

Of course, since the areas these nuts tend to shoot up are gun free zones, having to take an extra 2-3 seconds here and there to reload shouldn’t bother them.

“The Governor should take to heart the tragic experience of the Sandy Hook families as well as their heartfelt commitment to safety from gun violence for all Americans and sign the ten round maximum capacity bill when it reaches his desk. It’s about public safety,” said Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based organization focused on preventing gun violence. “Opponents of this remarkably moderate and reasonable public safety measure make clear their extremism, for no one needs more than ten rounds for hunting, sport shooting or self defense.”

If no one needs more than 10 rounds for self defense, why do most police officers carry handguns which hold more than 10 rounds? Glock is the most popular, and most of the models for law enforcement hold 15 rounds or more.

It remains to be seen if the Gov. Chris Christie will sign both bills.  Advocates say they have received no indication from the governor if he supports the measures.

If he signs it, he might as well not bother running. Furthermore, if Democrats in the GA pass this, they should make sure that all the security at the buildings they inhabit carry no more than 10 bullets per magazine. That would be only fair.

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If All You See…

By William Teach February 22, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible ocean which will rise up and cause islands to tip over, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Maggie’s Notebook, with a post on voter fraud in Texas by liberals.

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Students Face Possible Federal Charges For Being Jerks

By William Teach February 22, 2014 – 11:17 am

Orwell would be proud

(NY Times) The University of Mississippi said Friday that students could face criminal charges for placing a noose on a statue honoring the college’s first black student, and a fraternity announced that it had expelled three men because of the incident.

If you continue reading the article you’ll see how this bit of assholery spawned a massive, deep investigation, all sorts of law enforcement, then

It was also unclear Friday what charges the men could face, but the F.B.I., which has been assisting the university, said earlier this week that the vandalism could bring federal charges.

Look, actions have consequences, but vandalism charges? These kids were assholes, and did the dumb crap college kids do. The statue was not destroyed or damaged. Take the noose off and it’s fine. I’m not defending their actions. They were caught, and should possibly face some punishment. But actual criminal charges, and possible federal charges? The FBI involved? Overkill. Was anyone harmed? Other than feelings? Any property destroyed?

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Democrats, FDA Going After Electronic Cigarettes

By William Teach February 22, 2014 – 7:26 am

Ronald Reagan once said “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” Democrats aren’t even waiting to see if e-cigs keep moving before they run straight to regulation

(National Review) There are a lot of rumors out there about e-cigarettes. They are white sticks, they emit what looks like smoke, and people hold them like their papery peers. Faced with these visible similarities, many lawmakers are out to shun e-cigarettes from polite society, much as traditional cigarettes have been banned from parks, restaurants, public spaces, and sometimes even peoples’ homes.

In the process, government health nannies are accomplishing the perverse goal of squashing what may be the most successful smoking-reduction product of the last 15 years.

The regulatory push, predominantly led by those who claim to base their political views on science, has little science to support it. More importantly, many studies show that e-cigarettes help smokers quit, while the water vapor they exhale has been shown, at least in one study, to contain ten times less nicotine that tobacco smoke.

Are e-cigs better for you than tobacco? At this time, we would have to say yes. It’s simply water vapor with flavor and some nicotine. Obviously, nicotine is not that good for you. And there’s always a chance that a long term study will find that they are very bad for you. Yet, as of today, they seem to be much better, and people find that quitting cigarettes is much easier than with patches and gum. Personally, I am down to 5-8 a day, when I was a pack to pack and a half a day smoker. I was the first one at work to give them a whirl (workplace went tobacco free February 2013). Many have follow along. One is down to 2-4 a day. Another is down from 2 packs a day to limiting himself to no more than 10. A few have quit altogether.

Of course, since e-cig use has taken off and become what seems to be a success during this terrible Obamaeconomy, liberal busy-body nanny-staters have to jump in

Yet Minnesota state representative Phyllis Kahn of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party has proposed a law that would restrict the usage of e-cigarettes throughout the state in the same way that cigarettes are restricted. Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill also want to treat e-cigarettes the same was as cigarettes by banning e-cigarettes in the Capitol, legislative office buildings, and within 25 feet of the entrances of any of those buildings. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville recently banned e-cigarettes from all campus buildings. The list goes on and on.

The FDA has been threatening to get involved, even though there are no real studies. Craig Weiss, CEO of the e-cigarette company NJOY, notes

“Our view is that we support reasonable, balanced regulation,” Weiss says. “I support ingredient disclosure, good manufacturing practices, age restrictions, and what I would call ‘reasonable regulation on advertising,’ meaning, for example, no using cartoon characters or advertising on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings.”

I think we can all agree on that. Right now much of what is going on is self-regulation. The place I get my vapor liquid from refuses to sell to minors. When I was there the other day the owner told some kids who walked in to walk right out.

So far, studies have found that electronic cigarettes can actually help smokers quit or reduce the amount they smoke. One study published in the American Journal of Health and Behavior looked only at smokers aged 18 to 65 who were not interested in quitting smoking. By using e-cigarettes, 89 percent of the participants reduced the number of cigarettes they smoked a day by an average of 39 percent. Sixteen percent of subject reduced their cigarette consumption to zero by the end of the study.

And in comes Government to mess things up with lots and lots of restrictions.

“Here you have an incredible situation where private enterprise took on something that seemed like an intractable problem and developed a product with enormous potential,” Weiss says. “But if you make it just as inconvenient for smokers to use an alternative to their cigarette as it is to use their cigarette, they are just going to keep smoking their cigarettes, and that is not in the best interest of public health.”

Instead of making things more difficult, Government should get out of the way.

Left unsaid in the article is that when Government starts regulating, they can also cause the price to rise artificially.

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Obamacare Turns Massachusetts From Model To Mayhem

By William Teach February 22, 2014 – 7:06 am

At one point, Massachusetts was the model for Obamacare. Whatever your opinion of a state run insurance program, with a requirement that people must purchase health insurance, it seemed to work. Most residents supported it. Most liked it. Roughly 98% of the citizens obtained health insurance. And under the stewardship of Republican governor, it wasn’t a disaster. Romney may have been a “Blue state” Republican, but the man knew how business worked and How To Get Things Done. Alas, along came Obamacare, as Robert Eno, a Mass. resident who has been writing about Romneycare for years tells us

(Daily Caller) But the changes mandated by Obama’s Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, have actually gutted the effectiveness of Massachusetts’ once-working model.

Thanks to Obamacare, in 2012, Massachusetts began a transition to a new federally compliant health exchange, budgeted to cost $69 million. But to date, not one person has purchased health care through that federally funded exchange.

In addition, Jean Yang, the executive director of the Health Connector Authority, told her board that 50,000 paper applications remain unprocessed — leading the Commonwealth’s leading progressive blog to quip that, “lives are at risk.”

What was once working in Mass. is now a failure, thanks to Ocare. The AP even stated that Mass. is almost dead last in Ocare implementation. Mass. received a $69 million grant to overhaul the website, and CGI was in charge. That worked as well as it did for the federal exchange. The Democrats in charge of implementation and the state government failed completely in getting the website to work. The website continued to fail, Mass. resorted to paper application, waivers were given, coverages were extended, accommodations made for those who were still “unsubsidized”, and officials from the Patrick administration (all Democrats) refused to be honest with the public, and really had no plan.

And, yes, this is about the website not working, not about obtaining health care via the now more expensive insurance. Obamacare took a system that worked and turned it into a pure mess.Particularly since Democrats were implementing, or, at least, attempting to implement it. That said, just wait until people try and use it. One thing FactCheck noted on Romneycare facts and falsehoods was

The major components of the state and federal law are similar, but details vary. The federal law put a greater emphasis on cost-control measures, for instance. Massachusetts is just now tackling that.

Those cost controls are what will lead to poor care, rationing, and limited networks, among other issues. Mass. tried to implement what would work best for the state. Obamacare attempts to implement one Big Solution for the entire country. And fails.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Here We Go: A Call To Ban The Second Amendment

By William Teach February 21, 2014 – 3:28 pm

What would one expect?

Zack Beauchamp is a Reporter/Blogger for ThinkProgress. He previously contributed to Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish at Newsweek/Daily Beast, and has also written for Foreign Policy and Tablet magazines. Zack holds B.A.s in Philosophy and Political Science from Brown University and an M.Sc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Say, I wonder if George Soros, the major funder of Think Progress, has security that carries guns? Anyhow, here’s the title

Ban the Second Amendment

Imagine the Second Amendment didn’t exist, and try arguing for a constitutional right to gun ownership. You will fail.

Interestingly, there is a method to do this embedded in the Constitution, whereby Amendments can be changed and even done away with. But Progressives would simply like to avoid that messy route, and simply infringe on the 2nd Amendment and just straight up ban guns.

There’s lots of moonbattery in the screed, too much to list. Zach offers three reason why people would like guns, the 2nd being “Citizens have a right to defend themselves however they’d like. Gun rights enable self-defense and, thus, save lives.” Not in ZachLand, though

The second argument in favor of untrammeled gun ownership, a right to self-defense, is equally incoherent. For starters, there’s no reason that, in a civil society, the right to defend yourself implies the right to defend yourself however you’d like. A basic part of government’s job is to limit our ability to hurt others; assuming the absolute right to self-defense constitutes, in Alan Jacobs’ evocative phrasing, “the absolute abandonment of civil society.”

So, we can throw defending yourself out the window in Liberal World. At least with a gun. And, really, even harsh language might be Bad, if certain words pass your lips. But, you might hurt someone who is trying to hurt you, so, that Cannot Be Allowed.

I bet there are lots of liberal ladies who wish they had a gun at the Occupy Wall Street camps when other liberals were raping them. A gun gives women power over people who would do them harm. So, since Liberals would like women to be disarmed, we can assume that Liberals are pro-rape.

BTW, is anyone surprised that a Progressive doesn’t understand how the Constitution works?

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If All You See…

By William Teach February 21, 2014 – 1:00 pm

…is snow in the tropics due to Global Weirding, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Public Secrets, with a post on grim times for gun grabbers.

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Dr. Roy Spenser: Time to push back against the global warming Nazis

By William Teach February 21, 2014 – 11:08 am

What were Nazi’s? Fascists. What are Progressives? Jonah Goldberg refers to them as “Nice Fascists”. Prick a Warmist and you’ll find a Progressive. And Dr. Roy Spencer has had enough

Yeah, somebody pushed my button.

When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it.

They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened.

Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.

I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.

The pseudo-scientific ramblings by their leaders have falsely warned of mass starvation, ecological collapse, agricultural collapse, overpopulation…all so that the masses would support their radical policies. Policies that would not voluntarily be supported by a majority of freedom-loving people.

Dr. S goes on to compare what the Nazi’s political policies were to the policies of Warmists, and there are lots of similarities. At the end he notes

NOTE: A couple people in comments have questioned my use of “Nazi”, which might be considered over the top. Considering the fact that these people are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did — all in the name of what they consider to be a righteous cause — I think it is very appropriate. Again, I didn’t start the name-calling.

Let’s not forget, Warmists have called for “deniers” to be jailed (and here. Here. Lots more where they came from) and executed (also the first jail link. And here. And more). These are intollerant, anti-science fascists, against freedom of thought and belief that doesn’t jibe with their own beliefs. Yet, interestingly, they themselves will not live the life of their beliefs.

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Obama Wants Others To #GetCovered

By William Teach February 21, 2014 – 11:03 am

Good thing there’s nothing important going on in the world right now

Says the man who only obtained Obamacare symbolically, but doesn’t actually have to use it himself. And keeps changing the law.

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