It’s Monday, August 7th, 2017…but before we begin, since the subject of our Quote of the Day is the parasites infesting the management of the UAW, meet two of the (formerly) most foul, along with a couple of their closest Fiat Chrysler companions:
From left to right in 2011 at the signing of pact purportedly benefiting workers, but which was designed to enrich UAW and Fiat Chrysler management, former UAW President Bob King, now-deceased UAW Vice President General Holiefield, then-Chrysler Senior Vice President Manufacturing Scott Garberding and Alphons Iacobelli, then-Chrysler labor relations chief.
Absent from the festivities was indicted co-conspirator Monica Morgan, Holiefield’s wife, shown below with another noted scam artist…
…who unfortunately remains un-indicted.
Speaking of blood-sucking sponges, Balls Cotton sent us this helpful guide for identifying four species of particularly pernicious parasites:
Which is why Dimocrats are living proof a lying, hypocritical self-serving Liberal by any other name…
…is still a lying, hypocritical, self-serving Liberal.
By the way, as the WSJ reports, in rejecting the UAW’s culture of corruption, the vote of the Mississippi Nissan plant was 2-1 against!!!
Now, here’s a very abbreviated edition of The Gouge!
First up, writing at NRO, Deroy Murdock offers his vision of an increasingly probable future which deserves presentation in full:
Either Republicans Cure Obamacare or Voters Will Repeal and Replace Them
If they throw up their hands and let this monster terrorize Americans, they will pay, 15 months from now.
“Once upon a time, Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, but they failed to repeal and replace Obamacare. They paid no political price for shirking seven years of promises to scrap Obama’s imploding entitlement. Nonetheless, they lived happily ever after.“
Some Republican members of Congress may believe this fairy tale. Alas, for them, Washington, D.C., is no enchanted forest. Rather, it’s a fever swamp in which bad boys and girls get eaten alive by snakes and alligators.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday shows that the GOP may pay a huge political price (the rest of us will just pay…and pay…and PAY!) for its belly flop on Obamacare repeal and replacement, starring Senator John McCain. The Arizona Republican’s literal thumb down on the so-called skinny-repeal amendment on July 28 decisively sandbagged efforts to move legislation to a House–Senate conference committee, where negotiations could have burnished the bill.
According to Politico/Morning Consult’s research, Democrats now lead Republicans in a generic congressional face-off — 44 percent to 37 percent, with 19 percent undecided. Just one week before Democrats gained this 7-point edge, they were tied with Republicans at 40 percent in this poll. Amazingly, among 1,972 registered voters asked “Who do you trust more” to handle health care?, Democrats beat Republicans 47 percent to 34. How ironic that the party that singlehandedly built this beast now has a 13-percent advantage in how to tame it. (The survey’s margin of error is +/ – 2 percentage points.)
This study should disabuse Republicans of the fantasy that they can wreck things this badly without suffering grave electoral consequences.
If, after seven years of blood oaths to scrap Obama’s calamitous “reform,” Republicans simply throw up their hands and let this monster terrorize Americans, they deservedly will get slaughtered in the November 2018 midterms. Democrats have seen blood since the night Hillary Clinton lost the White House. These liberals will start lining up to vote next Memorial Day. Independents often value competence over ideology. Many of them may be so appalled at GOP ineptitude on this matter that they will favor Democrats. This fiasco may leave Republicans feeling too betrayed, disgusted, and depressed to vote in numbers necessary to win.
If this nightmare unfolds, the GOP could lose the House. Moreover, they idiotically could blow a totally decent chance to gain at least eight Senate seats among the 25 the Democrats are defending (Republicans are shielding just eight) and secure a filibuster-proof Senate majority. Coupled with a GOP House and a right-leaning Republican president itching to sign pro-market ideas into law, this is the best chance in 30 years for the conservative, free-market movement to implement its entire agenda. So, naturally, Republicans are botching it.
Meanwhile, the bog continues to swallow Obamacare. Premiums for Obamacare plans rose 21.6 percent last year. Prices for various policies are expected to climb next year, according to the Wall Street Journal, by 24 percent in Texas, 28 percent in Idaho, and some 30 percent in Colorado, Kentucky, Nevada, and Virginia. Illinois officials on Tuesday warned citizens to prepare for premium hikes of 43 percent.
The Department of Health and Human Services recently calculated that average premiums for Obamacare policies on HealthCare.gov have rocketed from $2,784 in 2013 to $5,712 in 2017 — a 105 percent increase. So much for Obama’s promise that his pet plan would cut costs.
“The map currently shows that nationwide 19 counties are projected to have no issuers, meaning that Americans in these counties could be without coverage on the Exchanges in 2018,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported Wednesday. “It’s also projected that 1,352 counties — over 40 percent of counties nationwide — could have only one issuer in 2018.” (The precise figure is 43.04 percent.) These Obamanopoly plans engulf all of Alabama, Alaska (Earth to Senator Murkowski?), Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wyoming, and Arizona, save for Pima County (Earth to Senator McCain?). “This could represent more than 2.3 million Exchange participants that will only have one choice and may not be able to receive the coverage they need,” CMS concluded.
Aetna’s spokesperson T. J. Crawford told Business Insider Thursday that’s it’s decamping from Nevada. Consequently, the insurer “will have no on-exchange presence anywhere in 2018.” This is especially bad news in the Silver State. Among its 17 counties, 14 currently offer zero Obamacare plans.
As Obama’s legacy tumor metastasizes, Republicans will be under mounting pressure to deliver us from this evil.
Whether Congress does so right away, after the Senate and House return from their inexcusable four and five respective weeks of spa treatments, or once legislators place a tax-reform bill on President Donald J. Trump’s desk, Republicans absolutely must repeal and replace Obamacare. If they do not accomplish this before November 2018, Republicans should brace for the voters’ righteous wrath. Unless they savor the words “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi” and “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,” Republican lawmakers must abandon their beach towels, act like a majority, and get this done.
We would respectfully disagree with Mr. Murdock on one point (highlighted in green above): as the Ghost of Christmas Present said in Dickens’ classic, “if these shadows don’t change in the future”, it won’t be the GOP contingent on Capitol Hill who suffers; they’ll still have their incredibly lucrative pensions, K Street/law firm partnerships and personal wealth to sustain them.
Rather it will be the hard-working suckers like us who foot the bill for their ineptitude in the form of stratospheric health insurance premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums…all the while paying for coverage to protect against a laundry list of conditions we…don’t…need!
But if you think the treatment you’re receiving in exchange for the sky-high health insurance premiums created under Obamacare is bad, wait until you experience the quality of FREE healthcare.
Next up, courtesy of Townhall.com, Michael Brown details how…
“Have you noticed that, immediately after an Islamic terrorist attack in our nation, the airwaves are ablaze with warnings – not against Islamic terrorism but against Islamophobia. So, the fear is not that there will be more terrorist attacks. The fear is that people will be fearful of Muslims. That is misguided enough (although I too deplore when the larger Muslim community is blamed for what the radical extremists do). But what just happened in Bondi, Australia takes this illogicality to a whole new level.
As reported on News.com.au, “A LOCAL council has banned the construction of a synagogue in Bondi because it could be a terrorist target, in a shock move that religious leaders say has caved in to Islamic extremism and created a dangerous precedent.”
Yes, the Jewish community was not allowed to build a new synagogue for fear that it would be targeted by radical Muslims. Talk about a reverse in logic.
The decision had been fought in the courts, but it was upheld this week, leading to outrage and dismay.
…In Muslim majority nations where strict Islam is practiced, Jews and Christians are reduced to second-class citizens, having to pay the jizya tax and deprived of the right to build new synagogues and churches. Yet today, in Australia, where non-Muslims outnumber Muslims by roughly 40 to 1, a Jewish community cannot build a new synagogue. To ask again, what kind of logic is this?“
That’s an easy one: LIBERAL logic, born of decades of imbecilic political correctness.
And in the Environmental Moment, writing at the WSJ, one Charles McConnell, formerly of The Obamao Administration and currently ensconced at Rice University, relates another patent Progressive prevarication:
“Dozens of cities have made a misleading pledge: that they will move to 100% renewable energy so as to power residents’ lives without emitting a single puff of carbon. At a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in late June, leaders unanimously adopted a resolution setting a “community-wide target” of 100% clean power by 2035. Mayors from Portland, Ore., to Los Angeles to Miami Beach have signed on to these goals.
States are getting in the game, too. Two years ago Hawaii pledged that its electricity would be entirely renewable by 2045. The California Senate recently passed a bill setting the same goal, while moving up the state’s timeline to get half its electricity from renewables from 2030 to 2025.
Let’s not get carried away. Although activists herald these pledges as major environmental accomplishments, they’re more of a marketing gimmick. Use my home state of Texas as an example. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas oversees 90% of the state’s electricity generation and distribution. Texas generates more wind and solar power than any other state. Yet more than 71% of the council’s total electricity still comes from coal and natural gas. The trick is that there’s no method to designate electrons on the grid as originating from one source or another. Power generated by fossil fuels and wind turbines travels together over poles and underground wires before reaching cities, homes and businesses. No customer can use power from wind and solar farms exclusively.
So how do cities make this 100% renewable claim while still receiving regular electricity from the grid? They pay to generate extra renewable energy that they then sell on the market. If they underwrite enough, they can claim to have offset whatever carbon-generated electricity they use. The proceeds from the sale go back to the city and are put toward its electric bill.
In essence, these cities are buying a “renewable” label to put on the regular power they’re using. Developers of wind and solar farms win because they can use mayoral commitments to finance their projects, which probably are already subsidized by taxpayers.
But the game would never work without complete confidence in the reliability of the grid, which is dependent on a strategy of “all of the above,” generating power from sources that include coal, natural gas, nuclear…
…The headline-grabbing 100% renewable pledges intentionally overlook these facts. Fossil fuels are not only the largest and most critical component of the energy portfolio, they are the foundation upon which renewable power must stand. Wind and solar generators ride free into the electric grid on the backs of fossil generators that have installed and paid for the infrastructure on which all Americans depend. The rise of renewable generation is made possible by fossil fuels, not despite them.“
We must note one line of Mr. McConnell’s commentary with which we take, after careful consultation and confirmation with Jeff Foutch, extreme exception:
“There is no denying that wind and solar power are important to a balanced energy portfolio.“
Sorry, but that’s total, unmitigated Environazi bullsh*t!!!
Were the solar, wind and ethanol components completely removed from the American energy picture and replaced by coal or natural gas, not only would consumers be paying far less per kilowatt hour, but tens, if not hundreds…
…of thousands of birds would still be soaring above the fruited plains.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side…
Finally, while heading out to enjoy the unusually beautiful weather this past weekend with a bit of hiking on the Appalachian Trail, TLJ and I happened upon a path no golfer wants to travel…
…but which each of every one eventually transits. It’s just down the way from the intersection of Three-Wiggle Way and Snipe Street.
Magoo
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