Category Archives: Health
Standing Rock Unhappy Campers Threaten Missouri River Watershed
Standing Rock Pipeline protesters became the most immediate threat of pollution to the Missouri river they sought to protect. They had braved the North Dakota winter by camping at the construction site of the North Dakota Access Pipeline.
Standing Rock
But in the end it was trash from the humans, not oil from the pipeline, that immediately threatened the river. Gov. Doug Burgum told The New York Times that melting snow could wash their “garbage and human waste” into the river. Last week authorities forced the campers to leave.
Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, which has been active here, said in a statement that the evacuation was a “violent and unnecessary infringement on the constitutional right of water protectors to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech.”
Here’s the story in the Washington Times.
Buy Ivanka Dresses Or Else
When Nordstrom dropped Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, President Trump tweeted. He accused the company of treating his daughter unfairly.
Ivanka
Trump isn’t the first president to defend his daughter. A Washington Post music critic once gave Margaret Truman a bad review for a singing performance. Her father, President Harry Truman, gave him hell:
In response to Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume’s December 6, 1950, review of Margaret Truman’s singing performance at Constitution Hall, stating,
“Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality (she) cannot sing very well is flat a good deal of the time�more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years � has not improved in the years we have heard her � (and) still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish.”
President Truman responded with the following letter to Hume:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
Dec. 6, 1950
Mr. Hume:
I’ve just read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an “eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.”
It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.
Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!
Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you’ll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.
H.S.T.
ObamaCare Failure To Launch
Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, a supporter of ObamaCare, called the launch a big failure.
And Forbes says, “ObamaCare’s website is crashing because it doesn’t want you to know how costly its plans are.”
ObamaCare Failure to Launch
According to the WSJ, “The failures that have all but disabled ObamaCare are the result of deliberate political choices, which HHS and the White House are compounding with secrecy and stonewalling.”
Even Robert Gibbs wants people fired
Eviscerating ObamaCare
When President Obama met with party leaders in 2009 Eric Cantor pitched some ideas for the stimulus bill. The president responded, “Elections have consequences and, at the end of the day, I won.” The 800 billion dollar stimulus went on to pass with three Republican votes. And ObamaCare rammed its way through Congress without any Republican support. At the time Democrats controlled the White House, Senate, and House.
Eviscerating ObamaCare
Now that the worm has turned Republicans are committed to eviscerating ObamaCare. But they’re divided over how to do the deed.
The program has never been popular with voters. A new Rasmussen survey finds that only 12% of voters want to keep it as it is. However 56% want the law improved piece by piece. Only 30% want to see the program immediately brought to room temperature.
ObamaCare Death Spiral
Forbes defines a health insurance death spiral as “adverse selection” which happens when only high risk people buy insurance:
If only people on their death beds buy life insurance, the insurance company would quickly go out of business. Equally, if only sick people buy health insurance, the math will not work…
To reduce the risk of adverse selection, the Affordable Care Act created a penalty for people who do not enroll in insurance. However, the penalty for not having insurance in 2016 was the higher of $695 per individual or 2.5% of income. Although $695 is a lot of money, it is still cheaper than health insurance policies offered on the exchange.
Death Spiral
That’s because ObamaCare rates are going up an average of 25% next year. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, that’s just “for the mid-level insurance plans that are performing the best, not the average increase of all ObamaCare coverage.”
In Arizona premiums will go up 116% next year. Big insurance companies are pulling out of the exchanges.
That same WSJ editorial says President Obama took a victory lap for ObamaCare in Miami last week. He bragged about “all the progress we’ve made in controlling costs.”
CNN says ObamaCare woes will linger long after he’s gone.
