Obamacare: Told You So (Continued)

Remember when Pres Obama told you this?

“We will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your healthcare plan, you will be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period.”

Got that?  "Period."  End of statement.  Nothing more need be said.  "No matter what you've heard." 

You didn't actually believe that, did you?  Because, according to NBC, the president didn't. 

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became

law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

 Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.” 

Those of us who opposed Obamacare from the start warned about these obvious outcomes four years ago.  We told you the "Affordable Care Act" would force people to switch plans, and that the plans they would be forced to switch to would be more expensive.  Unaffordable, even.  As always, Obama worshipers screeched back, "racists!  Why do you hate health care?!" 

At least Pres Obama and his team weren't stupid enough to believe their own blatantly, obviously empty promises.  Obamacare supporters, on the other hand...

Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.
"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.

Don't you just love "Liberals"?  They're adorable.  They're so generous with other people's money.

Fullerton resident Jennifer Harris thought she had a great deal, paying $98 a month for an individual plan throughHealth Net Inc.

Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month.

 That's a 243% increase, folks!

She and her husband don't qualify for federal premium subsidies because they earn too much money, about $80,000 a year combined. 

"It doesn't seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else," said Harris, who is three months pregnant. "This increase is simply not affordable." 

Gosh, there's that word again.  Back to the 

George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was "perfectly happy" with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The "comparable" plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible. 

And the best option he’s found on the exchange so far offered a 415 percent jump in premium, to $948 a month. 

"The deductible is less," he said, "But the plan doesn't meet my needs. Its unaffordable." 

There's that word again!

Even prominent "Liberals" are noticing the loss of their insurance plans the pres promised they could keep if they liked.

That's Ronald Reagan's "Liberal" activist daughter who voted for Pres Obama twice.  Now she asks questions!  She deleted her tweet, of course, but others saved it for posterity. 

Even MSNBC contributor and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page admits that it was a lie. 

Page told Hewitt that Obama knew “there was no guarantee everybody was going to keep

their insurance because people couldn’t keep their insurance under the old system.” 

Hewitt asked, “He knew he was lying?” 

Page replied, “Probably, but that’s one of those political lies, you know.” 

Page partly defended Obama by saying that “most people” will be able to keep their insurance policies and Obama was simply being “too grandiose.” Hewitt found it striking that this wouldn’t really bother Page that much

 Correction: it doesn't bother him in the slightest.  And why should it?  He's an Obama worshiper.  One doesn't worship a politician out of reasonable consideration of the facts.

UPDATE: NY Magazine has another "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan" compilation video.

Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold Joins ‘The Biggest Loser’ | OlympicTalk

U.S. Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold on ‘The Biggest Loser’ | OlympicTalk

Super Heavyweight Holley Mangold

Well, this is unexpected!

Holley Mangold‘s road to the Rio Olympics will go through “The Biggest Loser.” 

Mangold, who placed 10th in the super heavyweight division at the London Games, said the NBC weight-loss show reached out to her. Now, she’s a contestant on the series’ 15th season beginning Oct. 8.

Ms Mangold is a super heavyweight Olympic weightlifter.  According to the USA Weightlifting website, female super heavies start at 165 lb and go up from there.  There is no upper limit to how much they can weigh.  Frankly, I think 165 lb is too low a starting point for a weight class called "super heavyweight".  Ms Mangold, however, weighed in at 346 lb at the 2012 Olympics and took 10th in her weight class.

53 Kg class Weightlifter, Cortney Batchelor

Olympic weightlifting doesn't just require strength.  It requires power, speed, coordination, flexibility, agility, balance and accuracy.  Of the ten components of fitness, the only two that Olympic weightlifters typically lack are endurance and stamina, and only because their sport does not require them.  As the photo above demonstrates, super heavy weights tend to carry around a lot of body fat as well.  Their smaller counterparts do not.

I've always wondered if all that extra body fat hurts the superheavies.  Last year, Aimee and I watched a documentary called "Strong!" about another American superheavy, Rachel Haworth.



In the documentary, Ms Haworth claimed that the weight added by body fat helped, because "mass moves mass".

Ms Mangold, however, thinks it hurt her.

“I feel like that was my limiting factor the last run for the Olympics is I was too big for the super heavyweight,” said Mangold... “I needed to be smaller so I could train harder.” 

Mangold said being on the show will help her get back to the Olympics in Rio, that she can be better at a smaller weight. 

“I think I finally decided now I don’t have to wait to retire before I get in shape,” she said. “I always had this thought that if I lost weight, I wouldn’t be as good of a weightlifter anymore. I plan on going to Rio. I was very nervous about it. I think, after ‘Biggest Loser’ reached out to me, I thought this is a good idea. I can do this and be the great weightlifter I want to be.”

I shouldn't have been surprised that "The Biggest Loser" reached out to Ms Mangold.  Back in 2012, in an interview with Wired Magazine, she stated that...

As soon as I retire I will be doing cross-fit and I’m sure I’ll go crazy with health stuff.

...and  "Biggest Loser" trainer, Bob Harper, is big into CrossFit.  On top of that, Ms Mangold stopped by the 2012 CrossFit Games for a weightlifting demo.  I'd be willing to bet it was Bob Harper's idea that she participate.

Whatever the case may be, I wish her the best of luck in both her health and Olympic weightlifting goals.

Here's a video interview Ms Mangold did with the show's producers.

Obama-Backed Terrorists Attempt Religious Extermination in Maaloula, Syria

This is why we need to stay out of Syria.  If we support Assad, we support a mass-murdering dictator and Iran, but by supporting the rebels, we're supporting this.

Maaloula is a special place. It has been a safe haven for Christians for 2,000 years - until now. It was a place of refuge so secure in its rugged mountain isolation that a dialect of the language of Christ, Aramaic, is still spoken here. But not today. 

Its Christian community of 2,000 has fled. In the tight alleyways and streets that wind up the Maaloula's mountainside their language has been replaced by the Arabic of two bitter enemies: rebels from three Islamist groups and the soldiers of President Bashar al-Assad.
Some 70,000 tourists a year used to come here from all over the Middle East, Europe and America to marvel at the Christianity carved into its rock. But the "Welcome to Maaloula" sign as I drove in seemed almost laughable. 

There was hardly time to notice the white statue of Christ the Redeemer on the hillside before we were fired on, bullets aimed at our van, blowing our tyre and holing the chassis. We screeched to a halt and scrambled clear.

Lee Stranahan, one of the few American reporters in the area, has details of the attack.

For weeks in early September, the world got sketchy reports on the back and forth fighting in Maaloula, as combined Syrian rebel forces consisting of U.S. backed ‘Free Syria Army’ fighters battled next to al-Qaeda backed al-Nusra troops against Syrian goverment forces for control of the town. 

The Maalourla survivors, speaking out for the first time, said that the Free Syria Army troops were as one with the al-Nusra warriors. They described in heartbreakng detail how Maaloula’s townspeople were terrorized and some killed for being Christian. 

The attack began with a suicide bomber attacking the local checkpoint. One survivor said that armed Muslims were inside her house almost immediately, and held a machine gun to her husband’s head. The Islamists bragged about smashing a statue of Mary and taunted the family for their Christianity. The survivor broke down in tears describing her fear that her daughter would be raped by the men and that the family would be killed. 

When the Maaloula witnesses was told that U.S Sec. of State John Kerry had referred to the FSA forces as ‘moderate’ in Senate testimony, she closed her eyes, shook her head both and forth and said “No no no no no.” 

She said that she didn’t trust the press after seeing their reporting on the situation in Maaloula, which deemphasized the Islamist elements of the attack.

More from Mr Stranahan:



For more info, visit Mr Stranahan's site and read this report from Ed Morrissey. 

General Dynamics Long-Range Machine Gun | Kit Up!

GD Shows Off Long-Range Machine Gun | Kit Up!

GD’s Ordnance and Tactical Systems division was showing off the 23-pound LWMMG at Modern Day Marine 2013, touting it as the needed bridge between the M240 and the M2 .50 caliber machine guns. 

“We wanted a round that could provide capabilities to eliminate the gap between 7.62mm and .50 cal,” a GD official said. “We needed a round that could provide accurate, effective fire on target beyond 1,500 meters.” 

The LWMMG fires a 300 grain .338 caliber bullet and is capable of effective fire out to 1,700 meters, compared to the M240 round which is effective out to 1,100 meters. 

“It puts a lot of energy on the target; it doesn’t compare to the .50 cal which is a 650 grain bullet, but we are not trying to replace the .50 cal,” the GD official said. The LWMMG isn’t being marketed as a replacement for the M240 either even though it’s about 4 pounds lighter. The heavier, .338NM ammo weighs about 9 pounds for every 100-round box. One hundred rounds of 7.62mm weights about seven pounds. 

“You can mount this anywhere an M240 will mount,” he said. “You can put effective fire on targets at extended ranges, and that is why we chose that round; we built the weapon around the round.”

After 12 years of war, our Enemies in the AfPak theater know our weapons' capabilities pretty well.  Consequently, they prefer to initiate an ambush with an IED, then open fire with machine guns, RPGs and recoilless rifles (when available) from elevated positions out of range of our weapons.

Our .50 cal machine guns can reach them, but a dismounted patrol can't carry a .50 cal.  And a mounted patrol can't dismount the .50 cal from a truck and maneuver it to a more advantageous position if the enemy's fighting positions are too far up on the high ground (which they usually are).

This machine gun weighs roughly the same as an M-240, but with much greater range.  Carrying an M-240B in Afghan terrain is no joke, but our servicemen do it.  And this guns range is long enough that the enemy wouldn't be able to out-range them.

My first thought when I read the Kit Up headline was - why not .338 Lapua?  How does the .338 Norma compare to it?  I don't know the answer to those questions, but here's this from the article...

The plan was to build the LWMMG in the same round as U.S. Special Operations Command’s new Precision Sniper Rifle, which Remington is now building in .338 Lapua magnum, GD officials said. While the company is pleased with the performance of the shorter .338NM cartridge, it would not be difficult to convert it to .338 Lapua, GD officials maintain.

Check out these videos.

Feds Steal $35K From Small Grocer's Bank Account Despite Finding "No Violations" To Justify the Grab - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Feds Steal $35K From Small Grocer's Bank Account Despite Finding "No Violations" To Justify the Grab - Hit & Run : Reason.com

the feds sent the Dehkos a letter saying that “no violations [of banking laws] were identified.” 

And then, nine months later, the IRS emptied the Dehkos' bank acount of $35,000 without warning. 

In the Dehkos' case, the IRS used civil asset forfeiture, which requires no criminal action or proof of guilt on the part of a property owner to seize that property...

This, ladies and gentlemen, is legalized theft.  The 4th Amendment of the Constitution reads...

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

How can the Feds get away with such a clear violation of the 4th Amendment?

technically, it's a legal action against the property itself. 

I see.  So the feds are punishing the property, not the people who own it.  Makes perfect sense.

Not surprisingly, it's a hugely lucrative practice for government agencies and a hugely controversial one for everybody else. 

I bet.

But the use of asset forfeiture, both civil and criminal, soared at the federal level under the current administration, growing from $500 million in 2003, to $1.8 billion in 2011. 

Surprise!



If this doesn't piss you off, I don't know what will, because if this can happen to the Dehkos, it can happen to any of us.

Armed Brit Citizen Saved 100 Lives in Kenya Terrorist Attack | Mail Online

British hero of the mall massacre: Ex Royal Marine with a handgun saved 100 lives as terrorists ran amok | Mail Online

"Liberals" claim no one with a concealed weapon ever saved a life in a mass murder attack.  Wanna bet?

The former soldier is said to have returned to the building on a dozen occasions, despite intense gunfire. 

A friend in Nairobi said: ‘What he did was so heroic. He was having coffee with friends when it happened. 

‘He went back in 12 times and saved 100 people. Imagine going back in when you knew what was going on inside.’ 

Sources said the soldier was in the Royal Marine and now lives in Kenyan. He cannot be named for security reasons. 

The British military regularly train and operate out of Kenya, and have been involved in tracking UK citizens involved with hardline Islamists in Somalia and Yemen. 

Former members work with both the UK and Kenyan governments and security firms across East Africa.

I don't know about British Marines, but American Jar Heads don't like being called Soldiers.  Just a hint. Anyway, you can see a pistol in his waist band.  Hopefully we'll get more details.

Eye Witness to Westgate Mall Terrorist Attack - CNN.com

Kenyan police vow to 'finish and punish' Westgate Mall terrorists - CNN.com


Unbelievable.  Be sure to read the whole thing.