The Goat Pen

bluetick wrote:Obamacare's $3 Billion Windfall to Customers

The Affordable Care Act required insurers to rein in overhead costs, and consumers saved big
by Money Staff 5/13/2014

http://money.msn.com/health-and-life-in ... 89bc87e9bb

40 vets died because the VA failed to treat them. Then the VA cooked the books to cover it up. There's probably more of this going on.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/14/us/va-sca ... -reaction/

Circle all that apply

a. It was caused by an Anti-Islamic video.
b. It has been over a week since this scandal broke, and it was still caused by an Anti-Islamic video.
c. This is a phony scandal.
d. It's the Koch brothers' fault
e. It's the result of climate change
f. If the dead vets liked their health plan, they got to keep it
g. This was a "red line." If it ever happens again, there will be serious consequences.
h. Visit #treatourvets and show your support

Indiana seems to be a major trial balloon for the militarization of law enforcement given that the Indiana National Guard has also just purchased two military UH-72 Lakota helicopters which will also be used by local police and the DHS for “homeland security missions”. Downing’s claim that armored tanks are necessary to deal with violent crime doesn’t jive with actual statistics which suggest that violent crime is in fact on the decrease.
Downing’s admission that the armored vehicles are partly about combating the threat posed by returning veterans correlates with similar rhetoric at the federal level.
An April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists. Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills.
The FBI has also repeatedly characterized returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as a major domestic terrorist threat.

10ac wrote:

An April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists. Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills.
The FBI has also repeatedly characterized returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as a major domestic terrorist threat.

http://www.infowars.com/police-now-arme ... -veterans/

Toemeesleather wrote:In other statist news......from the state that gave us Brock (Moreofthesame) Obammer.


Illinois voters have used many elections to make theirs the worst-governed state, with about $100 billion in unfunded public pension promises, and $6.7 billion in unpaid bills.

The state is a stark illustration of prolonged one-party rule conducted by politicians subservient to government employees unions.

A new Gallup poll shows that Illinois has the highest percentage — 50% — of residents who want to leave their state. If Illinois voters re-elect Gov. Pat Quinn, 65, they will reject Bruce Rauner, 58, who vows to change the state's fundamental affliction — its political culture.

The state's strongest civic tradition is of governors going to jail. Four of the last nine have done so.

Lt. Gov. Quinn ascended to the governorship in 2009, because Gov. Rod Blagojevich, of fragrant memory, tried to sell the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated. In 2010, Quinn defeated a downstate social conservative by 32,000 votes out of 3.7 million cast. His job approval today is about 35%.

Rauner, born a few blocks from Wrigley Field, grew up in a Chicago suburb — his father was an electrical engineer at Motorola, his mother was a nurse. He attended Dartmouth, earned a Harvard MBA and joined the private-equity firm GTCR, where he made enough money to buy his nine homes.

When asked by a reporter if he is among the 1%, he cheerfully replied, "Oh, I'm probably .01%," an answer that was better arithmetic than politics.

Rauner spent $6.5 million of his own in winning the Republican primary, partly because Democratic-aligned unions spent millions trying to pick Quinn's opponent — attacking Rauner and supporting one of his GOP rivals.

Quinn is, as Winston Churchill reportedly said of an adversary, a modest man with much to be modest about.

Hence Quinn's campaign theme: Don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.

Concerning social issues, which energize much of the Republican base but repel many suburban voters in the "collar counties" around Chicago, Rauner is impeccably prudent, meaning disengaged. Abortion, he says, is "a tragedy" best left to women, not government. Gay marriage? Let each state decide by referendum "that particular contract between adults."

Quinn, unable to work the "war on women" trope, must rely on contemporary liberalism's only other idea, rage against the rich. But this becomes awkward.

Rauner's support for more charter schools and school choice vouchers is one reason why he has been endorsed by the Rev. James Meeks, pastor for 15,000 members of the South Side's Salem Baptist Church, Illinois' largest black church. And it's one reason the teachers unions oppose him with ferocious disparagement of his wealth.

Which is amusing. Since 2000, the Teachers' Retirement System, Illinois' largest pension program, has invested $120 million with GTCR and reaped an average annual return of 25%, much better than TRS' other private-equity investments.

For Karen Lewis, head of the Chicago Teachers Union, it suffices to say that Rauner is a "millionaire capitalist." He replies, "Teachers hired me for years." Public pension funds are by far the largest funders of private equity firms.

Illinois' population growth rate is the sixth-lowest among the states, and its 8.4% unemployment rate is exceeded only by Rhode Island's, another Democratic-dominated state, and Nevada's. Michigan's unemployment rate, the Midwest's second highest, is nearly a full point lower than Illinois'.