100 “Bourgeois” Businessmen Arrested in Floundering Venezuela

Nicolas Maduro

Yeah, that’ll help…

Nov 14 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s socialist government has arrested more than 100 “bourgeois” businessmen in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.

“They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!” Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. “We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment.”

The successor to the late Hugo Chavez also said his government was preparing a law to limit Venezuelan businesses’ profits to between 15 percent and 30 percent.

Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela’s runaway inflation.

“Goodyear has to lower its prices even more, 15 percent is not enough, the inspectors have go there straightaway,” Maduro said in his evening address, sending officials to check local operations of the U.S.-based tire manufacturer.

Since the weekend, soldiers and inspectors have gone into 1,400 shops, taken over operations at an electronics firm and a battery-making company, and rounded up a handful of looters.

Read More…

ObamaCare: Nobody Will be Spared

This thing is simply toxic…

Millions of Americans are being informed they’re being dropped from their insurance plans because the plans don’t meet minimum Obamacare standards, but President Obama so far has stood by his promise that “if you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.”

Insurance plans that existed on the individual market before the passage of the Affordable Care Act were “grandfathered” in, the president and his supporters have argued, and consumers only lost coverage if insurers altered those policies after the law took effect. In that case, Mr. Obama said last week, insurers had to “replace them with quality, comprehensive coverage.”

In any event, the administration argues, the promise still applies to the vast majority of people.

“If you’re one of the 80 percent of Americans who is insured or covered through an employer plan or through Medicare or Medicaid, or the Veterans’ Administration, there is no change for you except for an increase in benefits that everyone receives as a result of the Affordable Care Act,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday.

Yet in the years to come, some workers with employer-provided benefits will see their benefits scaled back because of an Obamacare tax. That portion of the law — known as the “Cadillac tax” — isn’t set to take effect until 2018, but it’s already influencing the benefits packages that employers offer.

“Every employer plan since the passage of the health care law has been working to make sure their health care cost trends keep their plans under the ‘Cadillac tax,'” Steve Wojcik of the National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit that represents large employers, told CBSNews.com.

The administration’s argument for the individual market applies to the employer-based market: No one with health insurance should expect to keep their current plan forever.

“The expectation was never there that a plan is going to be set in stone for any length of time,” Wojcik said. “Plans should adopt to new evidence and new benefits practices — they shouldn’t be set in stone… We’ve wanted to do something about health care costs growing out of control.”

That said, Wojcik added, the “Cadillac tax” is “bringing more immediacy” to the issue, prompting employers to scale back plans they wouldn’t otherwise, “with the 2018 deadline looming.”

Read more

MORE:

Health Care Fukushima: 129 Million To Lose Their Plan

Venezuela has Seized Control of Two American Oil Rigs

American companies should protest this by pulling out of Venezuela immediately. But they won’t…

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela has quietly seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services after the company shut them down because the state oil monopoly was months behind on payments.

The seizure took place Thursday after a judge in the state of Anzoategui, accompanied by four members of the local police and national guard, entered a Superior depot and ordered it to hand over control of two specialized rigs to an affiliate of PDVSA, the state-owned oil producer.

PDVSA justified the equipment’s expropriation, calling it essential to the South American nation’s development and welfare, according to a court order obtained by The Associated Press. Company workers were instructed to load the rigs, known as snubbing units and used to repair damaged casing, onto trucks to be deployed at “critical wells” elsewhere, according to the document.

“It was like a thief breaking into your house, asking for the keys to the safe and then expecting you to help carry it away,” Jesus Centeno, local operations manager for Superior in the city of Anaco, said by phone. “Their argument was that we were practically sabotaging national production.”

While the late President Hugo Chavez liked to grandstand on national television, ordering troops to seize everything from supermarkets to foreign-owned oil companies, his hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, has avoided any additional expropriations six months into his rule.

At what point does something like this be viewed as an ‘act of war’?
Just asking…

“The United States government is the ultimate giant unworkable mess”

Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog puts into brilliant context exactly why government cannot do or build the things a culture with real individual incentive can build, no matter how much money the government continually throws at it…

The ObamaCare website is the natural spawn of that technocracy who love the idea of using modernity to make things faster and easier, but have no idea what anything costs or how it works.

It’s hard to have a functioning technocracy without engineers. A technocracy made in Silicon Valley with its complete disregard for anything outside its own ego zone would be bad enough. But this is a Bloombergian technocracy of billionaires and activists, of people who think that “progress” makes things work, rather than things working leading to progress.

Healthcare.gov showed us that behind all the smoother and shinier designs was the same old clunky government where everything gets done because the right companies hire the right lobbyists and everything costs ten times what it should.

If the government can’t build a health care website, how is it going to actually run health care for an entire country is the obvious question that so many are asking. And the obvious answer is that it will run it the way it ran the website. It will throw wads of money and people at the problem and then look for programs it doesn’t like to squeeze for extra cash.

The Navy had to be cut to the bone and the Benghazi mission had to make do without security so that a Canadian company which began employing a classmate of Michelle Obama’s could score over half a billion to build a broken website. Obama mocked Mitt Romney’s criticism of his Navy cuts by telling him that we don’t fight with bayonets and horses anymore. Bayonets and horses are outdated. In our glorious modernity, we spend fortunes to build websites that don’t work instead.

Modernity has to be built. It has to be constructed brick by bit by rivet by cable by people who know what they are doing. Modernity without competence is as worthless as the ObamaCare website which looked pretty enough to give the illusion of technocratic modernity, but didn’t actually work.

Competence is the real modernity and it has very little to do with the empty trappings of design that surround it. In some ways the America of a few generations ago was a far more modern place because it was a more competent place. For all our nice toys, we look like primitive savages compared to men who could build skyscrapers and fleets within a year… and build them well.

Those aren’t things we can do anymore. Not because the knowledge and skills don’t exist, but because the culture no longer allows it. We can’t do them for the same reason that Third World countries can’t do what we do. It’s not that the knowledge is inaccessible, but that the culture gets in the way.

It’s our very hollow modernity that gets in the way of our truly being modern. We can no longer build big things because the ability to implement vision on a large scale no longer exists. We can still do impressive things as individuals, but that’s also true of Kenya or Thailand. And in China, they can carry out grandiose projects, but those projects have no vision or competence.

Read in full

MORE:

Obamacare Catastrophe Reveals Barack’s Entire Paper-Mache Fantasy World

And So It Begins…

The New York Post is reporting thousands of elderly patients have already lost, and are about to lose, their doctors because their Medicare plans are dropping the physicians out of their network. And this is just New York. I live in Ohio and my Mother told me at the beginning of this week that in the last two weeks (since ObamaCare went into motion) she has lost two of her own longtime doctors, and is in danger of losing her cardiologist, for the same reason. And I haven’t even talked to my Dad about this yet.

Just try to get a doctor to accept you as a new patient these days, let alone an elderly patient with years of complex medical history to catch-up on in order to treat him/her properly. It’s just not happening … and doctors and hospitals have already been refusing Medicare and Medicaid patients over the last few years before ObamaCare became a law. No, Grandpa, you cannot keep your doctor.

Here is Paul Ryan warning about the ObamaCare dangers (one of which is the above issue at hand) in that MSM and democrat talking-head(s) touted wonderful and gracious meeting Obama had at the White House for republican opposition to the then bill…

And these are just the elderly feeling this pain for which there is no pill.

But remember … Romney/Ryan were going to rob from Medicare!
Binders!
Dog on car roof!
RICH GUY!!!

Oh, yeah, and “War on Women!”Obama’s War on Women: ObamaCare Takes Away Woman’s Health Care Choices

Why ObamaCare is NOT a Failure…

If you take the time to read just one thing this weekend seriously consider this article…

Wayne Allyn Root outlines why ObamaCare is going as planned, and is not a “trainwreck”, but the red train charging down the tracks headed for the destruction of our nation’s political, societal and cultural structure … and if the GOP intends to survive the real destruction planned by Obama they had better get their heads out of their collective asses and stand-up to it now.

The GOP needs to stop calling ObamaCare a “trainwreck.” That means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure. It’s NOT.

This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism.

It’s not a failure, it’s Obama’s grand success.

It’s not a “trainwreck,” ObamaCare is a suicide attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we agree under duress to accept big government.

Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky — a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a terrorist” to hide your own intentions.

To scream that the other guy is “ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.

The GOP is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack.

The tell-tale sign isn’t the disastrous start to ObamaCare. Or the devastating effect the new taxes are having on the economy. Or the death of full-time jobs. Or the overwhelming debt. Or the dramatic increases in health insurance rates. Or the 70% of doctors now thinking of retiring- bringing on a healthcare crisis of unimaginable proportions. Forget all that.

The real sign that this is a purposeful attack upon capitalism is how many Obama administration members and Democratic Congressmen are openly calling Tea Party Republicans and anyone who wants to stop ObamaCare “terrorists.”

There’s the clue. Even the clueless GOP should be able to see that.

They are calling the reasonable people…the patriots…the people who believe in the Constitution … the people who believe exactly what the Founding Fathers believed…the people who want to take power away from corrupt politicians who have put America $17 trillion in debt…terrorists?

Read in full

And that isn’t even the meat of it. You must read the full article. We are in serious trouble.

I too have been saying for the last five years how Obama is not failing as everyone is perceiving him to be. He is failing by our own common sense standards, yes, but common sense like personal responsibility is intentionally becoming extinct. It’s as if people honestly expect him to do things the obviously correct way to fix the mess. However, all this devolution of our rights, the economy, and even our societal/cultural mentality serves his agenda and the ongoing progressive/socialist/communist/Marxist revolution’s purpose in this country.

The Spanish Side of the ObamaCare Exchange is Even Worse…

spanish obamacare

The Spanish language side of the ObamaCare train wreck is failing even worse than the English version…

Lost in the hubbub surrounding the malfunctioning HealthCare.gov is another missed deadline and closed door for millions of Americans seeking health insurance: Cuidado­DeSalud.gov.

The Spanish-language site still does not allow consumers to enroll for exchange coverage, a delay that was previously estimated by administration officials to last until mid-October.

A spokeswoman from the Health and Human Services Department declined to comment on when consumers will be able to sign up for health insurance on CuidadoDeSalud.gov and whether the additional delay is related to the malfunctions on the English language site, HealthCare.gov.

If I may, I ponder a possible(?) deliberate ‘glitch’ there because of this…

The continued holdup of CuidadoDeSalud.gov has staff at the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda pressing the White House to get a move on. The NHLA kicked off the National Hispanic Health Week of Action on Monday.

“This is a critical priority for the Latino community, that they have access to affordable health care,” NHLA Chairman Hector Sanchez said.

The NHLA is advising communities to apply by phone and paper, but said it will likely have another outreach campaign once the Spanish-language site begins accepting applications.

“The message here is that we have six months to get this done,” Sanchez said. “Even with these glitches, the process is easier than it was before.”

And the fact that:

1.) Very few have actually gotten onto the glitch-plagued primary ObamaCare site to even have an extensive look

2.) Even far less have actually purchased healthcare coverage there

3.) AND the Obama-loving Millennials are having sticker shock with the high premiums and dedectibles, and are opting out of ObamaCare, just satisfied to have the IRS track them down for the “fines” … and THEY are the ones who are supposed to be the program’s cash cows for all those “uninsured” signing up

In plain terms, nobody is funding this O’ponzi scheme, and those uninsured will be dipping into an empty bucket. So, like any union-run factory line, Slow it down!

Well, anyway, stranger things have happened …

Seriously, Florida? Seriously? – UPDATED

Why does Florida keep sending Alan Grayson back to Washington DC time and time again? Are the people in Grayson’s congressional district really of like-mind with this unmitigated, uncivil, uncouth buffoon? Or are they just eager to get him off their streets and out of town?

Here is Grayson’s latest email…

grayson email

What a propagandistic, agent provocateur, embarrassment this guy is.
Grayson is the epitome of a useful idiot assclown for the progressive/socialist/communist/Marxist democrat party agenda whose designated job is to go on the TV screen to slobber and spew ugly vitriol, playing to the most willfully ignorant among us … which is why the majority of TV gigs Grayson does are either on that assclown car wreck called MSNBC or HBO’s Bill Maher show. The problem is, the nation is led to believe Alan Grayson is the mirror image and resolute voice of his constituents that sent him to DC. Think hard and carefully in the election, FL-9. You do have a serious choice for sane and dignified representation on the floor of the US Congress … and on TV. “Stop the insanity!” The guy really does write the political ads for his own election opponent(s).

By the way, there are many minority members of the TEA Party, and growing, so, the above disgusting image is, I find, a not-so-subliminal threat to them by Grayson. Yet, people such as Grayson strip them of their skin color and heritage because they are not good little zip-lipped comrades for the “Progressive” cause. They must not think for themselves and expect others to do so as well. Minorities must have a political lobotomy or be skinned alive by the left. The jaded racist history of the nation’s democrat party is something the current democrats and the MSM try very hard to bury every moment of the day. However, since a republican POTUS broke free the chains of slavery, the liberal/leftist democrat party has slapped on new chains of oppression through endless entitlement baiting and addiction, and through ridicule and personal destruction for daring to have and practice free thought and free will … For stepping off the democrat party plantation.

HT: Weasel Zippers

UPDATE:

Grayson is defending his remarks and the KKK analogy citing erroneous claims of racism of the TEA Party (some of which were discovered to be interloping outside ‘plants’ at TEA Party rallies deliberately there for the MSM to do gotcha slams against the TP, and other claims having nothing to do with TEA Party affiliations).

Rep. Grayson blasted over anti-Tea Party email showing burning cross

The Cancerous ObamaCare Panacea That Keeps on Taking and Taking

New York is not the only place in the nation where hospitals are refusing ObamaCare plans…

ObamaCare was supposed to offer more choices — but New Yorkers shopping for medical coverage stand to be shut out of two of the city’s most prestigious hospitals.

Only three of the nine plans being offered on the New York State Health Exchange cover bills at NYU and New York-Presbyterian medical centers, The Post has learned.

Those who opt for the other six plans will either have to go elsewhere or pay steep out-of-pocket costs, officials said.

Records show that New York-Presbyterian, the largest hospital system in the nation with 2,236 beds, is an in-network choice only for the United, Emblem and Aetna plans when chosen through the exchange.

The New York University system, which as 1,069 beds at its main Langone medical facility as well as its Hospital for Joint Diseases, has deals with Affinity, Fidelis and United, and for individuals with Oxford-United for small groups.

NYU and New York-Presbyterian continue to accept most commercial health insurance that is not regulated by ObamaCare.

“It’s a desperate attempt by the insurance companies to try to keep premiums down under ObamaCare. The only way to do that is to cut the number of hospitals patients can see use,” said Josh Archambault of the Foundation for Government Accountability.

[…]

Breitbart’s Dana Loesch was on Hannity last night on FNC and tried hard to get through cement-headed, democrat operative Steve McMahon’s ObamaCare talking points to get him to hear and understand this was going with some of the hospitals in her own hometown of St. Louis, one of which is a cancer treatment hospital. However, McMahon just fell short of calling her a liar, even though she told him the hospital’s head had given a public statement to the fact…

So, you cannot keep your hospital now … or your current insurance palns you like … or your doctor(s). In addition, doctors are sick over ObamaCare as well

Read more

ObamaCare Accounts: Anything You Say Can and Will be Used Against You

The other night on Jon Stewart’s TV show HHS Sec. Sebelius was asked how many people have actually enrolled for ObamaCare. She answered (@ 1:10) :

“Fully enrolled, I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. We are taking applications on the web, on the phone, we’ll be giving monthly reports, but I can tell you we’ve had not only lots of web hits, hundreds of thousands of accounts created” (10/8).

Last night on FNC’s Hannity FOX anchor Ainsley Earhardt was in the background with Sean checking in on her progress (she had been trying for days) on the ObamaCare exchange site (for South Carolina, her home state). Once in, after a couple of ‘click here’ prompts, she discovered she had to fill out lots of personal information pages, i.e., create an account, as Sebelius mentioned above.

People cannot just get on the exchange sites to browse the coverage plans and shop around without giving a plethora of personal information/data by creating an account on the site. Were else do you have to turn-over this sort of personal data/information before even shopping for something??? Are you opening your eyes and understanding this yet? Data mining…

From the Weekly Standard: Obamacare Marketplace: Personal Data Can Be Used For ‘Law Enforcement and Audit Activities’

Maryland’s Health Connection, the state’s Obamacare marketplace, has been plagued by delays in the first days of open enrollment.  If users are able to endure long page-loading delays, they are presented with the website’s privacy policy, a ubiquitous fine-print feature on websites that often go unread. Nevertheless, users are asked to check off a box that they agree to the terms.

The policy contains many standard statements about information automatically collected regarding Internet browsers and IP addresses, temporary “cookies” used by the site, and website accessibility.  However, at least two conditions may give some users pause before proceeding.

The first is regarding personal information submitted with an application for those users who follow through on the sign up process all the way to the end.  The policy states that all information to help in applying for coverage and even for making a payment will be kept strictly confidential and only be used to carry out the function of the marketplace.  There is, however, an exception: “[W]e may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.”  Here is the entire paragraph from the policy the includes the exception [emphasis added]:

Should you decide to apply for health coverage through Maryland Health Connection, the information you supply in your application will be used to determine whether you are eligible for health and dental coverage offered through Maryland Health Connection and for insurance affordability programs. It also may be used to assist you in making a payment for the insurance plan you select, and for related automated reminders or other activities permitted by law.  We will preserve the privacy of personal records and protect confidential or privileged information in full accordance with federal and State law. We will not sell your information to others.  Any information that you provide to us in your application will be used only to carry out the functions of Maryland Health Connection. The only exception to this policy is that we may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.

The site does not specify if “appropriate authorities” refers only to state authorities or if it could include the federal government, as well.  Neither is there any detail on what type of law enforcement and/or audit activities would justify the release of the personal information, or who exactly is authorized to make such a determination.  An email to the Maryland Health Connection’s media contact seeking clarification has not yet been answered

[…]

If you send us an e-mail, we use the information you send us to respond to your inquiry. E-mail correspondence may become a public record. As a public record, your correspondence could be disclosed to other parties upon their request in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.

Read in full

In addition, the ObamaCare navigators raise identity theft risks.

Some other things to consider when going to the ObamaCare exchange sites:

Obamacare site hits reset button on passwords as contractors scramble

Credit scores impact new Affordable Care Act insurance plans

What did they know, and when did they know it?

The know-it-all White House was warned for months of ObamaCare exchange debacle.

MORE: “Why the Reviled Tea Party Was Right about Obamacare”