LISTEN to BLACK MAN THINKIN’


So, How Much WORSE Can It Get…?

I just see a huge train wreck coming down

That is what Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) told Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in April 2013, about the Obamacare rollout, then less than six months away.

Baucus would later say, some two weeks before the rollout, that he longer expected a debacle and that his April statement was a wake-up call to the administration, “That was the whole point of it and we got their attention and worked to try to straighten things out.

It will be a train wreck…It won’t be a train wreck…Senator, as the old folks say, “Always go with your first mind.”

Obamacare’s problems are now myriad, with more, different, and more devastating items than most imagined. In May 2013, Institute for Policy Innovation resident scholar Merrill Matthews saw not one, but four impending train wrecks for Obamacare:

    • Overstating the readiness, and the potential cost savings, of Electronic Health Records (EHR),
    • A lack of support from health insurers and from the public,
    • Ignoring health insurance experts to draft a law that explodes health insurance premiums, and
    • Underfunding the high risk pools for the “uninsurables” with pre-existing conditions, thereby leaving people the law intended to help with no help at all.

So far, two of those wrecks have occurred; does anyone seriously consider a problem with EHR and with insuring those with pre-existing conditions unlikely? Everyone should have seen these problems coming; the Obama administration certainly did.

Candidate Obama repeatedly promised Americans that his health care reform would lower health insurance premiums for American families: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66bgpRRSDD4[/youtube]

Obamacare in hand and seeking re-election, the promise of premium reductions became a story of reducing total health care costs.

Then, four months after the 2012 election, HHS Secretary Sebelius let the cat out of the bag: insurance premiums could rise and not fall at all. Recently, the Manhattan Institute predicted rates would double for young men and increase 62 percent for young women. By then, Obama had changed his tack to taking credit for the slowest rate of increase in 50 years.

So much for the exciting promises of dramatic decreases in premiums. Does anyone else see a problem with that one?

Then there is the HealthCare.gov website, which the administration promised to have ready on October 1, 2013: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRxNx1r6DGw[/youtube]

However, by that date, the website was neither fully built nor tested: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WzE3naHcq4[/youtube]

The president said he did not think himself “stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity a week before the website opens if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.” He then stated, “Clearly we, and I, did not have enough awareness about the problems with the website.”

Yet, multiple reports show that the administration, including the White House, was aware of website problems, months in advance. Is the president being truthful when he denies knowing anything was wrong, or does this fall into the category of his “Like it…Keep it” promise?

Regarding that, the president did apologize for the millions of health insurance cancellations, but did not call them unanticipated. That may be because the administration published, in June 2010, that 40% – 67% of individual health insurance policies would not have the promised “grandfather” status. We are to believe the president did not know what his administration predicted, not 90 days after Obamacare became law? No one told him? Really?

(Something is greatly amiss, as touching this man’s veracity, intelligence, competence, or any combination of the foregoing.)

Unfortunately, the carnage will not stop with the private health insurance market, estimated to eventually see some 16 million policies go away. That’s small potatoes; the next wave of cancellations will wash through the beaches of the employer-provided health insurance market and erode 68% of those policies, leaving 129 million Americans without the insurance they liked and hoped to keep.

If that was not enough, we now see people losing access to the doctors they trust, beginning in Connecticut, and beginning with Medicare Advantage patients, with UnitedHealthCare firing thousands of doctors.

As Vice President Joe Biden said: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2yBRucRe7c[/youtube]

So big, in fact, that the administration is looking for other folks to take the fall. They are blaming insurance companies for the millions of cancellation forced by their regulations; they are blaming the GOP for not helping them fix a mess with which Republicans had nothing to do; and blaming the media for not telling Americans how good Obamacare is. CNN is even blaming Christians for Obamacare’s woes.

But CNN also blames Christians for homosexual teen suicides, for homosexuals getting beaten on the street…CNN blames Christians for a number of things, but CNN is not officially part of the administration, and I digress.

The administration, and its supporters, are in full bunker mentality mode. The troubles with Obamacare are hurting more than the president. After the government “shut down”, Democrats held a significant lead over Republicans in the generic Congressional ballot; a more recent poll saw the GOP in the lead. Expect that lead to grow as more people lose their health insurance because of a law for which only Democrats voted.

Much is made of Republican in-fighting and disarray. Even more is made of the Republican Congress being less popular than the president. But that static picture ignores some important facts.

One is that it does not matter what people think of Congress; it only matters what they think of their individual Congressman. Who cares if they hate John Boehner in California, when the people who determine if he stays in Congress live in Ohio. The second fact is Obamacare will continue to be the gift that keeps on giving problems to everyone who voted for it…which includes not a single Republican. Which means Democrats, and not Republicans, may have the worsening problem.

How much worse can it get? Well, if 129 million Americans lose their health coverage before November 2014, then Max Baucus’ Obamacare rollout concern will be midterm election prophecy, and Democrats may, after the pools close in 2014, call 2010 “the good ol’ days”.

Beware the Presidential Pledge…

Among the more interesting things about President Barack Obama is his ability to use words. He is able to electrify audiences during big moments: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pZSvq9bto[/youtube]

Or “rally the troops” to big challenges: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8noNGSy67_g[/youtube]

Or sound the right tone during difficult times: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LB2YSRjc1A[/youtube]

That those are scripted moments does not diminish the president’s effectiveness with words. However, his ineffectiveness, even incoherence, sans teleprompter, is painful to watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx8xc[/youtube]

There is also discomfort when the president fails vary his script, whether with monotonous evaluations of “friendly” foreign countries: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erYpXzE9Pxs[/youtube]

Or regarding the largely ineffective focus on U.S. employment: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jwn4dJcl08[/youtube]

Which serves as a lead-in to a larger discussion about Barack Obama’s words. That discussion is not whether his words carry any weight; every U.S. President’s words have weight, at least when he speaks them. The discussion is whether Obama’s words lead to anything meaningful after he speaks them, especially when he says something to the effect of, “we are going to do everything in our power…”

Consider the recent Navy Shipyard mass shooting in Virginia: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PY5GK7-HxQ[/youtube]

The president indicated “we will do everything in our power” to hold the shooter accountable. Of course, the Obama team did not need to do much, after the fact, since the shooter was among those who died. However, if Obama sincerely desired to limit/prevent mass shootings in the U.S., then why did Marines at the Navy Yard not have live ammunition in their weapons? In this case, the president’s policy, before the incident, had greater impact than anything he said once the shooting ended.

One could look to immigration, which was an important factor in the 2008 campaign and afterward. Candidate Obama made it clear that passing the “Dream Act” was something that could be done immediately and would be a “top priority”: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GwNVo7siFA[/youtube]

However, despite large majorities in both Houses of Congress during his 1st two years as president, Obama not only accomplished nothing immediately on immigration legislation, he accomplished nothing at all, prompting this assessment, during his re-election campaign: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBVLiqU2gTg[/youtube]

Hmmm…

On another domestic front, the president clearly promised an all-out, expedited federal aid effort to the victims of Hurricane Sandy: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTP4c8aTRY[/youtube]

However, a New Jersey woman whom Obama hugged, on camera, and promised to help: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wamAkUzYIKo[/youtube]

received no assistance, more than a month after the president’s pledge: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CykNLy8cAbA#t=34[/youtube]

More than a year after the storm hit, the lack of money and urgency from the federal government extends the tragedy for those in New York and New Jersey.

Regarding a different tragedy, the president spoke after the Sandy Hook shooting which killed 20 elementary school children and implored Congress to pass gun control legislation, telling an assembled audience, “we have an obligation to try”: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLOIR390zyE[/youtube]

While the president expected opposition from the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the Democrat-controlled Senate failed to support the measures. Though 4 GOP Senators voted in favor, 5 Democrat Senators stood in opposition, and gun control failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate by 8 votes.

Anyone beginning to see a pattern?

Those concerned about anti-American terrorism, domestic and foreign, certainly might. Following the failed 2010 Times Square Bombing attempt, the president reiterated his administration’s commitment to do “everything in our power” to protect the American people: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTt7IekMZ4[/youtube]

The president credited federal and local law enforcement, and ordinary citizens, with foiling the attempt. Somehow, he did not credit the real cause of the bombing’s failure – Faisal Shahzad’s incompetence; he fashioned a device that ignited but did not explode.

He also said the government would look into Shahzad’s possible connections to terrorist organizations, then gave Miranda protection to Shahzad, so that he need not say a word. Was that consistent with “doing everything in our power” to protect Americans from terror? Or was it the reason the president would, later, pledge to “get to the bottom of” another domestic terror incident: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS4ya_01jig[/youtube]

Who can say that the ease with which America was attacked at home did not embolden terrorists abroad? Clearly, killing bin Laden did not deter Al-Qaeda in Benghazi. And once again, the president pledged action, saying “justice will be done”: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSHYlv5gSk[/youtube]

However, more than a year after those attacks, the U.S. government can neither find nor arrest a man who the international media interviews with regularity: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okx0-0PT7Zc[/youtube]

It appears the more this president says about a matter, the less likely what he says may actually occur. Which brings us to: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCUpJDzyRnY[/youtube]

Well, there are at least 5 million Americans (and growing) who, looking at their individual health insurance cancellation notices, might take issue with the president. That, by the way, is in addition to roughly 4.5 million who lost employer-sponsored insurance within 18 months of Obamacare being signed into law.

An overpriced, under-performing website took the blame for the cancellations, which brought yet another pledge of (swift) action from the president: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMD_4F6sR88[/youtube]

However, one month after its opening day debacle, there was no fix in sight. Even after calling in high-tech heavyweights, the president’s Chief Technology Officer Todd Park was unwilling to commit to November 30th as the date the website would be ready.

This is more than a pattern; it is a mode of mode of operation.

Today, the president said, again, “we will do everything we can to fix this problem”: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCugL0_PQ4[/youtube]

referring to the millions of canceled health insurance policies, but offered a fix that simply shifts the responsibility to state insurance commissioners and health insurance companies, leaving out the fact the administration’s implementing regulations made those cancellations predictable and necessary. The president did not indicate what, if any, changes might be made to those regulations.

Once again, the president has pledged to do something about a problem. Given his track record, it is difficult to believe anything meaningful will occur. It seems the best way to guarantee inaction from the federal government is to have this president pledge to take action.

Consequently, a true “fix” for Obamacare is unlikely, and those who have lost and will lose health insurance policies they liked have little more than a snowball’s chance of seeing that coverage again.

Religious Pedophiles: Bad…Education Pedophiles: ?

The Catholic church paid a heavy price for its pedophilia scandal. In the U.S. alone:

    • There were, at least, 7,400 abusers,
    • There were at least 15,200 victims, between 1950 and 2009,
    • The Vatican ponied up $3 Billion to address the matter, and
    Eight dioceses declared bankruptcy.

More than 700 priests and deacons left the ministry, either voluntarily or perforce. Even a U.S. bishop went down.

Of course, regard for the church eroded. As the priest-shuffling scandal reached its heights, the public did not hide its disdain:

Britain Pope

and the Catholic Church was political cartoon fodder:
priests

By the time Pope Benedict XVI resigned, 3/4 of U.S. Catholics surveyed were ready for him to go, his handling of the pedophile scandal being a major factor.

It was a sorry episode in which the blatant disregard for the welfare of more than 15,000 children outraged the public…

However, now the public can read of:

    A California teacher feeding his bodily fluids to blindfolded elementary school children,
    A Michigan teacher in a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy,
    • An HIV-positive teacher in Georgia indicted for sex with a teenager,
    • An over-achieving Michigan teacher who slept with four of her male students,
    • An Oklahoma teacher buying beer for students, then sexing one of them at her home,
    Female teachers makin’ it happen in Florida,
    Principals and their assistants gettin’ their share, and
    So much more.

Unfortunately, it does not end with a few select news accounts:

    • In 2000, an American Association of University Women report indicated that 10% of 8th through 11th graders experienced inappropriate sexual conduct at school,
    • A U.S. Department of Education Report indicated 6% to 10 % of public school children are victims of sexual abuse by school teachers and employees, and
    • Another report indicated 9.6% of all students experienced some form of sexual abuse during their K-12 matriculation.

Since annual U.S. public school K-12 enrollment is 50 million children (and growing), those small percentages produce staggering numbers.

Over a 13-year period, more than 650 million children pass through U.S. public schools. A 6% abuse rate produces more than 39 million victims; a 10% rate, more than 65 million. Divide those numbers by 13, and there are 3 million to 5 million child victims of sexual abuse, in U.S. public schools, every year…and the average U.S. school year is only 180 days.

It took the U.S. Catholic Church more than 50 years to violate some 15,000 children; abusing, on average, less than one child per day. If that is reprehensible (and it is), then what is the proper adjective to describe U.S. public schools’ sexual abuse of, on average, 17,000 and 28,000 children, every school day?

To say the Catholic Church was slow to respond to its pedophilia problem would be, well, understatement; but it did respond. Despite missteps, there have been apologies, even recently, with the last pope doing so publicly in 2010:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPLthTU-bEg[/youtube]

By comparison, there seems little by way of contrition or apology from U.S. public schools. It seems absent from teachers:

    After the Michigan teacher’s conviction, 8 teachers – 6 current and 2 retired – wrote letters to the judge, seeking lenient sentencing, and saying the homosexual pedophilia (which would also be statutory rape) was a mistake.

…absent from school districts:

    The aforementioned California pedophile fought his dismissal as an unfit teacher and received a $40,000 back pay settlement from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which offered the following explanation: “The State’s current teacher dismissal framework makes it extremely difficult to terminate unfit teachers like Berndt, thus requiring the District to find other viable options to ensure the safety of our students” …like paying off pedophiles?

…absent from teachers unions:

    • Cities: New York City spends $22 Million, yearly, appeasing its teachers union by paying teachers deserving of termination, including Roland Pierre, who stayed on payroll for 13 years after molesting a female student in 1997;
    • States: The California Teachers Association used their influence to kill legislation to remove child molesters from classrooms;
    • Nationally: Though both Democrats and Republicans agree on the need to protect children, both the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) oppose a bill to keep criminals, including sex offenders, out of schools, citing potential compromise or unionized worker protection and even racial disparities in background checks.

One could argue it is also absent from the country’s parents and guardians as well; there is a reason images like this one are popular on social media:

pta_kmart

However, at least as interesting as the relative lack of concern from schools regarding their behavior is the relative lack of rage from the public. Outrage over Catholic pedophilia was strong, leading to priests being killed in Poland, in Massachusetts, and a Canadian priest, convicted of pedophilia, committing suicide. However, aside from the community reaction to Michigan teachers who supported their convicted pedophile colleague, there appears to be little national outrage at what schools are doing to the nation’s children.

If the wave of Catholic priest pedophilia victims made people’s head spin, then the tsunami of US public school pedophilia victims should make those same heads explode. However, apparently, it does not. In fact, at least one leading intellectual, Richard Dawkins, does not consider it a big deal, though he himself was abused. One can only wonder whether his experience influenced his outspoken atheistic stance.

When one teenager, recently, died under tragic circumstances, the nation mustered this reaction:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYigIN-XG_M[/youtube]

So, when will the streets fill for the more than 17,000 children and teenagers who are sexually abused every day that a school bell rings?

And if, the nation will not take to the streets, might it at least withdraw the taxes that support, and protect, such blatant and defiant pedophilia, at least until U.S. public schools do as much about their pedophile problem as the Catholics did about theirs? Unless the message is, as Richard Dawkins implied, pedophilia is not a concern, as long as God is kept out of it.

page 1 of 1

The World of Black Man Thinkin’
ARTICLE ARCHIVES
WDFP Radio Show Archives

Welcome , today is Thursday, March 28, 2024