Nov 12

Obamacare has led to fewer insurance options, fewer firms, higher costs and a need for another bailout

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Just as in other heavily-regulated industries (think meatpacking), the new regulations in healthcare are causing consolidation, fewer but larger insurance companies, and much higher premium costs.

Here is a summary of the situation. Dr. Mandy Cohen of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently testified that almost 700,000 Americans have lost their health coverage because the insurance co-ops formed under ObamaCare couldn’t compete with major insurance companies.

[T]he insurance industry lobby is quietly advocating for prescription drug price controls, while simultaneously seeking 20% – 40% premium rate increases in 2016.

[And while drug companies are simultaneously lobbying against the insurance industry. –Lysander]

As ObamaCare relies on a dwindling number of insurance companies to administer the U.S. healthcare system, . . . The federal government seems perfectly willing to pour money into its failed ObamaCare experiment. The co-op collapse alone will likely cost the American taxpayer over $2 trillion.

Nov 12

TSA Security Fails 95 Percent of the Time

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After 9/11/2001, Congress deprivatized airport screening and created the Transportation Security Administration.

The TSA is 10 times more expensive than the private-contract screening in place before. Yet it provides no greater level of security.

Recent undercover attempts to smuggle weapons or breach TSA security checkpoints found that undercover agents were able to get weapons past TSA checkpoints 95 PERCENT OF THE TIME. See here.

Nov 11

Daily Newspapers Continue to Dwindle

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Those seeking knowledge are increasingly avoiding the nation’s pro-government, state-controlled daily newspapers.

Daily newspapers now number fewer than 400 nationwide. (There were 1,800 just decades ago.)

Per capita newspaper consumption is now below 15 percent.

Overall, the newspaper industry is down nearly 80 percent.

See here.

Nov 11

Pro-Government Professors Intimidate Reporters at University of Missouri

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Every time one walks onto a typical government-supported college campus, he enters a world of less freedom, more intimidation, and higher costs.

Parking is entirely free almost everywhere in Montana or Wyoming. Except on government college campuses.

The entirety of government funding of higher education is based on a notion that such funding helps “the poor.” But in fact, the system forces the true poor to support the children of the middle class and subsidize the luxurious lifestyles of free-market-hating neo-Stalinists.

Here is a Washington Post story (with videos) regarding recent extremist pro-government demonstrations on the campus of the University of Missouri. When a student reporter seeks to film the public spaces of the campus, government university staffpeople and faculty threaten him with physical violence.

When the student reporter–knowing his rights–invokes the First Amendment freedom of the press, one government professor visibly mocks him and calls upon students to assault the reporter.

UPDATE: Daily Caller confirms that the professor seen calling for “muscle” to violently remove the journalist is (like hundreds of other professors around the country) a committed anti-capitalist “intellectual.”

Nov 11

The NATION Turns: Leftist Magazine Prints its first Climate Skeptic Article: Could this be a Signal?

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The climate-change hysteria promoted by worldwide governments is about to bust. Hard.

The false predictions and outrageous claims of the climate-change socialists simply cannot withstand open sunlight. Already one-third of Americans regard the climate-change hysteria as a “total hoax.” Almost no one on “the right” regards global warming as anything other than a leftist push for more big government.

Many are asking: when will the climate-change boom go bust?

Does this article in THE NATION–a premier magazine of the socialist left–signal that socialists are preparing to acknowledge that the end is near for their outrageous claims?

The article, by Sam Khoury, lays out well-known sources of skepticism regarding the government’s warmist hysteria. What is remarkable is the venue for the article: one of the most hard-left, pro-socialist magazines in the western world.

Nov 11

New Study Suggests that Peer-Review Process may Prevail in the End regarding Climate Change.

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William N. Butos and Thomas J. McQuade are scholars of the tragic role of government funding in scientific scholarship. They have authored a study entitled, “Causes and Consequences of the Climate Science Boom,” which appears in the Fall 2015 issue of The Independent Review. See here.

Butos and McQuade find that the domineering role of government funding of “climate change science”–all of which is aimed at gaining more control for government over energy–has created an inflated “boom” in such science. This boom–just as any boom in a financial sector–must ultimately go bust.

The climate realities do not reflect the claims of the government-funded science boom. NASA recently admitted that south-polar ice is at its highest level ever recorded by satellite. Ice at the North Pole has expanded by hundreds of miles. Satellites have measured no global warming whatsoever in 18 years, and weather-related natural disasters are down 80 percent from a decade ago.

The only ‘science’ bolstering the alarmists’ view are (1) government-funded computer models which are known to overestimate global warming by an average of two to five times, and (2) government-funded SURFACE temp data which are constantly “adjusted” by government-funded scientists to suit the government.

But although Butos and McQuade are highly critical of the peer review process generated by the boom, they suggest that the process may yet prevail. It may take decades, however.

Nov 10

Another Government University Discriminates against Governmentally-Incorrect Thought: Cal State Professor Punished After Sending Students to Event at Reagan Library

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America’s government-funded and supported universities are dens of extremist pro-government thought control and discrimination. Now an English professor at Cal State Northridge (a public institution subject to the equal protection and free-speech provisions of the Bill of Rights) has been subjected to Star Chamber Disciplinary proceedings for . . . (wait for it!) . . . having students attend an event at the nearby Ronald Reagan Library.

Extremist pro-government students complained that panelists at the event didn’t provide sufficiently governmentally correct responses to questions about gay adoption. (The questions were initiated by the pro-government students themselves and reportedly not even pertinent to the panel discussion.) See here.

Nov 09

Yale University Erupts in Violent Screaming as Students Demand a Campus “Safe” from Intellectual Diversity

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Not only are American colleges generally staffed with extreme trusters of the state. See here.

The drive for “safety” from alternative ideas now predominates student discussions and drives out all principles of intellectual openness, freedom or diversity. Witness this video of students shouting down a Yale University officer for suggesting he has a duty to ensure intellectual freedom on the Yale campus.

No, the students shout. Yale is supposed to provide a campus “safe” from any objectionable ideas. Here is a write-up of the affair on reason.com.

Nov 09

New Study Finds Earth’s Changing Orbit Has More Effect on Temps than Greenhouse Gasses Do

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It turns out that the Earth’s orbit around the sun changes a great deal from time to time. A new study concludes this changing orbit path has more to do with earth temperature changes than any other factor. See here.

Nov 09

Government Temp “Adjustments” Turn a Cooling Period into a Warming Period

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As hype over alleged global warming heats up, more people are looking into the constant “adjustments” of temperature records by government agencies and government-funded scientists. Here is a good article on the subject.

“[The National Climatic Data Center] pulls every trick in the book to turn the U.S. cooling trend into warming. The raw data shows cooling since the 1920s,” a science blogger who goes by the name Steven Goddard told The Daily Caller.