Thursday, December 12, 2013

Health Director That Approved Obama's Birth Certificate Dies In Plane Crash

A small plane carrying nine people crashed into the ocean off the Hawaiian island of Molokai, killing the director of the state Department of Health, officials said. The eight others onboard, including the pilot, survived. There was no indication as to why the plane had crashed.
Loretta Fuddy
Loretta Fuddy
The Makani Kai Air plane, bound for Honolulu, went down on Wednesday about a half-mile northwest of Kalaupapa peninsula, Maui Fire Department spokesman Lee Mainaga said in a statement.
Health department director Loretta Fuddy and deputy director Keith Yamamoto were on the flight after an annual visit to Kalaupapa, a remote peninsula on the north side of Molokai (moh-loh-KY'-ee) island where the state exiled leprosy patients until 1969.
Tom Matsuda, interim executive director of Hawaii's health insurance exchange, confirmed the death of Fuddy, who was on the board of the exchange.
"I cannot even begin to convey what a terrible loss this is for Hawaii," Matsuda said in a statement. "I worked closely with Director Fuddy on the Affordable Care Act and came to know and respect her as a passionate advocate for public health and a warm, caring human being."
Gov. Neil Abercrombie said Fuddy was loved and respected.
"Her knowledge was vast, her counsel and advice always given from her heart as much as from her storehouse of experience," Abercrombie said.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a former lieutenant governor under Abercrombie, said Fuddy was capable and caring. His office said Fuddy spent 30 years working in health and human services and had been health director since March 2011.
Most recently, Fuddy led the department as it transitioned its marriage license system to allow gay couples to wed under a new law that took effect this month.
Makai Kai Air President Richard Schuman told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the plane was a Cessna Grand Caravan.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Melissa McKenzie said a Coast Guard helicopter rescued three passengers from the water and Maui fire crews picked up others. One person swam ashore.
McKenzie said the helicopter transported three people to Honolulu for medical treatment, while a Coast Guard plane took five people to Maui.
The leprosy settlement on Kalaupapa is still run by the state health department, though only a few former leprosy patients continue to live there..

Monday, December 9, 2013

Guest Post: Obamacare Is A Catastrophe That Cannot Be Fixed

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Obamacare is a catastrophe that cannot be fixed, because it doesn't fix what's broken in American healthcare.
I just finished a detailed comparison of my current grandfathered health insurance plan from Kaiser Permanente (kp.org), a respected non-profit healthcare provider, and Kaiser's Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) options. I reviewed all the information and detailed tables of coverage and then called a Kaiser specialist to clarify a few questions.
First, the context of my analysis: we are self-employed, meaning there is no employer to pay our healthcare insurance. We pay the full market-rate cost of healthcare insurance. We have had a co-pay plan with kp.org for the past 20+ years that we pay in full because there's nobody else to pay it.
What we pay is pretty much what employers pay. In other words, if I went to work for a company that offered full healthcare coverage, that company would pay what we pay.
Kaiser Permanente (kp.org) is a non-profit. That doesn't mean it can lose money on providing healthcare; if it loses millions of dollars a year (and some years it does lose millions of dollars), eventually it goes broke. All non-profit means is that kp.org does not have to charge a premium to generate profits that flow to shareholders. But it must generate enough profit to maintain its hospitals, clinics, etc., build reserves against future losses, and have capital to reinvest in plant, equipment, training, etc.
As an employer in the 1980s, a manager in non-profit organizations in the early 1990s and self-employed for 20+ years, I have detailed knowledge of previous healthcare insurance costs and coverage. As an employer in the 1980s, I paid for standard 80/20 deductible healthcare insurance for my employees. The cost was about $50 per month per employee, who were mostly in their 20s and 30s. In today's money, that equals $108 per month.
In other words, I have 30+ years of knowledgeable experience with the full (real) costs of healthcare insurance and what is covered by that insurance.
Our grandfathered Kaiser Plan costs $1,217 per month. There is no coverage for medications, eyewear or dental. That is $14,604 per year for two 60-year old adults. We pay a $50 co-pay for any office visit and $10 for lab tests. Maximum out-of-pocket costs per person are $3,500, or $7,000 for the two of us.
We pay $500 per day for all hospital stays and related surgery; out-patient surgery has a $250 co-pay.
So if I suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized and required surgery, I would pay a maximum of $3,500 for services that would be billed out at $100,000 or more were Kaiser providing those services to Medicare.
(Yes, I know Medicare wouldn't pay the full charges, but if Medicare is billed $150,000--not uncommon for a few days in the hospital and surgery-- it will pay $80,000+ for a few days in the hospital and related charges. All of this is opaque to the patient, so it's hard to know what's actually billed and paid.)
In other words, this plan offers excellent coverage of major catastrophic expenses and relatively affordable co-pays for all services.
The closest equivalent coverage under Obamacare is Kaiser's Gold Plan. The cost to us is $1,937 per month or $23,244 a year. The Gold Plan covers medications ($50 per prescription for name-brand, $19 for generics) and free preventive-health visits and tests, but otherwise the coverage is inferior: the out-of-pocket limits are $6,350 per person or $12,700 for the two of us. Lab tests are also more expensive, as are X-rays, emergency care co-pays and a host of other typical charges. Specialty doctor's visits have a $50 co-pay.
The Obamacare Gold Plan would cost us $8,640 more per year. This is a 60% increase. It could be argued that the meds coverage is worth more, but since we don't have any meds that cost more than $8 per bottle at Costco (i.e. generics), the coverage is meaningless to us.
The real unsubsidized cost of Obamacare for two healthy adults ($23,244 annually) exceeds the cost of rent or a mortgage for the vast majority of Americans. Please ponder this for a moment: buying healthcare insurance under Obamacare costs as much or more as buying a house.
A close examination of lower-cost Obamacare options (Bronze) reveals that they are simulacra of actual healthcare insurance, facsimiles of coverage rather than meaningful insurance. The coverage requires subscribers to pay 40% of costs after the deductible, which is $9,000 per family. Total maximum out-of-pocket expenses are $12,700 per family. This coverage would cost us $1,150 per month, and considerably less for younger people.
How many families in America have $9,000 in cash to pay the deductibles, plus the $13,800 annual insurance fees? That totals $22,800 per year. If some serious health issue arose, the family would have to come up with $12,700 (out-of-pocket maximum) and $13,800 (annual cost of insurance), or $26,500 annually.
Is healthcare that costs $26,500 per year truly "insurance"? I would say it is very expensive catastrophic insurance in a system with runaway costs.
The entire Obamacare scheme depends on somebody paying stupendous fees for coverage which then subsidizes the costs for lower-income families and individuals. How many households can afford $23,244 a year for Gold coverage plus $12,700 out-of-pocket for a total of $35,944 annually? How many can afford $26,500 for Bronze coverage?
Recall that the median household income in the U.S. is around $50,000.
How many companies can afford to pay almost $2,000 a month for healthcare insurance per employee? Even if employees pay a few hundred dollars a month, the employers are still paying $20,000 a year per (older) employee.
If an employer can hire someone in a country with considerably lower social-welfare/healthcare costs to do the same work as an American costing them $2,000 per month for healthcare insurance, they'd be crazy to keep the worker in America, unless the worker was so young that the Obamacare costs were low or the worker was a contract/free-lance employee who has to pay his own healthcare costs.
Uninformed "progressives" have suggested that "Medicare for all" is the answer. Their ignorance of exactly how Medicare functions is appalling; recall that Medicare is the system in which an estimated 40% of all expenditures are fraudulent, unneccessary or counter-productive, where a few days in the hospital is billed at $120,000 (first-hand knowledge) and a one-hour out-patient operation is billed at $12,000, along with a half-hour wait in a room that's billed at several thousand more dollars for "observation." (Also first-hand knowledge.)
Medicare is the acme of an out-of-control program that invites profiteering, fraud, billing for phantom services, services that add no value to care, and services designed to game the system's guidelines for maximum profit. If an evil genius set out to design a system that provided the least effective care for the highest possible cost while incentivizing the most egregious profiteering and fraud, he would come up with Medicare.
Does Medicare look remotely sustainable to you? Strip out inventory builds and adjustments from imports/exports and the real economy is growing at about 1.5% annually. As noted yesterday in What Does It Take To Be Middle Class?, the real income of the bottom 90% hasn't changed for 40 years, and has declined by 7% since 2000 when adjusted for inflation.

Here is Medicare's twin for under-age-65 care for low-income households, Medicaid:

Sunday, December 8, 2013

In Violation Of Texas Law Texas School Bans Not Only Christmas Trees But The Colors Red And Green Too

A school in Texas has come under crossfire between the war on Christmas and the battle to be politically
correct.  In June, Texas Gov. Rick Perry passed a bill called “The Merry Christmas Law,” that allows for anyone to celebrate and discuss the holidays as they see fit, religious or not—especially in schools.  Nichols Elementary School in Frisco, Texas has banned the name Christmas, Christmas trees and even the colors red and green from their “winter” party.
This is especially odd since the school is in the district of the state representative that wrote the Merry Christmas Law.
State Rep. Pat Fallon says he was alerted after receiving several calls and emails from outraged parents after the school had released a memo to all parents.
After enlightening the school, the school released a statement that relayed they did not know about the law.  It was then decided to have a meeting discussing the future outcome of the ban on Christmas within the school.
To everyone’s surprise, they principal announced that she would in fact be enforcing the rule. Her reasoning? Because so many people donate money and she would hate it if anyone were offended.
Sorry to tell her, if I had given money and I wasn’t allowed to say Christmas, I would be offended.
Fallon wrote a letter to the principal stating, “Texas law clearly permits Christmas-themed celebrations, events and displays,” Fallon wrote. “The district may also display scenes or symbols with traditional winter holidays.” Unfortunately for Fallon, there is no form of punishment for being in violation of the law.
He states that what she is doing, “leads to confusion, misinterpretation and flaunting of the law.”
The ridiculousness of the matter was proven when a teacher called terrifyingly asking if she would get in trouble for playing “elf on the shelf” with her students.
Welcome to the nanny state ladies and gentlemen, where full grown, educated adults are brought down to tears, terrified of lawsuits because of a game.
What would you do if you went to the schools “winter” party?

Miley Cyrus Puts On An X Rated Show In Front of Teens and Tweens

Well, Miley is at it again in another one of her signature tight outfits.  This time, in a performance for the IHeart Radio Jingle Ball in LA, Miley couldn't resist being herself.  Unfortunately there were plenty of tweens and teens in the audience.

During the song, Get It Right, Miley wore a red sparkly two piece and danced with several other people on stage, many of which were wearing thongs.  The other dancers consisted of Santa, reindeer, a Christmas tree, and what one could only assume to be a star, played by a midget whose breasts Miley played with.

Are you tired of Miley Cyrus yet?  We sure are!






7 Nelson Mandela Quotes You Probably Won’t See In The U.S. Media


7. On the U.S. war with Iraq:

“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.”

6. On Israel:

“Israel should withdraw from all the areas which it won from the Arabs in 1967, and in particular Israel should withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, from south Lebanon and from the West Bank.”

5. On the U.S. war with Iraq:

“All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil.”


4. Mandela on Castro and the Cuban revolution:

“From its earliest days, the Cuban Revolution has also been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist-orquestrated campaign to destroy the impressive gain made in the Cuban Revolution. … Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro.”


3. Mandela on Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, his longtime supporter:

“It is our duty to give support to the brother leader … especially in regards to the sanctions which are not hitting just him, they are hitting the ordinary masses of the people … our African brothers and sisters.”

2. On the U.S. preparing to invade Iraq in a 2002 interview with Newsweek:

“If you look at those matters, you will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace.”

1. On a Palestinian state:

“The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

The E La Carte Presto Tablets: What Could Replace Restaurant Waiters

The E La Carte Presto tablets – powered by Intel – will allow patrons to pay from their seats while also adding food and beverages to their existing orders. A pilot program helped customers save time, according to Applebee’s Glendale-based parent DineEquity.

“Let’s face it, everyone who has ever been to a restaurant has been frustrated by waiting for their check,” said Mike Archer, Applebee’s president, in a statement.


Eventually, the gadgets will also feature an expanded lineup of games, video streaming capabilities, music options, gift card sales and social media interaction. The Presto tablets, which were developed at MIT, have been “ruggedized” to deal with the spills and rowdy children common in such restaurants, according to the company.”

Friday, December 6, 2013

Obama marks another historical event with not a picture of the historical person but of himself

On Thursday, the White House marked the death of 95-year-old South African leader Nelson Mandela with a picture of Barack Obama next to a quote attributed to the president on Twitter.

"Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela," the tweet said.

The picture sent with the message showed Obama in Mandela's prison cell, a jail with a quote: "Let us pause and give thanks for the fact that Nelson Mandela lived -- a man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice."  Keep in mind why Nelson Mandela was in prison.  (Nelson Mandela's Real History)

Not everyone was impressed with the narcissistic tweet.

"Another Communist bites the dust," one person said.

"It's not about you," added "Charly J."

"You're at the very least predictable," another person tweeted.


Saying that "it was easy to predict the narcissist in chief would make himself the center of attention on the day of Mandela’s death," 



On Saturday, the White House marked the 57th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat by tweeting a picture of Barack Obama sitting in the bus where Parks stood her ground.

"Today is the 57th Anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat," the White House tweeted


Thursday, December 5, 2013

Nelson Mandela is no Martin Luther King Or George Washington. He was a terrorist and a criminal.

With the passing of Nelson Mandela, many are comparing him to Martin Luther King while Obama has compared him to George Washington.  Nelson Mandela was no Martin Luther King nor George Washington.  Martin Luther
King was a Republican and would be considered a Conservative by today's standards.  Nelson Mandela is another story.
Nelson Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party. He co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, a terrorist organization that killed civilians, including children. Fast food outlets and supermarkets were favored targets. In addition to terrorist bombings, the military wing of the African National Congress tortured and executedsuspected government agents. Add to the confusion, his greatest friends are communists and dictators like Fidel Castro, Moammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein. His ex-wife Winnie Mandela, whom he quickly jettisoned when it became clear she was a considerable embarassment to his political career, is a self-confessed advocate of terrorism and violence and has even committed murder.
Post-apartheid South Africa is ruled by the ANC and the South African Communist Party. The ruling ANC defines itself as a “disciplined force of the left.
Listening to Obama, however, you wouldn’t know that Nelson Mandela is a former communist and terrorist. He has compared the aging terrorist to George Washington.
“Mandela shows what was possible when a priority is placed on human dignity, respect for law, that all people are treated equally,” Obama said on his trip to South Africa.
And what Nelson Mandela also stood for is that the well-being of the country is more important than the interests of any one person,” Obama continued. “George Washington is admired because after two terms he said enough, I’m going back to being a citizen. There were no term limits, but he said I’m a citizen. I served my time. And it’s time for the next person, because that’s what democracy is about. And Mandela similarly was able to recognize that, despite how revered he was, that part of this transition process was greater than one person.”

In his public statements and speeches Mandela is always critical of the democratic countries of the west, but has nothing but praise for the remaining communist dictatorships of the world. He condemns mistakes and controversial policies of the west, but refuses to publicly condemn the genocides and brutal repression of current or former communist countries; he is supposedly a "champion of freedom and democracy", the "hero of oppressed people everywhere" but considers dictatorships like Cuba and Libya shining beacons of freedom and justice...
Perhaps this is what makes Mandela such a revered statesman - chameleon-like he can advocate democracy and freedom as the highest ideals one day and hold up Cuba or Libya as shining examples for the world to follow the next day. And his admirers do not even notice the contradiction, or worse, they agree with him...
Many of his apologists optimistically claim that Mandela may well have had "communist leanings" in his past, but that he has since put all that behind him and become a moderate in his political beliefs. They are perhaps unaware of his fulsome praise of a communist dictatorship as late as 1991 when he and Winnie went to what they called their "second home" - Cuba - to celebrate the communist revolution with Fidel Castro. In his speech Mandela said:


"Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro... Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny... There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people."
Mandela's adulation of Castro and Cuba almost outshines that of his own admirers. In May of 1990 Mandela, visiting America, went on record, referring to Cuba:


There's one thing where that country stands out head and shoulders above the rest. That is in its love for human rights and liberty.
A week later in Libya, he lauded Qaddafi's:


Committment to the fight for peace and human rights in the world.
While in America Mandela also made public statements that amounted to support for violence and terrorism in the furtherance of political aims. In a speech in Harlem, referring to four Puerto Rican terrorists who shot and wounded five US Congressmen in 1954, he said:


We support the cause of anyone who is fighting for self-determination, and our attitude is the same, no matter who it is. I would be honored to sit on the platform with the four comrades you refer to.
Suitable "comrades" for Mandela indeed. He was himself originally incarcerated, not for his political views, but for involvement in 23 different acts of sabotage and conspiring to overthrow the government. He and his fellow conspirators of the ANC and the South African Communist Party were caught by the police while in the possession of 48,000 Soviet-made anti-personnel mines and 210,000 hand-grenades!*
It is also interesting to note that in later years Mandela was offered his freedom by none other than the South African President Botha if he would simply renounce the use of terrorism, but Mandela refused to do this.
Winnie Mandela has been equally fulsome in her praise of Communism and violence. In 1986 she was reported in Moscow's communist party newspaper Pravda as saying:


The Soviet Union is the torch-bearer for all our hopes and aspirations. We have learned and are continuing to learn resilience and bravery from the Soviet people, who are an example to us in our struggle for freedom, a model of loyalty to internationalist duty. In Soviet Russia, genuine power of the people has been transformed from dreams into reality. The land of the Soviets is the genuine friend and ally of all peoples fighting against the dark forces of world reaction.
and again at Munsieville, on April 13, 1986, she said:


With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country.
referring here to her own specific brand of democratic political activity whereby anyone who opposed her would be bound hand and foot and then burned to death by means of a tyre filled with gasoline being placed around the neck and set on fire.
Has Mandela since changed his tune in any way?
In September, 2002, Mandela gave an interview to "Newsweek" and the following summary gives his views on the situation with regard to the Iraq crisis:


You will come to the conclusion that the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace…. It (war against Iraq) is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W. Bush’s desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America…When there were white (UN) secretary generals you didn’t find this question of the United States and Britain going out of the United Nations. But now that you’ve had black secretary generals like Boutros Boutros Ghali, like Kofi Annan, they do not respect the United Nations. They have contempt for it… It is the men around him (Cheney and Rumsfeld) who are dinosaurs, who do not want him (President Bush) to belong to the modern age… The only man, the only person who wants to help Bush move to the modern era is Gen. Colin Powell.
No-one will deny Mandela the right to hold views opposed to a war on Iraq, but he is here revealing his own racist attitude to world politics - only white leaders are a threat to peace, and especially so when there are black secretary generals of the U.N. And in case we don't get the message he singles out the black member of the US administration, Colin Powell, as the only exception! (And, one could add, when it suits Mandela's argument, the Egyptian Boutros Ghali, suddenly qualifies as a "black" man...) The race card is one that is always brought out by Africans when they lack valid arguments, and it has always been a standard ploy of Communist rhetoric.
To Mandela's way of thinking, it is capitalist greed that is preventing a one-world U.N. Government - in February 2003 he was reported as saying:


"if there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America...Iraq produces 64 percent of the oil in the world. What Bush wants is to get hold of that oil."
Apart from displaying his Communist sentiments, Mandela here also reveals his ignorance of world economics - Iraq produces only 5% of world oil exports, not 64%. He also makes no mention of the huge debts of money that Iraq owes France, Germany and Russia, and that it is just possible that they are opposed to the war because they would like those debts paid.
If Mandela's opposition to the United States comes as a surprise to some, or are dismissed as an expression of particularly strong feelings about the Iraq crisis, we should note that Mandela is nothing if not consistent. His views are always anti-American and pro-Communist, and always have been. In his book "The Struggle is My Life", a collection of his writings, we read in a piece dated 1958:


...the people of Asia and Africa have seen through the slanderous campaign conducted by the U.S.A. against the Socialist countries. They know that their independence is threatened not by any of the countries in the Socialist camp but by the U.S.A., who has surrounded their continent with military bases. The Communist bogey is an American stunt to distract the attention of the people of Africa from the real issue facing them, namely, American imperialism. (pp 76)



* The full list of munitions and charges read as follows:


• One count under the South African Suppression of Communism Act No. 44 of 1950, charging that the accused committed acts calculated to further the achievement of the objective of communism;
• One count of contravening the South African Criminal Law Act (1953), which prohibits any person from soliciting or receiving any money or articles for the purpose of achieving organized defiance of laws and country; and
• Two counts of sabotage, committing or aiding or procuring the commission of the following acts:
1) The further recruitment of persons for instruction and training, both within and outside the Republic of South Africa, in:

(a) the preparation, manufacture and use of explosives—for the purpose of committing acts of violence and destruction in the aforesaid Republic, (the preparation and manufacture of explo- sives, according to evidence submitted, included 210,000 hand grenades, 48,000 anti-personnel mines, 1,500 time devices, 144 tons of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tons of aluminum powder and a ton of black powder);

(b) the art of warfare, including guerrilla warfare, and military training generally for the purpose in the aforesaid Republic;

(ii) Further acts of violence and destruction, (this includes 193 counts of terrorism committed between 1961 and 1963);
(iii) Acts of guerrilla warfare in the aforesaid Republic;
(iv) Acts of assistance to military units of foreign countries when involving the aforesaid Republic;
(v) Acts of participation in a violent revolution in the aforesaid Republic, whereby the accused, injured, damaged, destroyed, rendered useless or unserviceable, put out of action, obstructed, with or endangered:


  • (a) the health or safety of the public;
  • (b) the maintenance of law and order;
  • (c) the supply and distribution of light, power or fuel;
  • (d) postal, telephone or telegraph installations;
  • (e) the free movement of traffic on land; and
  • (f) the property, movable or immovable, of other persons or of the state.
Source: The State v. Nelson Mandela et al, Supreme Court of South Africa, Transvaal Provincial Division, 1963-1964, Indictment.


Iowa Governor Issues Executive Order Banning Common Core

Iowa Governor Terry Brandstad signing Executive Order Banning Common Core

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed an executive order on Wednesday rejecting federal intrusion into the state’s education system. The order, Number 83, declares that the state, “not the federal government of any other organization, shall determine the content of Iowa’s state academic standards”.
The order also states that school districts may also choose to use additional assessments to measure student progress.
The text of Branstad’s executive order can be found below:
 Executive Order Number Eighty-three
WHEREAS,             the Iowa Constitution encourages a strong educational foundation by providing that, “[t]he General Assembly shall encourage, by all suitable means, the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement” (Iowa Const. art. IX, 2d, § 3); and 
WHEREAS,            rigorous state standards detailing expected academic achievement are essential to provide a high-quality education, which is key to students’ futures and the future of this state; and
WHEREAS,             the adoption of state standards should be done in an open, transparent way that
includes opportunities for Iowans to review and offer input; and
WHEREAS,            it is the responsibility of local school districts to make decisions related to
curricula, instruction, and learning materials consistent with state academic
standards; and
WHEREAS,            it is inappropriate for the federal government to require as a condition of
application of federal grants the adoption of any federally developed standards; and
WHEREAS,            the protection of student and family privacy is paramount and Iowa must protect its citizens against intrusive, unnecessary data collection and tracking.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Terry E. Branstad, Governor of the State of Iowa, declare the following:
The State of Iowa, not the federal government or any other organization, shall determine the content of Iowa’s state academic standards, which are known as the Iowa Core.  The Iowa Department of Education shall develop a regular review cycle for the Iowa Core, including public comment, to determine the contents of and to continually improve state academic standards.
The State of Iowa, not the federal government or any other organization, shall choose the statewide assessments that will measure how well students have mastered the Iowa Core.  School districts may also choose to use additional assessments to measure student academic progress.
The collection of student data by school districts and the Iowa Department of Education shall be done in a manner consistent with state and federal laws intended to protect student and family privacy.  Only aggregate student data shall be provided to the federal government to comply with federal laws.
No Constitutional right of Iowa children and their families shall be violated through an overreach by the federal government into Iowa’s educational system.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I HAVE HERE­UNTO SUBSCRIBED MY NAME AND CAUSED THE GREAT SEAL OF THE STATE OF IOWA TO BE AFFIXED.  DONE AT DES MOINES THIS
16TH DAY OF OCTOBER IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND THIRTEEN.

__________________________________
TERRY E. BRANSTAD
GOVERNOR OF IOWA
ATTEST:

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Bombshell Report: Obama Admin Using Honor System to Pay Insurance Companies

ObamaCare officials confirm there is still no system built for taking billions of dollars in subsidies and giving it to the insurance companies. So how does the system work without a payment mechanism?

Tonight, Megyn Kelly reported that the administration is going to let insurance companies estimate how much money they should receive. Then the feds will cut them a check and figure out the real amount later.

“That’s your money!” Kelly told viewers. “We’re talking about one-sixth of the U.S. economy and this is the system that they’ve now settled on.”

The Reuters report also says, “The fix puts an additional ‘burden’ on insurance companies, already taxed by having to double-check faulty enrollment data from the HealthCare.gov system.

National Review columnist Avik Roy joined The Kelly File to respond to this late-breaking news. He called it a “bailout of the president.”

If the insurers don’t get paid, Roy explained, then they’ll hemorrhage money trying to cover people who signed up of ObamaCare.  “So the Obama administration’s saying well the only way we can keep the insurers participating in this market is to pay them in advance and trust them.”

Actor Paul Walker's Generous Gift To A U.S. Soldier

 Paul Walker was best known for his movies and fast cars, but a former Santa Barbara jewelry store clerk will remember him most for his generosity.

Several years ago during the holiday season, Irene King says, an associate nudged her and said, “There’s Paul Walker.”

“Oh, OK, yeah,” King said with a smile. “I said, ‘Yeah, he’s a nice-looking man.’”


“The Fast and the Furious” star was shopping in the store at the same time as a soldier who had just finished up his first tour of duty in Iraq. The soldier was heading overseas again and was shopping with his fiancee, looking at engagement rings.

“She saw something that she really, really liked, but he said, ‘Honey, I can’t afford that,’” King said.

That “something” was a $10,000 engagement set, King said. Walker had overheard the conversation.
“He called the manager and he said, ‘Umm, the ring that those people are looking at – put it on my tab,’” King remembered. “Soon after that, he just left.”

When the couple asked whom to thank, the store said it was an anonymous gift.

King and the jewelry store’s employees kept the secret for more than a decade. But with Walker’s death, they want the world to know of his generosity.

King’s son retold the story on his Facebook page after news spread of Walker’s death.

“To do something like that to a perfect stranger is just unbelievable,” King said.

NFL Refuses to Air Gun Manufacturer’s Ad During Super Bowl

The NFL has banned a commercial from playing during the Super Bowl because of its pro-gun tone. The advertisement, submitted by the gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, doesn’t even directly feature any firearms, but talks about defending oneself inside the home

In the ad, a young father looks over his infant daughter as he says, “My family’s safety is my highest priority.

I am responsible for their protection. And no one has the right to tell me how to defend them. So, I’ve chosen the most effective tool for the job.”

A statement from Fox reads, “Unfortunately, we cannot accept your commercial in football/Super Bowl spots due to the rules the NFL itself has set into place for your company’s category.”

"We actually went to the rule box and pulled out their set of rules," claimed Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel.


Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel.
The NFL's official guidelines for submitting an advertisement reads, "Firearms, ammunition or other weapons are prohibited; however, stores that sell firearms and ammunitions (e.g. outdoor stores and camping stores) will be permitted, provided they sell other products and the ads do not mention firearms, ammunition or other weapons."

"We sell pocket knives, and shirts, and t-shirts, and hats, and jackets, and a lot of outdoor gear," claimed Daniel. "We did not mention guns or ammo in the ad, as the rules asked."

However, the end of the ad features the Daniel Defense logo prominently displayed above the silhouette of a rifle.

"We offered to put an American flag or a 'Shall Not Be Infringed' [in its place]," continued Daniel. "We heard back … the commercial was a no-go even with the change."

NY Post: Christie's 'Bizarre Behavior' Raises Questions on 2016 Prospects

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's loyalty to the Republican Party is being questioned after he refused to make a public endorsement of a possible GOP challenger to New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a move some say could hurt his chances of winning the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.

Cuomo has disputed an earlier Post report that Christie was prepared to back Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino should he get the Republican nomination for governor next year, saying Christie made a personal phone call to him to assure him otherwise, according to The New York Post.

"Christie already has a problem with many Republicans refusing to forgive him because of his embrace of [President] Obama and his socially liberal policies," a GOP operative told the Post.

"But this bizarre behavior in suggesting he won't help a Republican defeat a Democratic governor, and a Cuomo no less, could finish off his chance of becoming his party's nominee for president in 2016."

Christie, who is the newly elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association, was criticized by many Republicans after he embraced President Barack Obama last November during a tour of areas that were damaged during Superstorm Sandy. At the time, they said Christie had undermined GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's chances on the eve of the election.

Christie's spokesman and political consultant have refused to comment on the reports, according to the Post, and after the initial report suggesting Christie would back Astorino, Cuomo told the paper, "I spoke to Gov. Christie this morning, who told me the exact opposite."

Monday, December 2, 2013

Child taken from womb by social services

Essex social services have obtained a court order against a woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and for her child to be taken from her womb by cesarean section.


A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by cesarean section by social workers.
Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.
The case has developed into an international legal row, with lawyers for the woman describing it as “unprecedented”.
They claim that even if the council had been acting in the woman’s best interests, officials should have consulted her family beforehand and also involved Italian social services, who would be better-placed to look after the child.
Brendan Fleming, the woman’s British lawyer,said
“I have never heard of anything like this in all my 40 years in the job.
“I can understand if someone is very ill that they may not be able to consent to a medical procedure, but a forced cesarean is unprecedented.
“If there were concerns about the care of this child by an Italian mother, then the better plan would have been for the authorities here to have notified social services in Italy and for the child to have been taken back there.”
It will be raised in Parliament this week by John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP. He chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, which wants reform and greater openness in court proceedings involving family matters.
He said: “I have seen a number of cases of abuses of people’s rights in the family courts, but this has to be one of the more extreme.
“It involves the Court of Protection authorizing a cesarean section without the person concerned being made aware of what was proposed. I worry about the way these decisions about a person’s mental capacity are being taken without any apparent concern as to the effect on the individual being affected.”
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is an Italian national who come to Britain in July last year to attend a training course with an airline at Stansted Airport in Essex.
She suffered a panic attack, which her relations believe was due to her failure to take regular medication for an existing bipolar condition.
She called the police, who became concerned for her well-being and took her to a hospital, which she then realized was a psychiatric facility.
She has told her lawyers that when she said she wanted to return to her hotel, she was restrained and sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Meanwhile, Essex social services obtained a High Court order in August 2012 for the birth “to be enforced by way of cesarean section”, according to legal documents seen by this newspaper.
The woman, who says she was kept in the dark about the proceedings, says that after five weeks in the ward she was forcibly sedated. When she woke up she was told that the child had been delivered by C-section and taken into care.
In February, the mother, who had gone back to Italy, returned to Britain to request the return of her daughter at a hearing at Chelmsford Crown Court.
Her lawyers say that she had since resumed taking her medication, and that the judge formed a favorable opinion of her. But he ruled that the child should be placed for adoption because of the risk that she might suffer a relapse.
The cause has also been raised before a judge in the High Court in Rome, which has questioned why British care proceedings had been applied to the child of an Italian citizen “habitually resident” in Italy. The Italian judge accepted, though, that the British courts had jurisdiction over the woman, who was deemed to have had no “capacity” to instruct lawyers.
Lawyers for the woman are demanding to know why Essex social services appear not have contacted next of kin in Italy to consult them on the case.
They are also upset that social workers insisted on placing the child in care in Britain, when there had been an offer from a family friend in America to look after her.
An expert on social care proceedings, who asked not to be named because she was not fully acquainted with the details of the case, described it as “highly unusual”.
She said the council would first have to find “that she was basically unfit to make any decision herself” and then shown there was an acute risk to the mother if a natural birth was attempted.
An Essex county council spokesman said the local authority would not comment on ongoing cases involving vulnerable people and children.

In Michigan Conservative Incumbent Rep. Justin Amash Destroys Establishment Challenger Brian Ellis on Local Talk Show

Michigan business leaders and the Republican establishment are putting money behind Brian Ellis to primary Rep. Justin Amash. They are unfairly blaming Amash for causing the Government shut down and criticizing his attempt to defund Obamacare.

On a local West Michigan radio show, Ellis said he is challenging Rep. Amash because his votes are not conservative enough, citing the Keystone Pipeline, the Paul Ryan budget, etc.

Ellis’ bizarre comment has sparked controversy in this heated race and is getting different reactions throughout the political spectrum.

“He’s the gold standard of principled constitutionalism in Congress,” Dean Clancy told The Hill. Clancy is the vice president of public policy at FreedomWorks and said, “We have heard that the K Street establishment wants to knock him off — and we intend to defend him punch-for-punch.”

The accusation of Amash’s voting record not being conservative conjured up a reaction from Amash himself who called the radio station to defend his record. Listen below.