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Tag: Harry Reid
Did Obamacare Increase the National Death Rate?
Researchers have raised legitimate questions about whether a policy change included in Obamacare actually increased death levels nationwide.
Some may recall that two years ago, liberals engaged in no small amount of hyperbolic rhetoric insisting that repealing Obamacare would kill Americans. They viewed that fact as a virtual certainty, and spent more time arguing over precisely how many individuals would die under the law's repeal.
Somehow, however, the media that breathlessly covered claims about how repealing Obamacare would kill Americans hasn't exactly rushed to highlight claims that the law could have increased the death rate.
About the Readmissions Program
The Obamacare change sparking the policy debate involves the law's hospital readmissions program. Section 3025(a) of the law required the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce Medicare payments to hospitals with higher-than-average readmission rates. The program began in October 2012, and since October 2014 has reduced payments by 3 percent to hospitals with high readmission rates for three conditions: heart failure, heart attacks, and pneumonia.
The program intended to make hospitals more efficient, and encourage them to treat patients correctly the first time, rather than profiting on poor care by receiving additional payments for "repeat" visitors. However, several data points have called into question the effectiveness of the policy.
First, a recent article in the journal Health Affairs concluded that data proving the readmissions program's effectiveness "appear to be illusory or overstated." The study noted that, right before the readmissions program took effect, hospitals could increase the number of diagnoses in claims submitted to Medicare. After controlling for this difference, the Harvard researchers concluded that at least half of the "reduction" in readmissions came due to this change.
In other words, patients' health may not have actually improved. Instead, doctors used the coding change to input more illnesses into patient records, making them appear "healthier" after Medicare adjusted readmission rates to reflect this greater "risk."
By contrast, a December study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found an even darker outcome. The JAMA study, which examined a total of 8.3 million hospitalizations both before and after the readmissions penalties took effect, found that the program "was significantly associated with an increase in 30-day postdischarge mortality after hospitalization for [heart failure] and pneumonia, but not for" heart attacks. This study suggests that, rather than incurring penalties for "excess" readmissions, hospitals instead chose to stop readmitting patients at all—and more patients died as a result.
Is This 'Alarmist' Rhetoric?
In a blog post analyzing the debate at the New England Journal of Medicine, former Obama administration budget director Peter Orszag pointed out the two studies arrive at conclusions that are likely mutually contradictory. After all, if the readmissions policy didn't affect patient outcomes, as the Health Affairs analysis suggests, then it's hard simultaneously to argue that it also increased patient mortality, as the JAMA paper concludes.
But Orszag also criticizes The New York Times for an "unduly alarmist" op-ed summarizing the JAMA researchers' results. That article, titled "Did This Health Care Policy Do Harm?" included a subheading noting that "a well-intentioned program created by the Affordable Care Act may have led to patient deaths."
If Orszag finds that Times article—which states the researchers' conclusion in the form of a question, and calls the readmissions policy "well-intentioned"—"unduly alarmist," he must have forgotten these headlines from 2017:
Washington Post: "Repealing the Affordable Care Act Will Kill More than 43,000 People Annually"
Chicago Tribune: "Repealing Obamacare Will Kill More than 43,000 People a Year"
Vox: "Repealing Obamacare Could Kill More People Each Year than Gun Homicides"
These headlines don't even take into consideration the comments from people like former Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who said, "If you get rid of Obamacare, people are going to die." Then there were the "analyses" by organizations like the Center for American Progress, helpfully parroted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), that said "getting rid of Obamacare is a death sentence."
Alongside this rhetoric, the supposedly "alarmist" Times article seems tame by comparison. It didn't use the word "Obamacare" at all, and it couched its conclusions as part of a "complex" and ongoing "debate." But of course, the contrast between the mild rhetoric regarding hospital readmissions and the sky-is-falling tone surrounding Obamacare repeal has absolutely nothing to do with liberal media bias or anything. Right?
Democrats, the Science Deniers
The Times article concludes by "highlight[ing] a bigger issue: Why are policies that profoundly influence patient care not rigorously studied before widespread rollout?" It's a good question that Democrats have few answers for.
Even to take the most benign interpretations of the Health Affairs and JAMA studies, it remains unclear—nearly a decade after their enactment, and more than six years after they took effect—whether the hospital readmissions program actually accomplished its intended goal. To call that a damning indictment of the "science" behind the policy change represents a tremendous understatement.
Liberals like to caricature conservatives as "science deniers," uninformed troglodytes who can barely stand upright, let alone form coherent policies. But the recent studies regarding Obamacare's hospital readmissions policy shows that the Obama administration officials who created these policies didn't have any clue what they were doing—or certainly didn't know enough to implement a nationwide plan that they knew would work.
Given this implementation failure, and the staggering level of willful ignorance by the technocrats who would micro-manage our health care system, why on earth should we give them even more power, whether through a single-payer system or something very close to it? The very question answers itself.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on February 6, 2019 March 6, 2019 Categories Coverage, Medicare, RegulationsTags Bernie Sanders, Chicago Tribune, Delivery system reform, Harry Reid, Health Affairs, Hospital readmissions, Journal of the American Medical Association, Medicare, Mortality rates, New England Journal of Medicine, New York Times, Peter Orszag, Regulations, Single payer, The Federalist, Vox, Washington Post
How the Obama Administration Hid Facts to Pass Obamacare
Over the weekend, Politico ran a report about how a "Trump policy shop filters facts to fit his message." The article cited several unnamed sources complaining about the office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and its allegedly politicized role within the current administration.
One of the article's anonymous sources called ASPE's conduct over the past 18 months "another example of how we're moving to a post-fact era." Richard Frank, a former Obama appointee and one of the few sources to speak on the record, said that he found the current administration's "attack on the integrity and the culture of the office…disturbing."
For all its focus on the Trump administration, the Politico article omitted another key story—one I told its reporter about last week, but did not make it into the article. During the early years of the Obama administration, ASPE lay at the heart of the failure of the CLASS Act, a $70 billion Obamacare program.
As a congressional staffer conducting oversight of the CLASS Act in 2011-12, I reviewed thousands of pages of e-mails and documents from the months leading up to Obamacare's passage. Those records strongly suggest that ASPE officials, including Frank, withheld material facts from Congress and the public about CLASS's unsustainability, because full and prompt disclosure could have jeopardized Obamacare's chances of passage.
About the CLASS Act 'Ponzi scheme'
The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, or CLASS for short, intended to provide a voluntary insurance benefit for long-term care. Included as part of Obamacare, the program never got off the ground. In October 2011, HHS concluded it could not implement the program in an actuarially sound manner; Congress repealed the program entirely as part of the "fiscal cliff" deal enacted into law in the early days of 2013.
CLASS's prime structural problem closely resembled that of the Obamacare exchanges—too many sick people, and not enough healthy ones. Disability lobbyists strongly supported the CLASS Act, hoping that it would provide financial support to individuals with disabilities. However, its voluntary nature meant that the more people already with disabilities enrolled and qualified for benefits, the higher premiums would rise, thereby discouraging healthy people from signing up.
Given these structural problems, the Obama administration had lukewarm support for the CLASS Act from the start. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) stood as its longtime champion, and with Kennedy fighting an ultimately unsuccessful battle with cancer, few wanted to thwart what Kennedy viewed as a personal legacy issue.
Moreover, although actuarially questionable in the long-term, CLASS's structure provided short-term fiscal benefits that aided Obamacare's passage. Because CLASS required a five-year waiting period to collect benefits, the program would generate revenue early in its lifespan—and thus in the ten-year window budget analysts would use to score Obamacare—even if it could not maintain balance over a longer, 75-year timeframe.
This dynamic led the Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), to dub CLASS "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing Bernie Madoff would have been proud of."
Internal Concerns Minimized in Public
A report I helped draft, which several congressional offices released in September 2011—weeks before HHS concluded that program implementation would not go forward—highlighted concerns raised within the department during the debate on Obamacare about CLASS' unsustainable nature. For instance, in September 2009, one set of talking points prepared by ASPE indicated that, even after changes made by Congress, CLASS "is still likely to create severe adverse selection problems"—i.e., too many sick people would enroll to make the program sustainable.
In an e-mail exchange this weekend, I asked Frank about these strong internal statements about CLASS, and how they squared with his public comments. At the time, Frank served as the deputy assistant secretary of ASPE charged with long-term care policy. HHS's own report into the program notes that he attended nearly every single meeting with outside stakeholders. In other words, he ran point on CLASS, and supervised most of the activity within the department on the issue.
Frank told me that, during one public speech in October 2009, "I spent about half my time setting out the problems with CLASS that needed to be fixed." He did indeed highlight some of the actuarial challenges the CLASS program faced. But Frank's remarks, at a Kaiser Family Foundation event, closed thusly:
We've, in the department, have modeled this extensively, perhaps more extensively than anybody would want to hear about [laughter] and we're entirely persuaded that reasonable premiums, solid participation rates, and financial solvency over the 75-year period can be maintained. So it is, on this basis, that the Administration supports it that the bill continues to sort of meet the standards of being able to stand on its own financial feet. Thanks.
Frank told me over the weekend that his comments "came at the end of my explaining that we were in the process of addressing those issues" (emphasis mine). But Frank actually said that the Obama administration was "entirely persuaded" of CLASS' solvency, which gives the impression not that the department had begun a process of addressing those issues, but had already resolved them.
Frank's public comments notwithstanding, ASPE had far from resolved the actuarial problems plaguing CLASS. Two days after his speech, one of Frank's employees sent around an internal e-mail suggesting that the CLASS Act "seems like a recipe for disaster."
But the 'Fixes' Fall Short
Frank and the employees at ASPE continued to try and make good on their promises to fix the CLASS Act, but they ran up against too many obstacles—and a legislative crunch. By late November and December 2009, the Social Security actuary's office had run several analyses of the program, all of which showed significant problems maintaining actuarial balance.
In response to these new analyses, HHS and ASPE came up with a package of technical fixes designed to make the CLASS program actuarially sound. One section of those fixes noted that "it is possible the authority in the bill to modify premiums will not be sufficient to ensure the program is sustainable."
However, the proposed changes came too late:
No changes to the CLASS Act made it into the final version of Obamacare, which then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed in the Senate on December 19, 2009.
The election of Scott Brown (R-MA) to replace the late Kennedy in January 2010 prevented Democrats from fixing the CLASS Act through a House-Senate conference committee, as Brown had pledged to be the "41st Republican" in the Senate who would prevent a conference report from receiving a final vote.
While the House and Senate could (and did) pass some changes to Obamacare on a party-line vote through the budget reconciliation process, the Senate's "Byrd rule" on inclusion of incidental matters in a budget reconciliation bill prevented them from addressing CLASS.
The White House's own health care proposal, released in February 2010, discussed "a series of changes to the Senate bill to improve the CLASS program's financial stability and ensure its long-run solvency." But as HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius later testified before the Senate Finance Committee, the "Byrd rule" procedures for budget reconciliation meant that those changes never saw the light of day—and could not make it into law.
Kinda Looks Like a Conspiracy of Silence
By the early months of 2010, officials at ASPE knew they had a program that they could not fix legislatively, and could fail as a result. Yet at no point between January 2010, when ASPE proposed its package of technical changes, through Obamacare's enactment, did anyone within the administration admit that the program could prove impossible to implement.
Over the weekend, I asked Frank about this silence. He responded that "when the reconciliation package was shelved"—which I take to mean that the CLASS changes did not make it into the reconciliation bill, which did pass—"we began working on regulatory remedies that might address the flaws in CLASS." However, from the outset some of Frank's own employees believed those changes might prove insufficient to make the program actuarially sound, as it later proved.
To put it another way: In February 2011, Sebelius testified before the Senate Finance Committee that "the snapshot [of CLASS] in the bill, I would absolutely agree, is totally unsustainable." She, Frank, and others within the administration had known this fact one year previously: They just hoped they could arrive at a package of regulatory changes that would overcome the law's structural flaws.
But did anyone within the administration disclose that CLASS was "totally unsustainable" as written back in February 2010? No, because doing so could have jeopardized Obamacare's chances of passage. The law passed the House on a narrow 219-212 margin.
If HHS had publicly conceded that CLASS could become a "zombie" program—one that they could not fix, but could not remove—it would have caused a political firestorm, and raised broader questions about the bill's fiscal integrity that could have prevented its enactment.
Was Obamacare Sold on a Lie?
Conservatives have pilloried Obamacare for the many false statements used to sell the law, from the infamous "Lie of the Year" that "If you like your plan, you can keep it" to the repeated promises about premium reductions, Barack Obama's "firm pledge" to avoid middle-class tax increases, and on and on.
But there are sins of both commission and omission, and the CLASS Act falls into the latter category. Regardless of whether one uses the loaded term "lie" to characterize the sequence of events described above, the public statements by HHS officials surrounding the program prior to Obamacare's enactment fell short of the full and unvarnished truth, both as they knew it at the time, and as events later proved.
Politico can write all it wants about ASPE under Trump "filter[ing] facts to fit his message." But ASPE's prior failure to disclose the full scope of problems the CLASS Act faced represents a textbook example of a bureaucracy hiding inconvenient truths to enact its agenda. If anonymous HHS bureaucrats now wish to attack a "post-fact era" under Trump, they should start by taking a hard look in the mirror at what they did under President Obama to enact Obamacare.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on July 30, 2018 January 3, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, RegulationsTags Accounting gimmick, Adverse selection, Broken promise, Byrd rule, CLASS Act, Commission on Long-Term Care, Department of Health and Human Services, Fact check, Harry Reid, Implementation failure, Individuals with disabilities, Kaiser Family Foundation, Kathleen Sebelius, Kent Conrad, Lie of the Year, Medicare actuary, Plan cancellations, Politico, Ponzi scheme, Premium increases, Reconciliation, Richard Frank, Scott Brown, Senate Budget Committee, Senate Finance Committee, Social Security, Ted Kennedy, The Federalist
Why Members of Congress Secretly Like Unpopular Omnibus Bills
On this website last week, conservative leaders Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote a joint op-ed echoing my column from a few weeks previously, saying Congress remains on course for yet another omnibus spending bill debacle unless and until it reforms its procedures, and specifically starts considering, and passing, spending bills one-by-one, rather than in a catch-all bill enacted in a lame-duck session after the November elections.
All that sounds logical enough, at least to most individuals outside the Beltway. Why shouldn't Congress do its job, and consider bills in a deliberative fashion, rather than jamming an entire year's work into one must-pass vehicle totaling thousands of pages—a literal and figurative "Christmas tree" that usually passes in the waning days of December?
One example from 2015, in which the entire federal appropriations process broke down over the Confederate flag, explains the problem in a nutshell. If you want to know why the common-sense ideas Lee and Jordan proposed have little chance of coming to fruition any time soon, look no further.
Reason 1: Members of Congress Are Lazy
I don't mean "lazy" in the sense of goofing around. Most members work long hours, including difficult commutes back and forth to their districts every week. I mean "lazy" in the sense of not wanting to vote on difficult or politically controversial issues. In 2015, the House halted its consideration of appropriations bills because Republican leaders "worried that Democrats could try to offer more amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag that could again tie the GOP into knots."
In Congress, appropriations bills generally operate under free-wheeling procedures, in which members can offer germane (i.e., relevant) amendments. Because the appropriations bills collectively cover all federal operations, and because members have few opportunities to offer amendments to other bills in both the House and the Senate, the spending bills become magnets for every conceivable controversy.
Consider some amendments that might get offered this year were Congress to consider spending bills individually:
Conservatives, particularly in the House, could seek to reduce or even eliminate funding for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation—amendments that moderate Republicans, or even Republican leaders, might oppose.
A bipartisan coalition would again offer amendments regarding medical marijuana—amendments that the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Pete Sessions (R-TX), has largely prevented from being considered on the House floor.
Democrats could offer political messaging amendments on issues ranging from President Trump's tax returns to cabinet officers' travel-related controversies to the emoluments clause—all issues that moderate Republicans, or Republicans with tough re-election campaigns, would not want to vote on prior to the midterm elections.
Therein lies the problem. Every controversial amendment vote becomes a potential 30-second attack ad. For instance, the 2010 ad attacking Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) for voting against an amendment to prohibit federal funding of Viagra for sex offenders. That vote came as part of a budget bill amending Obamacare rather than an appropriations measure, but it illustrates the dilemma members, and congressional leaders, face.
Members of Congress have become so accustomed to avoiding votes on tough issues that many recoil at the thought of reinstituting an open process. They may not say so outright, but many would prefer that leadership make the tough decisions for them behind closed doors, rather than forcing them into votes that could undermine their re-election prospects.
Reason 2: Members Want to Rig Outcomes
The Confederate flag flap also illustrated this dilemma for congressional leaders: "Some Republicans, primarily representing Southern states, found out about the amendment [banning display of the Confederate flag] after the fact and threatened to vote against the entire bill if it remained intact." In other words, because some members did not achieve an outcome they wanted on the specific amendment, they were willing to take down the entire measure.
As I noted last fall, the House Freedom Caucus, which Jordan helped to found, has engaged in these kinds of tactics. Last summer, after moderate Republicans and Democrats combined to defeat an amendment prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for soldiers' gender-reassignment surgery, conservatives went to congressional leaders and told them to insert the amendment in a spending bill, the prior vote notwithstanding.
That move, and others like it, represent a tactical mistake—one in which conservatives could win a battle while losing a larger war. Every time conservatives ask leadership to jerry-rig the process in favor of a conservative outcome, they empower leadership to jerry-rig a process against conservatives on things like passing 2,232-page bills mere hours after their public release.
As the old saying goes, the true test of a principle comes not when that principle proves convenient, but when it proves inconvenient. Only when members find themselves willing to take tough votes, and to abide by the outcome of those votes, even if it results in policy outcomes they disfavor, will the process become more open and transparent.
As I noted a few weeks ago, members already have the power to bring about that open and transparent process—the only question is if they have the wherewithal to use it.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on May 3, 2018 January 3, 2019 Categories Costs, RegulationsTags Donald Trump, Harry Reid, House Freedom Caucus, House Rules Committee, Jim Jordan, Mike Lee, Omnibus, Pete Sessions, The Federalist, Transparency
Who Really Caved on the "Shutdown Showdown?"
While conventional wisdom over the past 18 or so hours, both at The Federalist and elsewhere, holds that Democrats "lost" the shutdown showdown, this contrarian takes the position of noted college football analyst Lee Corso: "Not so fast, my friend!"
While not conceding on the substance of immigration legislation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made an important concession on process—one he has not made to conservatives. According to press reports, McConnell pledged that, if lawmakers cannot agree on an immigration package addressing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program by February 8, the expiration date of the continuing resolution that passed Monday, he would begin a freewheeling and open debate on a stand-alone immigration measure—provided the federal government remains open.
Republican leaders argued that, as they intended to debate an immigration bill in short order regardless, the concession amounted to precious little. But did then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) agree to a freewheeling and open debate on repealing Obamacare following the 2013 shutdown? He did not. Then why did McConnell commit to bringing up an immigration bill while Democrats were—to use Schumer's 2013 description—causing "governmental chaos" by failing to approve a temporary spending bill?
No Budget—No Problem!
Compare McConnell's comments on an immigration bill with this Politico report not two weeks ago: "Republican leaders are considering skipping passage of a GOP budget this year—a blow to the party's weakened fiscal hawks that would squash all 2018 efforts to revamp entitlements or repeal Obamacare….McConnell has argued that he cannot pass deficit-reduction legislation using powerful budget procedures with his new 51-vote majority—and wasn't even sure he could find the votes for a fiscal blueprint in the first place."
While liberals' priority—immigration policy—will get prime floor time thanks to the commitment McConnell made in exchange for Democrats' votes to reopen the government, conservative priorities like reforming entitlements and repealing Obamacare won't see the light of day, because McConnell doesn't even want to try to pass a budget.
All of this gives conservatives an obvious lesson: For the next appropriations bill, they should withhold their votes unless and until McConnell publicly commits to passing a budget through the Senate, with reconciliation instructions allowing for entitlement reform and Obamacare repeal efforts.
Could Have Been (and Might Get) Worse
While McConnell made a noteworthy concession to Democrats on process regarding an immigration bill, he did not concede the substance. Both in the hours prior to Friday night's shutdown and on Monday, he repeatedly told Democrats he could not speak for the House and guarantee that they would take up, let alone pass, any immigration measure that cleared the Senate.
Contrast that response to this article from just last month, about bailing out Obamacare through a "stabilization" bill:
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said she is confident President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will ensure passage of two bills aimed at shoring up the insurance markets.…
Collins remains confident that Trump and McConnell, fellow Republicans, will keep their word and make sure the health care bills get approved, said Annie Clark, a spokeswoman for the senator.…McConnell committed in writing to support passage of the bills either before adoption of a final tax bill or before the end of the year, Clark said.
If McConnell didn't want to bind the House to an Obamacare bailout measure, he sure did a much less convincing job making that clear to Collins than he did to Democrats regarding immigration in the past week. Granted, the Obamacare bailout hasn't happened—yet. But rest assured that McConnell and Collins, among others, are already looking to the next appropriations bill as a vehicle to pass the "stabilization" measure.
The disparate treatment between immigration and an Obamacare bailout gives conservatives the "consolation" that McConnell could have made far worse concessions to Democrats. But conversely, if McConnell wants to respect the House's prerogatives, why does Collins believe he made a commitment to her to do the exact opposite?
While conservatives may have a case of schadenfreude at the Left's circular firing squad over the shutdown's end, they should not forget that they continue to play on liberals' side of the field. Remember Republicans' "reward" for cutting a deal on immigration that many will hate: The "privilege" of busting through budgetary caps in a bipartisan spending binge that could eradicate any pretense at fiscal discipline.
Given that daunting landscape ahead, conservatives shouldn't focus their energies celebrating how they "won" this weekend's battle, as doing so would guarantee they end up losing the larger war.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on January 23, 2018 January 2, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Premiums, RegulationsTags Bailouts, Budget, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Immigration, Mitch McConnell, Politico, Stability bill, Susan Collins, The Federalist
Has Mitch McConnell Gone Wobbly on Obamacare?
In the weeks after Saddam Hussein's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously remarked to President George H.W. Bush that "this was no time to go wobbly." The Iron Lady's maxim could well have applied to the Senate majority leader last week, when he made comments suggesting Republicans should have a hand in "fixing" Obamacare—the law collapsing in front of our very eyes—in 2017.
In comments at a Chamber of Commerce event in Louisville last Monday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said the law "is crashing"—an obvious statement to all but the law's most grizzled supporters. But McConnell also "said the next president will have to work with Congress to keep the situation from worsening, though he did not specifically say the health care law would be repealed."
Those last comments in particular—about the imperative to "fix" Obamacare—should cause conservatives to remember three key points.
1. It's Not Conservatives' Job to Fix Liberals' Bad Law
A crass political point, perhaps, but also an accurate one. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid rammed Obamacare through on a straight party-line vote, despite Republicans' warnings, because, in President Obama's words, "I'm feeling lucky." These days, it's the American people who might not be feeling so lucky, with insurers leaving the insurance exchanges in droves and premiums ready to spike.
Some might ask the reasonable question whether Republicans, as the governing party in Congress, should come together for the good of the country to make President Obama's disastrous law work. But ask yourself what Democrats would do if the circumstances were reversed: Do you think that, if Republicans had enacted premium support for Medicare or personal accounts for Social Security on a straight-party line vote, and those new programs suffered from technical and logistical problems, Pelosi and Reid would put partisanship aside and try to fix the reformed programs? If you do, I've got some land to sell you.
We know Reid and Pelosi wouldn't come together in the national interest, because they didn't do so ten years ago to support the surge in Iraq. Instead, they passed legislation undermining the surge and calling for a troop withdrawal. The surge succeeded despite Reid and Pelosi, not because of them. So if Democrats abandoned the national interest to score political points a decade ago, why should Republicans bail them out of their Obamacare woes now?
2. Hillary Clinton's Proposed 'Solutions' Range from Bad to Worse
On health care, Hillary Clinton's campaign proposals have thus far fallen largely into three buckets: 1) increasing Obamacare subsidies, paid for by tax increases; 2) creating a government-run health plan; and 3) expanding price controls against pharmaceutical companies. Conservatives should endorse exactly none of those proposals. Moreover, Clinton's proposals would actually exacerbate the exchanges' fundamental problem: A product too few individuals want to buy because federal regulations and mandates have driven up premiums, making the purchase of coverage irrational for all but the sickest individuals.
But McConnell's statement that "exactly how it [Obamacare] is changed will depend on the election" implies that a Clinton victory will allow her to set the tone and agenda for negotiations on "fixing" Obamacare. It also implies that Republicans should begin negotiating against themselves, and start rationalizing ways to accept proposals coming from a President Hillary: "Well, we could live with a government-run health plan, provided it were state-based…" or "We might be able to justify billions more in spending on new subsidies if…"
In addition to representing the antithesis of good negotiation, such a strategy brings with it both policy and political risk. Negotiating changes to Obamacare on a bipartisan basis puts Republicans on the hook if those changes don't work. Clinton's ideas for more taxes, regulations, and spending won't make the exchanges solvent; if anything, they will only postpone the inevitable for a while longer.
3. Ridiculous Straw Men Can't Justify Bailouts
Insurance industry spokesmen have been flooding Republican offices on Capitol Hill making this argument: Congress has to grant insurers massive new bailouts, or the American people will end up with a government-run health plan, or worse, single-payer health care.
That argument relies on several levels of specious reasoning. Unless Republicans lose both houses of Congress in November—a possible outcome, but an unlikely one—insurers' argument pre-supposes that a Republican Congress will vote to enact a government-run health plan, or single-payer health care. As liberals themselves have pointed out, only one Democrat running for Senate this year even mentioned the so-called "public option" on his website. So why is this government-run health plan even a concern, when Reid couldn't enact it in 2009 with a 60-vote Senate majority?
The honest answer is it probably isn't—insurers are just trying to scare Republicans into bailing them out. It's the oldest straw-man argument in the book: We must do something; this is something; therefore, we must do this.
If you don't believe me, just read the following: "Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true."
Those words come from none other than Barack Obama, as he tried to sell Obamacare in his address to Congress in September 2009. We know where that speech led us, and we should know better than to follow such illogical reasoning again.
Phineas Taylor Barnum once famously remarked that "There's a sucker born every minute." Here's hoping that Republicans will disprove that adage next year, and decline to accept the sucker's bet associated with trying to fix an inherently unfixable law.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 6, 2016 December 30, 2018 Categories Costs, Coverage, Premiums, RegulationsTags Adverse selection, Bailouts, Barack Obama, Entitlement reform, Exchange subsidies, Government-run plan, Harry Reid, Margaret Thatcher, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Premium increases, Price controls, Single payer, Social Security, Tax credits, The Federalist
When CMS Director's Post Opens–Again–Will Obama Step Up?
When Marilyn Tavenner steps down as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this month, one of the federal government's most powerful positions will once again come open. History and President Barack Obama's actions toward the post suggest that finding a replacement might prove difficult.
Before Ms. Tavenner was confirmed in May 2013, CMS had gone without a permanent, Senate-confirmed administrator for nearly seven years—since Mark McClellan left the agency in the fall of 2006. The Bush administration nominated Kerry Weems, a career civil servant, to replace Mr. McClellan; Mr. Weems received a polite hearing from the Senate Finance Committee in July 2007, but a CMS policy memo issued shortly afterward regarding the Children's Health Insurance Program angered Senate Democrats. The committee's chairman, Max Baucus (D., Mont.), refused to bring the nomination to a vote, and Mr. Weems served as acting administrator for the rest of the Bush administration.
Upon taking office, President Obama waited nearly 15 months—until his health-care legislation was passed—to nominate Don Berwick to run the agency that would oversee much of the law's implementation. Mr. Berwick's history of writings proved so inflammatory that Democrats, despite having an overwhelming Senate majority, refused to advance his nomination. Mr. Berwick received a controversial recess appointment from President Obama in July 2010 but was forced to leave CMS in December 2011 when his temporary appointment expired because the Senate had not voted on his confirmation.
While serving in the Senate in 2007-08, Mr. Obama stood by as Sen. Baucus and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) put Mr. Weems's confirmation on ice. And as president, Mr. Obama failed to demand a vote from his fellow Democrats when they decided not to advance Mr. Berwick's nomination, likely seeking to spare vulnerable incumbents from taking a position on a nominee with a controversial record. Given the president's history of remaining quiet about a Democratic Senate not confirming CMS nominees, he has little standing to complain should the Republican-controlled Senate choose not to advance his choice to succeed Ms. Tavenner.
Even before Obamacare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had a budget larger than that of the Pentagon; since the law passed, its subsidies, regulations, or both affect the insurance of basically every American with health coverage. The CMS administrator's job is critical. But President Obama's actions have contributed to a lack of permanent leadership in CMS for most of the past eight years. We'll see whether that pattern persists after Ms. Tavenner departs.
This post was originally published at the Wall Street Journal Think Tank blog.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on February 24, 2015 December 29, 2018 Categories Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, RegulationsTags Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, Harry Reid, Kerry Weems, Marilyn Tavenner, Mark McClellan, Max Baucus, Recess appointment, SCHIP, Think Tank
The Obamacare Shutdown
In the debate surrounding the partial US government shutdown, rhetoric and scare-mongering often seem to be overwhelming the facts. Lest they be lost, here are some highly pertinent facts about the shutdown fight, and about Obamacare.
First, fiscal conservatives in Congress want to fund the government – all of it – except for Obamacare. The House of Representatives, which takes the lead on budget and tax bills, has passed – several times now – legislation that would defund or eliminate portions of the widely unpopular health-care law, while fully funding all other federal operations.
The Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada and the Democrats, has so far rejected the lower chamber's attempts to keep money flowing to government operations. In case the Senate continues to rebuff these attempts, the House has taken the precaution of passing legislation (which the Senate approved and President Obama signed into law last night) that would ensure that our military personnel around the world will continue to receive their hard-earned pay during the shutdown.
Second, the Obama administration's stated position for months amounts to agreeing to the shutdown of the government. The president's advisers have publicly threatened to veto multiple House-passed spending bills. Those threats came because the president and his allies want to replace spending cuts already agreed to under the Budget Control Act with more tax increases. In other words, if Mr. Obama and Sen. Reid didn't shut down the government to insist on funding Obamacare, they likely would have shut down the government to essentially insist on spending more.
Third, while a "government shutdown" is an inconvenience to many Americans, the federal government never fully shuts down. The majority of the nation's 2 million federal workers will likely not be furloughed. The military will continue to protect our shores, Social Security and Medicare checks will be processed as usual – and the Postal Service will remain open for business to deliver them. In many respects, the term "shutdown" is a misnomer; the current situation is more like a slowdown of government services than a complete shutdown.
If that conflicts with the dire predictions you've heard about the "disastrous" consequences of a shutdown, consider this. Since 1976, the federal government has "shut down" 17 times. And still the republic survives!
As for Obamacare itself, many of its effects will be more harmful, and more long-lasting, than a temporary government slowdown. First, premiums continue to go up. Even a recent report released by the Obama administration admitted that. When the report says that premiums have come in "lower than projected," that doesn't mean "lower." That means "slightly less high." As for the $2,500 per family premium reduction that candidate Obama promised his plan would deliver when campaigning in 2008, forget about it.
Second, Obamacare is undermining America's health-care system. Many individuals have already found out they're losing the health insurance they have and like. Others have learned that they may not be able to maintain access to their current doctor. One "dirty little secret" about Obamacare is that the law is built around an expansion of Medicaid – and Medicaid-like insurance plans offered in exchanges – even though Medicaid patients often have worse health outcomes than the uninsured.
Third, Obamacare is harming our economy. Firms are dropping health coverage, or cutting back hours, in response to the law's new mandates and penalties. Bureaucrats have already turned out more than 20,000 pages of regulations implementing Obamacare. All of these regulations will have costs, many of which will be borne by the small businesses that traditionally serve as the nation's job generator and the backbone of the economy.
Defunding the law represents the best way for Congress to combat the looming threat Obamacare poses. Defunding Obamacare would prevent the law's costly new entitlements from taking effect, and would prevent the enforcement of its 18 new tax increases. Just as important, defunding Obamacare would ensure that bureaucrats in Washington would not be able to add to the 20,000 page "Red Tape Tower" any more regulations strangling the economy.
Obamacare was, has been, and remains unpopular; support even among Democrats has dwindled in recent months. The law is unfair: Witness the waivers and exemptions granted to unions, to big businesses, and most recently to members of Congress and their staff. As it stands now, the law has proven to be inherently unwieldy: More than a dozen elements of the law have been delayed, modified, or repealed.
Conservatives in Congress do believe in funding the government, but also want to save the American people from Obamacare's harmful effects before they take root. Unfortunately, President Obama and Harry Reid have insisted that the only way they will keep the government open is if Congress funds every last word of the 2,700-page law. We hope they will listen to the people, reconsider, and move to save our country from the Obamacare train wreck about to hit.
This post was originally published at The Christian Science Monitor.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on October 1, 2013 December 28, 2018 Categories Coverage, RegulationsTags Barack Obama, Broken promise, Budget Control Act, Christian Science Monitor, Defund Obamacare, Employer mandate, Government spending, Harry Reid, Implementation failure, Medicaid expansion, Medicare, Physician access, Plan cancellations, Postal Service, Premium increases, Regulations, Social Security, Tax increases, Work disincentives
Morning Bell: Will Unions Want to Repeal Obamacare?
In a typical Friday afternoon "news dump," the Treasury Department announced it could not grant unions' request for another special Obamacare break.
This time, unions had lobbied the Administration to let union-run, multi-employer plans receive taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies on the new exchanges. These subsidies would be in addition to the tax break that multi-employer plans, like health plans offered by all employers, already receive.
Union leaders wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in July asking for the Obamacare "fix," stating that their progressive "vision has come back to haunt us":
When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
However, despite comments by Reid that unions would get another special break, the Administration actually found one part of the law it wants to uphold—after all the waivers, delays, and illegal modifications made to other parts of Obamacare.
The question for unions is, what will they do now? Terry O'Sullivan, President of the Laborers International Union of North America, said on Wednesday that his union wants Obamacare "fixed, fixed, fixed….But if the [law] isn't fixed…then I believe it needs to be repealed."
O'Sullivan got his answer two days later—the Administration claims the law can't be fixed. So will his union now call for Obamacare's repeal?
As the old saying goes, "Better late than never." Here's hoping the Laborers Union, and other unions—having finally discovered that Obamacare could cost them both their jobs and their health insurance—ask Congress to stop the law now.
This post was originally published at The Daily Signal.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 16, 2013 December 28, 2018 Categories Coverage, RegulationsTags Daily Signal, Defund Obamacare, Department of the Treasury, Exchange subsidies, Harry Reid, Laborers International Union, Morning Bell, Nancy Pelosi, Terry O'Sullivan, Unions, Waivers
Morning Bell: Even Unions Are Turning on Obamacare
It's not every day that union bosses sound like conservative policy experts. But the beginning of the Obamacare letter from the heads of three major unions—the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE—to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is eerily similar to our experts' writings.
The unions, of course, were heavy supporters of Obamacare, but even they can't deny its effects now.
"When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them," they wrote. "Sadly, that promise is under threat."
It gets worse:
The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios: First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees' work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers' hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.
We couldn't agree more. In fact, not only did Heritage experts predict these outcomes, but the non-partisan Medicare actuary also concluded the law would raise health costs by hundreds of billions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office noted that Obamacare's employer mandate "will probably cause some employers to respond by hiring fewer low-wage workers."
Naturally, it's on the question of solutions that we diverge from the unions.
The union leaders' "solution" to these problems involves yet more government spending. They want to make union-run health plans eligible for Obamacare's subsidies—subsidies that were supposed to go to people with no health coverage. In other words, increase taxpayer spending even more because of the consequences of bigger government.
If ever there were an argument to defund Obamacare in its entirety—to do away with both the spending and the costly regulations—it's this one. The union letter accuses Obamacare of "shattering" hard-earned benefits and destroying the foundation of the middle class. In short, "We have a problem."
The many ways liberal leaders keep marching forward, insisting nothing's wrong, are becoming laughable. Appearing on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that "Obamacare has been wonderful for America." And despite the Obama Administration's multiple implementation failures, the Health and Human Services Department just released a video yesterday proclaiming that Obamacare is "on schedule."
Even the law's strongest supporters aren't buying it any more.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on July 16, 2013 December 28, 2018 Categories Coverage, Jobs, TaxesTags Congressional Budget Office, Daily Signal, Defund Obamacare, Department of Health and Human Services, Employer drop, Employer mandate, Harry Reid, Implementation failure, Medicare actuary, Meet the Press, Morning Bell, Nancy Pelosi, Teamsters, Unions, UNITE-HERE, United Food and Commercial Workers, Work disincentives


I am not a patient person when it comes to shopping. I don't spend hours and hours in a store unless I really have to. Most of the times if I see that the particular store don't have a sale then I will not bother going inside. My husband was telling me that I am so picky but it is only because I don't want to spend too much on something that I know will be on sale the next couple of days. Like at this time, we have a plan of buying fall stuffs since a lot of stores are having sale. I will also buy summer clothes that I will be able to send to my nieces and nephews in the Philippines since clothing stores are having end of summer sale. It does pay to wait on sale day to buy things that I can't afford to buy when they are first out.


The most significant scam today in the Auto industry is the sale of flood-damaged cars to unsuspecting drivers. "From Hurricane Harvey and Irma we are adding over 500,000 vehicles to the possible used car lots.", says Lauren Fix, automotive expert, analyst and TV personality.
"Flood-damaged cars are something that most of us don't think about. Every time a hurricane or flood impacts an area of the country automobiles are damaged. Sadly many are not destroyed by insurance companies. These vehicles are not safe! Many sat in fields and are filled with ecoli and mold from the sewage and water. What is unreal is how many different ways this affects us all".
- There is no warranty from the manufacturer due to water damage.
- Many of these vehicles stop in the middle of the road unexpected this can cause other cars to collide with you.
- If you are a part of an accident airbags may not deploy. (read here to see how to spot a fake airbag).
- Seat belts don't function properly.
- Anti-lock brakes don't work.
- The cars are complete scrap. You are now a part of a potential accident.
- The health risk that you are creating for yourself and anyone that rides in this car.
"These vehicles aren't safe on the roads. Sadly there are over 650,000 cars that were damaged. Do these cars really get into the marketplace? Oh yes, they do!", says Fix.
"One insurance company recently settled a $40 million lawsuit when it was disclosed that the insurer had dumped almost 30,000 totaled cars at auction without bothering to have them retitled as salvage vehicles."
"Many of the vehicles will be shredded into little metallic pieces. However, others will end in auctions or sent to your state. This is called washing titles. Not all states print on the title what happened to that auto.If in doubt – walk away from the deal!", says Fix.
Former and present competitive racer, Lauren Fix suggest you should always buy from reputable dealers. "You can find great vehicles buying from private sellers but beware of curbstoners – people who sell numerous cars claiming to be private sellers and therefore avoid basic government oversight and no Lemon Law coverage."
"Avoid auctions, unless you are experienced with them. Check to make sure the vehicle identification numbers (VIN) match on the door sticker and the dashboard tag. Carefully inspect the inside of the car looking for watermarks on door panels, radiators, wheel wells and seat cushions."
Another good thing to check is for rust in unusual places like door hinges, hood springs, under dash brackets and trunk latches.
"Look for water and moisture inside exterior lighting. Beware of cars with new or mismatched upholstery. If the car has is a paper air filter, check it – if it has water stains the car has likely been flooded."
"Ask the seller if the vehicle has had flood damage. It sounds simple, but answers such as not to the best of my knowledge or the previous owner didn't tell me of any flood damage are red flags."
"Get the answer in writing with the bill of sale. Ask to see the title – if it is not stamped flood or salvage, get the car's history through online sources to find out if this vehicle has come from a recently or previously flooded area of the country."
"Only 10-15% of the cars are reported to these agencies, so have a certified ASE technician inspect the vehicle before you make an offer."
You can see more on Lauren Fix's tips on her official website.
I refuse to help these people selling these flood damaged cars on Craigslist.
On CL-Atlanta a guy's newly bought late model cars suddenly has power seats that do not work and in the other the other car the A/C has stopped working. What do they both have in common? Components below dash level. Then they promise even more work if you successfully complete those repairs.
I have nothing against buying and repairing flood damaged cars, as long as the people know they are buying a driving heap of junk with a life of 1-2 years if that. It was clear this guy was a curber and not a dealer. From experience some of them "curb" from dealer lots, borrowing dealer plates, but, actually are not licensed to do business in the state, sign the title as a person, not a dealer, and your only recourse in GA when it dies (as is, where is, buyer beware, state) from non-disclosure from a private seller is = $00.00.
If good mechanics refuse to work on these piles of junk, it might become unprofitable enough not to buy them, if the curbers are forced to bring it to a dealership and use OEM dealership parts. Most of these cars belong in the scrap yard for their lamps and sheet metal, not be be resold with cleaned titles to poor people that can not afford a problem car.


Days after finishing the filming of PSYCHO, Alfred Hitchcock used the cast and crew of the movie, including Vera Miles, with George Peppard added to the cast, to star in an hour-long television special for FORD STARTIME. When someone is accused of a crime and fired unjustly, friends come to the rescue -- with various points of interest. Really, really entertaining! DVD includes a rare film as a bonus.


Visit the stadium with your Classmates!
As a very special highlight (with additional booking), Bullidibumm awaits you to sign autographs in the press conference room and to take you on in a football match in the cage (if weather permits) or alternatively (on a rainy day) with a special quiz with Bulli.
On weekends of home matches, no stadium tours take place for organisational reasons! Click here for the FIXTURE CALENDAR.


text:
Veronica Mars Season 1, Episode 2 – Credit Where Credit's Due
Marie Patlan August 9, 2019 August 9, 2019 Marshmallow Friday
Here we go! Another episode of Veronica Mars as Marshmallow Fridays continues. I hope you're enjoying reading these as much as I enjoy writing them.
A recap of what's important to know before watching this episode (as told by the creators):
Veronica dated Duncan!
Lilly was murdered!
Mr. Mars was sheriff!
And now, Mr. Mars is a PI!
Interesting 30 second recap of the first episode, but they were more succinct than I was, so maybe that's a good thing?
As Becca Kufrin says, let's do the damn thing.
The Play By Play
We start out at school, where Wallace asks Veronica what her plans are for the weekend. She tells him – renting a movie and something with Backup, I think – and he accuses her of being boring. And then we get this absolute gem of banter:
V: What about you, Wallace? Is your life still a nonstop Nelly video?
Wallace: At least I want my life to be a nonstop Nelly video!
A NELLY VIDEO. I'm dying. Remember Nelly, guys? The rapper with the bandaid on his face? Who did the duet with Tim McGraw that one time (listen, I'm from a small town where most people listened to country)? Who claimed it was getting hot in here? NELLY. Ha.
What Wallace really wants is to crash an '09er party. Which is the first mention of the division of zip codes that make up Neptune's residents – the wealthy ones live in the prestigious 90909 zip code. And the rest… do not. V and Wallace do not, and V does not want to crash said party, even though she can explain the entirety of the code to Wallace.
Flash to the '09er party on Dog Beach. Duncan and a so-far unknown friend are sitting in Duncan's car discussing the ridiculousness of the party. At one point, Duncan says he's going to "raise the roof." I miss 2004, y'all. It was a simpler time. (Note: It actually wasn't a simpler time, but I was 15, so it felt like it to me.) They walk to the party, and Duncan introduces his friend – he's Troy Vandergraff, and he Isn't From Around Here. Very attractive to those at Neptune High School. Paris Hilton is there – she's dating Logan! (Note: she has a character name – I just don't care enough about it to remember.) And she apparently knows Troy, although it's never discussed how she knows him. Troy makes a point to say that his family is moving permanently back to Southern California, and he'll be enrolling in Neptune High.
And then… the PCHers show up to crash the party. Because wouldn't you know – the party is on THEIR beach! Weevil and Logan, as the apparent leaders of each of their respective "gangs," have a bit of a showdown, where Logan reveals that Weevil's grandmother cleans their house. Weevil's cousin, whose name we don't learn until later in the episode, retorts on behalf of their grandmother. And then the cops show up to "bust" the party. Even though all Lamb tells his deputies to do is pick up the kegs and take them to his house to use in a cookout tomorrow. Nice, Lamb. I'm glad we're establishing how objectively terrible he is very early on.
On what we assume is the next day, Weevil and the same cousin are playing video games in their home when the sheriff shows up with a warrant to arrest their grandmother… for credit card fraud. Apparently SOMEONE has been taking out credit cards in the Echolls' names and racking up charges. Weevil looks genuinely confused by the whole thing, even though it's clear that Lamb thinks he's the one who was making the charges.
The next day (or maybe the same day?), Cliff is in Mr. Mars' office discussing the case with him. He says that no one believes the grandmother did this, but they all need Weevil to confess. Mr. Mars, with a clear lack of judgment IMO, asks V to take point on this case, since she goes to school with Weevil. Oh yeah. Ask your teenage daughter to try to figure out what's going on in a motorcycle gang. LOGICAL. I love Mr. Mars, but this is clearly very stupid.
That night, V shows up at Weevil's house to look for some of the stolen merchandise. This is what I'm talking about. Weevil lives in a Latino neighborhood in an LA suburb in the early 2000s. I'm not trying to stereotype – I'm just saying that tiny, blond Veronica Mars would stick out like the sorest of thumbs over there. It might not go well! But she's there, nonetheless. They spar a bit, and Weevil maintains that he didn't do this. And then he tells her to leave and to not come back. Which… honestly makes sense, so I'm not going to fault his judgment here.
And then! Like eleven minutes into the episode, we get the debut of the Veronica Mars theme song, which I sing to my dog every single time it comes on. I think I enjoy those moments a lot more than she does.
V and Mr. Mars are eating at a diner, and the most important thing to note here is that V is wearing an absolutely terrible hate. It's the worst. She wears it the entire day! It's helpful to know what all happens in this single day, I guess, but it's such a bad hat that it's distracting. When you're watching the episode back, please note the bad hat and find me on social media and tell me your thoughts. It's imperative.
Anyway, at the diner, Mr. Mars tells V to remove her hat while they're eating (could have just stopped at telling her to remove it, but okay, you do you), and then Sheriff Lamb walks in. For a completely unknown reason, Lamb SITS IN THEIR BOTH WITH THEM, sliding in next to V (???), and then he spars with Mr. Mars. There's a fugitive on the loose, and Mr. Mars is poking the bear about it. But then Lamb responds by poking back, talking about how Mr. Mars blamed an innocent man for the death of his daughter. Mr. Mars tries to explain all the things off about the Abel Koontz theory, and then Lamb rebuts with all the things wrong with the Kane theory. Lamb leaves soon after, and V says, "smell you later." Lololol. 2004, I swear.
V has to go to the school office because teachers are saying she has a bad attitude, and there, she meets Troy Vandergraff. Of note – she's still wearing the bad hat. But Troy flirts with her anyway! And this is also when we first learn that Wallace is an office aide. Clearly, V is going to use this to her advantage, and immediately asks to see Weevil's attendance record. Get used to this, Wallace. It's for a good cause.
After her meeting about her attitude, V is sent to newspaper class, where her classmates include Paris Hilton, Logan, and Duncan. During the teacher's conversation with Paris, Paris asks to go interview people for a story. And the teacher has a brilliant response. She says sure, but come back before the end of the period, and remember, they live in a diverse town full of people with different histories and socioeconomic backgrounds. Paris is like ?? and the teacher just says, "don't just interview your friends." YOU'RE KILLING ME, WRITERS! I live for this stuff. Then V schools said teacher on cameras and gets paired up with Duncan for a story about a surfer.
Then Wallace pops by. He has the attendance records! At lunch, the two of them discuss, and Wallace points out that V is trying to help someone who taped him to a flagpole butt naked. V snarks back, and together, they decide that Weevil couldn't have done it because there's no internet connection in auto shop in 2004. Which is fair.
Of note – she's still wearing the bad hat.
V breaks the news to her dad that she doesn't think Weevil did it after school (still wearing the bad hat), and her dad informs her that it doesn't matter, because Weevil has already confessed.
The next day in newspaper class, Logan and Paris are chatting about replacing Logan's housekeeper. They spar with Veronica, and V clearly wins, because Paris admits that they have computer lab during the time all the purchases were made. VERY INTERESTING.
She then gets Logan's browser history! It's bananas, like, I'm pretty sure you need a warrant and an IT guy to get that shit, down to the purchases made on the pages. Ha. I love it, but it's also like that time Abby told us there was a DNA database for trees. Probs not in 2004, y'all. Anyway, Logan didn't do it either… however, one of the charges matches a website that he visited. THE PLOT THICKENS.
On the way to cover the surfer story (oh right, school), V realizes she has a flat tire again. She's trying to fix it when Troy meanders over. And this exchange happens. It's probably one of my favorites in VMars history.
Troy: Flat?
V: Just as God made me!
Troy: Are you always this persnickety?
V: Sometimes I'm persnickety-er.
This is the first time they actually introduce themselves to each other, and when Troy realizes who V is, he basically goes "yeah, that tracks." Lol. Your reputation precedes you, Miss Mars. Meanwhile, Paris rides up on a new pink moped? Like… why? WHY. And then Duncan realizes that they're going to be late if they don't leave, so V leaves with Duncan and Troy stays to fix V's tire for her! It's so nice, but weird for someone like her to leave her trunk open with a stranger right there. He could have put something in there! Anyway, V rides to the surf competition with Duncan. The silence in the car is deafening and awkward and V drifts into a memory of her and Lilly in the same car discussing Celeste Kane, Duncan and Lilly's mom. Who was and is horrible, by the way.
The surf competition goes well, and they get their story. The ride back is a little less awkward, but it IS eventful – Duncan gets pulled over because there's an impound notice on the car. It turns out it was Lilly's car before, and she had a bunch of outstanding parking tickets and a moving violation… from the day she was murdered. THE PLOT CONTINUES TO THICKEN.
Jake Kane and Mr. Mars show up to retrieve their respective children, and it's the first time they've been together since Kane was questioned by Mr. Mars in relation to Lilly's murder. After he was released from questioning, Kane went to the media, which is how Mr. Mars got run out of office. At that point, her friends wanted her to choose between her dad and them. She obviously chose her dad, and she lost her friends. And honestly, even though it sucks, I sincerely hope she didn't regret that decision.
On the ride home, Mr. Mars questions V about Duncan, where she assures him she's not seeing him again. But she does as a favor – she asks him to stop at the Neptune Grand Hotel as part of Weevil's case. So they stop there, and there's a hilarious interaction where Mr. Mars pretends to be the pissed off dad of a young pregnant girl, V. They don't get the name of the person who rented the room on the night it was booked, but they see that Paris signed for room service… so V is back to thinking it's Logan.
OR IS SHE??
In any case, V accuses Logan of it the next day, and it's enough to get his wheels turning a little bit as V gauges his reaction.
Mr. Mars returns the bail jumper to Sheriff Lamb and then snarks for his reward money. One part of the plot tied up in a little bow.
Troy sits with V and Wallace at lunch and invites them to the next '09er party, which V declines, but basically says "I appreciate the invite." Troy pretends he doesn't know what's going on, even though he clearly does. And then Logan walks by, making a weird hand gesture at V. This makes V realize she still has some work to do, and she leaves the lunch table. Meanwhile, Logan is now holding Paris's purse while she talks to Troy. V starts calling numbers down a list of numbers from… the credit card statements, I guess? It doesn't say at any point that they got phone records or anything, so I don't know where those numbers came from. But she's calling down a list. At the same time, Logan realizes that Paris has been cheating on him by looking at her call logs. He calls an unknown number and gets Weevil's cousin… Chardo. V calls her dad to track down a number that gives her a busy signal when she calls, because it's at the same time that Logan called Chardo from Paris's phone.
V confronts Chardo in the women's bathroom, which basically becomes her office. He admits it – he and Paris had been dating. He says they're going to run away together. V tries to warn him that Logan knows, and Chardo shrugs it off. V's next stop is their grandmother's home, where she admits to protecting Chardo because he's 18 and Weevil is only 17. V convinces her to stop protecting Weevil, because the person Chardo was spending the money on was Paris Hilton, and grandma doesn't like that one bit.
Weevil gets released from jail to find V at his house again. She warns him that the '09ers are after Chardo, and Weevil assures her that the PCHers will find him. The '09ers find him first, though, at Paris' house when he tries to activate their plan to run away together. Just when they've started to beat him up, the PCHers arrive. Weevil asks to talk to Logan while Dick Casablancas – hi Dick! – holds Chardo for them. After a brief conversation, Logan tells Dick to let Chardo go.
Weevil kicks Chardo out of the gang, allowing the members to beat him up as an exit gift. He tells Felix to not let them go too far.
At Mr. Mars' office, V asks for more information related to Lilly's death. He doesn't really tell her anything. He doesn't want her involved, but it's too late for that.
V picks up Lilly's outstanding moving violation, running into Lamb at the station. He knows she's up to something when he hears the weekend receptionist call her "Miss Kane," and he seems relatively concerned. But the ticket here is what's important. It catches Lilly running a red light a full two hours after her supposed time of death. DUN DUN DUN.
In the final scene, Troy confronts V and Wallace about not going to his party. They watch Paris get exiled by the '09ers. And they scamper into the sunset, a trio of friends. /episode
The Episode Mystery
The mystery in this episode is entirely who took out the credit cards in the Echolls' names. But it's a windy mystery that takes the whole episode to piece together, and I greatly enjoyed it.
The Overall Mystery
Progress on the overall mysteries is as follows:
Who killed Lilly Kane?
The answer still isn't known, but a big clue came out in this episode – Lilly was alive at least two hours later than everyone thought, including the medical examiner. That means that all of the Kanes' alibis are toast.
Who raped Veronica?
No progress made in this episode.
Where is Lianne Mars?
What Aged Like a Dairy Product
THAT STUPID HAT. Actually, almost all of the fashion, but that hat is especially bad.
There were also a lot of clearly old references, like there not being internet in auto shop and goodness, Nelly! We can't forget about Nelly. This was a very 2004 episode, on the whole.
What Aged Like a Fine Wine
The newspaper teacher's little spiel to Paris about how diverse the town is. Also of note – she's a young black woman teaching at a fairly wealthy school literally schooling a rich white girl. GOALS. The actress is also in the title sequence, which is fun!
The quote about the flat kills me too. That joke aged well.
A reminder of the rating system:
Red = I couldn't even get through this episode because it was so bad
Orange = Pushed through, hated everything
Yellow = Opposite of enjoyable, but had some bright spots
Green = This was mediocre!
Blue = A solid episode!
Purple = Television at it's finest, 12/10, must watch repeatedly.
This was a really solid follow-up to the action-packed pilot. There were parts where I was a little bored – I wasn't super fond of the Paris Hilton plotline, mostly because I didn't care about her even a little bit. But all the other characters were stellar. So putting all of this together, I'm giving Veronica Mars Season 1, Episode 2 a GREEN rating. Not a bad second episode. And there is so much more to come!
Be a marshmallow, everyone!
Blogging, Credit Where Credit's Due, Marshmallow Friday, Season 1, TV Episode Review, Veronica Mars
Previous ARC Review – The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Mohegan Gaming acquires full ownership of Project Inspire
Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment (MGE) now has full ownership of Project Inspire.
The US casino operator announced last week that it had reached an amicable buyout agreement with its South Korean partner, believed to be chemicals manufacturer KCC Corp.
Analysts are of the opinion that MGE purchased KCC's 24.5 per cent share in Project Inspire due to a deal between both companies and the Incheon International Airport Corp (IIAC).
The trio of MGE, IIAC and KCC had earlier formed a consortium to construct the Inspire Integrated Resort, which is expected to be completed within the next four years.
Plans for the Inspire Project include a three-tower luxury hotel with 1,350 five-star and six-star guest rooms; a Paramount Studios-themed indoor and outdoor amusement park;
and a 20,000 square-meter casino with 250 gaming tables and 1,500 slot machines.
MGE has been in the American casino and gambling business for decades, with operations in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Jersey and the State of Washington.
Project Inspire is Mohegan's first venture outside the US.
The company posted net revenue of $332 million for the first quarter of 2018, down from $336.8 million during the same phase last year.
The casino operator blamed the reduced revenue on increased gaming taxes, weather problems and a combination of other fiscal issues.
MGE chief executive Mario Kontomerkos said, "Collectively, these were the primary contributors to the year-over-year declines in Adjusted EBITDA, net income attributable to MGE and income from operations."
Tags: FeaturedKRMGEProject Inspire
Cruise for Cash promotion launched by Scientific Games
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Play Blood Suckers slots at Guts Casino to win a $310,000 prize
Macau shifts spending focus to non-gaming investments


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Abdul Faheem Khan, né le  à Hong Kong, est un joueur de squash représentant Hong Kong. Il atteint en , la  place mondiale, son meilleur classement. Il est champion d'Asie en 1992 et champion de Hong Kong à 12 reprises entre 1991 et 2002, un record.

Après sa retraite sportive, il devient entraîneur national et il est désigné par la fédération asiatique Coach of the year en 2016.

Palmarès

Titres
 Championnats d'Asie : 1992
 Championnats de Hong Kong : 12 titres (1991-2002)

Finales
 Championnats d'Asie : 1996
 Championnats d'Asie par équipes : 2 finales (1992, 1996)

Références

Liens externes

Joueur hongkongais de squash
Naissance en octobre 1970
Champion d'Asie de squash
Naissance à Hong Kong

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World
CLASSMARKS
Arabic language--Syntax
Library of Congress (authority record)
Arabic language--Syntax--Early works to 1800
Manuscripts:
Or. 1458 (University Library, Cambridge University) — 10th Century – 16th Century
Wadh.Minasian 129 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — 19th Century; Unknown place of origin
Wadh.Minasian 140 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — Composite manuscript
Wadh.Minasian 416 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — 18th Century – 19th Century; Unknown place of origin
Wadh.Minasian 458 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — 19th Century; Herat
Wadh.Minasian 516 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — Unknown place of origin
Wadh.Minasian 80 (The Ferdowsi Library, Wadham College, University of Oxford) — Composite manuscript
The above references reflect only the current coverage of the online catalogue and may not be comprehensive.


text:
A-Team Foreign Murdock Poster
International poster for The A-Team, featuring Sharlto Copley as Murdock.
Recent Views: 1
A Tough Trio
Yarr, pirates are on the way!
A View to a Kill Christopher Walken
A View to a Kill star Christopher Walken. Walken was one of the best Bond villains to Roger Moore's Bond.
Aaron and Aldous Get into Trouble
Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) and Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) take a wild ride in Get Him to the Greek.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Star Rufus Sewell
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter star Rufus Sewell in action. The film lands in theaters June 22.
Adam Sandler Walk of Fame
Adam Sandler receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 1, 2010
Aldous and Aaron on a Plane
Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) has a heart-to-heart with his handler, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) in Get Him to the Greek.
Alpha Hunk
Justin Timberlake does his thing.
American Psycho Photo
A picture from American Psycho. The poster features its star, Christian Bale.
Amy Adams Picture
Amy Adams is the next huge star. Mark our words. This Enchanted actress is adorable and talented.
Amy Adams The Master
Amy Adams stars in The Master. The film also features Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Anchorman 2 Teaser Poster
Though little is known about the Anchorman sequel, some small teasers are being released. Filming has yet to start, but Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd are all slated to return.
Displaying photos 289 - 300 of 23496 in total


Amid the whirlwind of Anthony Davis trade rumors, the NBA community finally has a tangible trade to be excited about.
The Philadelphia 76ers showed they are officially committed to a finals push this season by acquiring forward Tobias Harris from the Los Angeles Clippers, according to an ESPN report published Wednesday morning.
Philadelphia also acquired forward Mike Scott and 7-foot-3 fan-favorite Boban Marjanovic in exchange for potential First-Team All-Rookie guard Landry Shamet, Philadelphia's own 2020 protected first-round pick, an unprotected 2021 first-round pick via the Miami Heat, forwards Wilson Chandler and Mike Muscala, and 2021 and 2023 second-round picks via the Detroit Pistons.
This trade makes a lot of sense for both sides. For the Clippers, this deal not only gives them valuable picks and potential trade assets, but allows them to commit to clearing cap space for two max-level players.
They'll surely target Davis and Kawhi Leonard for those two spots, both of who expressed interest in joining the organization, according to ESPN. The Clippers started this season off strong despite an average roster, hovering around the top spot in the Western Conference through the first month, proving to potential free agents they're no longer the laughable Clippers of old.
For the Sixers, this is the second big-name acquisition for first-year Sixers General Manager Elton Brand, who snagged Jimmy Butler earlier this season from the Minnesota Timberwolves. His willingness to part with the majority of the team's assets shows his commitment to a win-now mentality, but putting all his eggs in this basket may come back to haunt him if they flop.
Butler and Harris are both on expiring contracts and will surely be looking for max deals this offseason. Philly said they plan to be aggressive in trying to sign them both long-term, according to ESPN, but with Embiid already signed to a big contract, keeping these two may not leave much flexibility to round out the bench.
Butler also hasn't always looked comfortable in his role on the Sixers, and adding another high-volume scorer into the mix might only further frustrate him if they don't at least reach the conference finals.
But if they make a run then it'll all be worth it. They now have one of the most high-powered starting lineups in the NBA, and adding a 43 percent stretch forward to the eighth-ranked 3-point shooting team, according to basketball-reference, only makes them that much more dangerous. Harris can play off-ball and create his own shot when needed, so there's no reason why he can't jell with the second-best assisting team in the league.
Depth is still a major issue, especially at guard, but if former No.1 overall pick Markelle Fultz and rookie Zhaire Smith can come back and produce this season, then this team is must-see TV.
The Clippers will still being duking it out with the Lakers for stars, but with the media circus surrounding LeBron James these days and coach Luke Walton getting aired by his players, don't be surprised if big name free agents find the red, white and blue more favorable than purple and gold moving forward.


Whether you have finished a fundraising campaign, or just want to make a gift donation, here's how to transfer funds to us. Your support will make a big difference for kids here and abroad.
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Dramatic Summer View Of Lovatnet Lake, Municipality Of Stryn, Sogn Og Fjordane County, Norway. Picturesque Evening Scene In Norway. Beauty Of Nature Concept Background. Fotos, Retratos, Imágenes Y Fotografía De Archivo Libres De Derecho. Image 116547017.
Foto de archivo - Dramatic summer view of Lovatnet lake, municipality of Stryn, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. Picturesque evening scene in Norway. Beauty of nature concept background.
Dramatic summer view of Lovatnet lake, municipality of Stryn, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. Picturesque evening scene in Norway. Beauty of nature concept background.


Yippee, our pointing has been done. It was amazing to see how the pointing has transformed the rooms and it's not finished yet. It was all done by hand in the traditional French way using Chaux Blanche and sand, left to dry slightly, then brushed off. In the 4th photo down, you can see the stones coming through after they were brushed. Now we leave it to dry out thoroughly, and then we will be able to see the full beauty of the stones. Another mucky job as you can see, but it's not us making the mess this time. Thursday is rendering day.


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> Ellesha_linnett07
Global fashion industry statistics - International apparel. Total trade of clothing and textiles: 726 billion dollars The most traded apparel and textile products are non-knit women's suits, knit sweaters, knit T-shirts and non-knit men's suits.
Non-knit women's suits: 54.6 billion dollars, 7.5 percent Knit sweaters: 52.8 billion dollars, 7.3 percent Non-knit men's suits: 43.4 billion dollars, 6 percent Knit T-shirts: 36.9 billion dollars, 5.1 percent Knit Women's suits: Knit women's suits: 28.2 billion dollars, 3.9 percent Light rubberized knitted fabric: 23.9 billion dollars, 3.3 percent Synthetic filament yarn woven fabric: 20.9 billion dollars, 2.9 percent Raw cotton: 18.9 billion dollars, 2.6 percent Non-retail synthetic yarn: 18.8 billion dollars, 2.6 percent China is the largest exporter of apparel in the world, it has exported for 265 billion dollars in 2014. India is the second largest exporter with 38.7 billion dollars of clothing exports. No 'Brexit effect' in latest jobs data. Image copyright AFP Economists have said the slight fall in UK unemployment to 1.63 million between May and July shows there is yet to be a "Brexit effect" on the jobs market.
The unemployment rate was 4.9%, down from 5.5% a year ago and little changed from last month's rate, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows. Nearly three quarters of people who can work have jobs, a record high rate. Employment was "resilient" before and after the EU vote, despite predictions of an economic shock, analysts said. Uk.businessinsider. File photo shows people walking past the window of a H&M store in Paris Thomson Reuters NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) said it was collaborating with trade unions, government as well as the U.N. to improve workers' conditions after a study found violations in supplying garment factories in India and Cambodia.
The study by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) found workers stitching clothes for H&M in factories in Delhi and Phnom Penh faced problems such as low wages, fixed-term contracts, forced overtime and loss of job if pregnant. The AFWA, a coalition of trade unions and labor rights groups, accused the Western high street retailer of failing on its commitments to clean up its supply chain. An official from H&M told the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Saturday that the fashion firm has been working actively to improve the lives of textile workers for many years. "The issues addressed in the report are industry wide problems.
Globalization and the Fashion Industry. In a certain sense, the Western economy has been "global" since the sixteenth century.
After all, the African slave trade, colonialism, and the intercontinental trade in sugar and coffee made capitalism possible. But since the early 1980s, transnational corporations, cyber technology, and electronic mass media have spawned a web of tightly linked networks that cover the globe. Taken together, these forces have profoundly restructured the world economy, global culture, and individual daily lives. Nowhere are these changes more dramatic than in the ways dress and fashion are produced, marketed, sold, bought, worn, and thrown away. Economy Of Fashion: How Different Trends Reflect The Financial State. It's common knowledge fashion is cyclical in nature.
The concept of "newness" in fashion doesn't refer to the premiere of a trend, but rather its revival. Why fashion cycles in this manner, however, is less obvious. There are lots of factors at play: cultural trends, politics, celebrity influence. One one of the most surprising factors to influence the cycle of fashion, though, is the state of the global economy. The Potential of Pilgrim Retail. LONDON, United Kingdom — Each year, millions of pilgrims descend on Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Islam's most holy city, for the Hajj pilgrimage.
This year's Hajj took place from 10 to 15 September, during which time authorities expected an influx of up to two million people. In recent years, Saudi Arabia's government has placed limits on the numbers of Hajj pilgrims, while major renovation and expansion projects are carried out to accommodate increasing numbers of religious visitors. On top of the pilgrim flows during Hajj, about 12 million pilgrims from abroad are expected to visit Mecca this year for Umrah (the pilgrimage to Mecca which can be undertaken at any time of year), a number the government plans to increase to 15 million by 2020. This year, tourists in Saudi Arabia are expected to spend 33.6 billion Saudi Arabian Riyals (SAR) (about $9 billion).
The Hajj period remains one of the most successful retail months of the year.
Related: DISSERTATION IDEAS / RESEARCH - - global economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - freyahannay - Global Economy - Art and Culture - Global economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - GLOBAL ECONOMY. - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Art and Culture - beccihollis - O/B RESEARCH - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global Economy - Global economy - Global fashion industry statistics - International apparel - Economy Of Fashion: How Different Trends Reflect The Financial State - Education - Enterprise


I'm in mid-prep this morning. I'm delighted, if a little freaked out, to be participating in the Franco-Irish Literary Festival in Dublin at the end of this month with a bunch of exciting Irish and French writers, journalists and auteurs.
I've Czeched out! I'm taking a long-awaited break, dazzled by the sights on every corner of Prague. Medieval towns lurking amongst hills. I cannot walk for photographing. The gazes of royal dynasties still looking down from their gilded palatial perches.


Join our young professionals social community and find out about upcoming volunteering and social events with OneDay Social Volunteering.
OneDay Social Volunteering is a unique organization that offers flexible and adaptable volunteering opportunities for young adults while increasing their social and professional networks with people their own age.
Why do social volunteering with OneDay?
We are making a weekly impact on our community. You want to make a change, we are doing it – one day at a time.
Gain field experience, learn about your community, meet other people and have fun!.
Because of our focus on the social (fun) aspect of volunteering, OneDay is the place to find young people from all sects of society.
We always go out after volunteering. So come, volunteer, then lets hit the beach, grab a beer or go to a cafe together.
After the Valentines Day event you did here, all the seniors couldn't stop talking about you, and how nice it was to sit down and spend time with nice, smart, young people. They hope you will come back sooner rather than later. Keep doing the amazing work you are doing.
For a long time, I searched for a place that will allow me and my friends from school to volunteer in. Because of my busy schedule and the fear of going to an event alone, I wasn't able to find the right opportunity.