Saturday, September 30, 2017

GASSHOLE ALERT! Experts Mock California Enviro Push To BAN Fossil Fuel Vehicles In State

dailycaller
CHRIS WHITE
Energy Reporter
1:50 PM 09/29/2017

Analysts and conservatives believe a Democrat-led plan to propose a ban on gas-powered cars in California later this year is a pie-in-the-sky scheme that ignores important factors about the state’s auto industry.

Assemblyman Phil Ting plans to introduce a bill in January that would ban the sale of gas-powered cars produced after 2040. The Democratic lawmaker said California drivers must adopt electric vehicles if the state is going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but some are scoffing at the push.

“The market is moving this way. The entire world is moving this way. At some point you need to set a goal and put a line in the sand,” Ting told reporters Friday. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have joined his push to wipe out the state’s fossil fuel industry.

“It’s an important conversation to have and we’re glad it’s starting to get some traction,” said Gina Coplon-Newfield, an official with the Sierra Club who works on promoting green energy technology. Ting and Sierra Club are meeting some stiff resistance from people who suggest the idea probably not doable.

Kerry Jackson, a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based free market non-profit group, for instance, told reporters that the push to force citizens to abandon their gas-powered cars is another example of the state’s overzealous environmentalism.

“The reaction is like, ‘Gee, somebody has been reading The Onion and they got taken in by the parody,” he said, responding to lawmakers’ desire to delete the fossil fuel industry. “But then it fades a little bit and you go, ‘Yeah, this is California.'”

Electric vehicle sales in California amount to less than five percent of the state’s overall car sales, despite the Golden State’s title as a champion for the electric vehicle market. Analysts, meanwhile, believe the market for these types of vehicles is not anywhere near large enough to overcome gas-powered cars.

“I think really the lag here is consumers,” Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with Edmunds, told reporters Friday. “For the automakers, they have to balance the lawmakers’ desires versus what they can actually sell.”

Ting is one several California Democrats pushing to increase incentives for drivers to adopt electric vehicles. His overall push could hit stiff resistance from an unlikely foe: Democrats who are still tied in with the state’s strong manufacturing unions.

Democrats passed an amendment to a California program earlier this month requiring manufacturers verify that they are “fair and responsible in their treatment of workers” before they can take advantage of a $2,500 rebate encouraging citizens buy Tesla vehicles.

The legislation was a shot across the bow of Tesla, a company that relied on a $82.5 million subsidy from the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, which gives extra incentive to 32,842 Tesla buyers in seven years.

California’s legislature defeated a pair of bills that would have required all electricity in the state to come from non-carbon sources by 2045. Unions vehemently opposed the bill, primarily because they feared the bill didn’t do enough to help protect union workers.

The bill was derailed despite California’s huge Democratic margins in both houses and the Gov. Jerry Brown, who consistently promotes himself as a climate change warrior. Activists were disappointed that unions stymied the effort.

Follow Chris White on Facebook and Twitter.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.


Tags: California, Energy, Jerry Brown, Tesla


Thank You Mr White and DC.


PS: We initially were going to tag this as 'Bullshit' but considering that this blog's central theme is the corrupt/unlawful imposition of tax payer funded Govt mind control, . . . that tag could probably be applied to 90% of what we've already posted.

It's just too unwieldy.

No One Embodied The Failure of GOP Leadership Better Than FIRED HHS Sec Tom Price

dailycaller
SCOTT GREER Deputy Editor
10:49 PM 09/29/2017

President Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price is out of his job after wasting over a million dollars in taxpayer money on travel expenses.

Price’s main job for the White House was to get an Obamacare repeal passed through Congress — a job he failed miserably at. However, that failure is now likely going to be overshadowed by his extensive misuse of public money.

The former Georgia congressman was very much a representative of the traditional Republican establishment. His policy agenda was all about taking away government benefits from average people while he lived a life of luxury on the back of the taxpayer. He had hardly any charisma and he wasn’t good at getting the one thing done all Republicans campaigned on doing for the last eight years.

With all of the screw-ups to remember Price by, there’s one memorable TV performance by the former cabinet secretary that illustrates an important failing of the GOP establishment.

It didn’t have anything to do with corruption or a lack of charisma. Rather it was a perfect representation of how Republican leaders accept the ridiculous moral framework of their liberal opponents.

In a May interview with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, the TV host made this statement about the GOP health care bill. “When we looked at the Rose Garden and the celebration of this on Thursday, they were mostly all men and white men at that. There was no diversity there. Women’s health issues arguably are going to be disproportionately affected.”

Mitchell was damning Republican efforts solely on the basis of it being spearheaded by white men, which is a bad thing. Apparently, in order for the bill to have any merit, it must be crafted by a sufficiently diverse team, according to the NBC host.

That is an obviously ridiculous argument and should have easily been dismissed as dumb pandering to identity politics. But Price accepted the premise that a bill can only be good if it has “diverse” crafters and lamely tried to argue that Republicans had plenty of women involved in the process.

“Look at that picture,” Price replied. “Congresswoman Diane Black, the chair of the budget committee, I was standing next to her, Seema Verma, the administrator of CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services], I was standing right next to her.

Mitchell then destroyed his whole response by saying that wasn’t enough. “Out of a group of dozens and dozens of people, you can cite two or three women?”

Price fell back on saying that they did have women leading health care reform, conceding the argument to the journalist.

This is a common problem for Republicans. Party leaders are constantly on their back foot when it comes to contentious issues and ineptly try to defend their stances.

A prominent example of this poor messaging is debate over immigration. Liberals and Democrats immediately seize the moral high ground by claiming immigration is what makes America great, everybody is an immigrant except the Native Americans, only racists want immigration reduced, etc.

Republicans typically concede those arguments to liberals while flailing about only wanting to stem the tide of illegal immigration and help national security. That’s why liberals usually win debates over immigration because they make it a moral issue and resort to emotionally-charged arguments about race.

Instead of making the interests of citizens the priority, Republicans are left fighting for their policy in the framework created by their opposition.

The same thing happened with attempting to repeal Obamacare, the issue Andrea Mitchell was able to attack for the lack of diversity among its crafters. Democrats shrieked that millions of people were going to die thanks to evil white men while Republicans made obscure arguments about federalism.

There’s a reason Obamacare has survived repeal after multiple attempts by Trump and his allies in Congress.

Tom Price will be remembered for that failure and the poor ethics that led him to splurge on himself with taxpayer money.

But we should also remember him as an example of the worst traits of the GOP establishment. In love with government benefits for himself while trying to take them from others, obsessed with policies that don’t interest regular Republican voters, and completely surrendering to the framework set by the Left.

It’s not just Trump who needs new leaders in his White House, so does his party.

Follow Scott on Twitter and buy his new book, “No Campus for White Men.”


Tags: Scott Greer, Tom Price



Thank You Mr Greer and DC.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Move Over Martin Shkreli - There's Someone Scummier In Pharma (Hint, it's a JNJ heiress)

dailycaller
JENA GREENEContributor
3:37 PM 09/22/2017

The Johnson & Johnson heiress Jazz Johnson Merton competed in a lame horse racing competition this month in the Hamptons and nobody cared.

At least nobody cared until 24 hours ago, when some good Samaritan leaked a video of the heiress competing, losing, and then KICKING her horse in the stomach. What a monster.





I mean, seriously. This goes way beyond just being a spoiled little brat. This should be considered a crime. This is Michael Vick status. She should either be locked away for years or forced to live in a barn for the rest of her life.

Not only is she the heiress to a billion dollar company, but she’s participating in a sport literally nobody cares about.

It’s punishment enough to make people sit through a horse show and actually pretend to care. But to then kick the horse that made a little mistake? Horrifying.

Maybe he was having a bad day. Or maybe he doesn’t want to participate in your lame, uncompetitive, stuffy rich person game. This poor horse probably grew up thinking he was going to be free to romp in the plains of Wyoming with all his buddies, but no. He’s being kicked in the belly by a dangling nostril hair of a human.

By the way, who even is Jazz Johnson Merton? Why haven’t we heard about this heiress to a Fortune 500 company? Even if she is a brat, we all knew about Paris Hilton and her lame little chihuahuas.

So I did a little investigating and found that Jazz Johnson Merton is actually one of the most repulsive human beings to ever inhabit the earth. She’s the author of “The Social Climber’s Bible” and a rabid “Downton Abbey” fan.

Here’s a sampling of her day-day:

[Ed; Jazz's tweeting advice for social climbing commandos.]



This isn’t some Kevin Durant burner account nonsense either. She’s actually purposefully tweeting this from her personal account. The woman doesn’t have a blue checkmark or a Wikipedia page and she’s acting like the Queen of England over here.

Maybe she’s salty that she’s a less successful, less attractive Ivanka (pics here and here). For a woman who makes her entire existence about social climbing, it doesn’t say much good about you that literally nobody knows/cares who you are.

Donate to a charity once for me. And set that horse free in Wyoming.


Thank You Ms Green and DC.


But then what did you expect? From the JNJ crowd?



"Scummier than Shkreli". 

Al Yankovic. Paging Al Yankovic.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Obama Slams GOP For Attacking His ObamaCare Legacy

Considering that ObamaCare Doesn't Work and is costing the Citizens who are Paying out the nose for it, . . . Obama's Legacy is on a par with Imperial Japan's 'Legacy' of Dec 7, 1941.


dailycaller
AMBER ATHEYMedia Reporter
1:46 PM 09/20/2017

Former President Barack Obama slammed the GOP Wednesday for trying to dismantle Obamacare during a speech at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event.

Obama argued that while the Affordable Care Act is “not perfect” and has “things that need to be fixed,” the GOP is trying to “inflict real human suffering” with their efforts to reform or replace the law. The GOP is currently trying to pass a version of health care reform by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy.

“When I see people trying to undo that hard-won progress for the 50th or 60th time with bills that would raise costs or reduce coverage… it is aggravating,” he said the crowd in New York. “And all of this being done without any demonstrable economic or actuarial or plain common sense rationale. It frustrates.”

“It’s certainly frustrating to have to mobilize every couple of months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents,” he asserted.


There video @ link if you think you can watch it and not hurl your dinner on the rug.


Thank You Ms Athey and DC.

ObamaCare Individual Mandate Falls Heaviest On Families Making $50K Or Less

Democrats. "Workers of the World, Unite!"

dailycaller
David Sivak
Fact Check Reporter
6:03 PM 09/20/2017

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy claimed Wednesday on CNN that middle and lower-income families pay the majority of individual mandate penalties under Obamacare.

“Fifty-eight percent of those penalties are paid by families which make $50,000 or less,” said Cassidy.

Verdict: True

Tax filers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) under $50,000 paid 58 percent of the $3.1 billion in penalties collected by the IRS in 2015, the most recent tax year for which data was available.


Fact Check:

The individual mandate requires non-exempt Americans without health insurance to purchase a health plan or face a penalty. Today, the penalty can cost families up to $2,085 a year or 2.5 percent of applicable income above a certain threshold, whichever is higher.

The IRS collected $3.1 billion from 6.7 million taxpayers in 2015, and according to IRS data tables, $1.8 billion – or 58 percent – were collected from taxpayers with an AGI of less than $50,000. AGI is taxable income minus specific deductions like retirement plan contributions.

By and large, the IRS collects individual mandate payments from lower- and middle-income taxpayers. Twenty-two percent of penalties were paid by tax filers with an AGI under $25,000 and 86 percent were paid by those with an AGI under $100,000.

The Daily Caller News Foundation also looked at the income distribution of the 6.7 million tax filers who paid the penalty and found that 79 percent had an AGI under $50,000.

Nearly all of these taxpayers had an AGI under $100,000.

Wealthier taxpayers did pay a proportionally larger share of the penalty. Only four percent of the 6.7 million tax filers had an AGI greater than $100,000, but they paid 14 percent of the $3.1 billion in penalties.

All of these calculations deal with AGI as opposed to gross income, which Cassidy could have clarified in his interview. Barring this caveat, however, Cassidy’s claim is true.

Follow David on Twitter

Have a fact check suggestion? Send ideas to sivak@dailycallernewsfoundation.org

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.


Tags: Bill Cassidy, Check Your Fact, Individual mandate, Obamacare


Thank You Mr Sivak and DC.

Opioid Crisis Kills 91 People a Day: 41 State AGs Team Up To Give Battle

Fierce markets again: No reposting.

So here's the link to the story

And wouldn't you know it, our favorite players are in the news, again.

New Doctor Recruiting On The Verge of A Feeding Frenzy

Since Fierce Healthcare doesn't want their content reposted in whole or in part, and says so, you'll have to read it at the link.


And WHY are new Doctors being chased with job offers, with a Bat, as it were?

Thank the Democrat Coup De Medicine/Coup De'tat; the ACA.

ObamaCare has made BEING a Doctor a major pain in the ass.

It's not just the patients and Health Insurers who got screwed on this Govt Rollover of a 6th of America's economy.

It's Everyone.

Philadelphia Risperdal Docket Almost Triples In First Half of 2017

National Law Review
Monday, September 18, 2017

The number of cases involving the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal almost tripled in the first half of 2017, jumping from approximately 2,000 cases at the beginning of the year to more than 5,500 as of June 2017, comprising the largest mass tort litigation in Philadelphia.

The new filings in the Risperdal litigation were largely triggered when Johnson & Johnson terminated tolling agreements on thousands of cases, which had paused the statute of limitations deadline. A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., manufactures Risperdal.

The Risperdal litigation mostly involves a condition called gynecomastia, which causes breast tissue enlargement in males. Risperdal was originally approved in 1993 to treat schizophrenia in adults. In 2006, clinical studies linked an increased risk of gynecomastia in male adolescents to Risperdal use. The Risperdal gynecomastia lawsuits allege the manufacturer did not sufficiently warn doctors and patients of the male breast growth problem, and that Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceuticals failed to properly share information with the FDA.

In 2016, a Pennsylvania jury awarded $70 million to a teenage male who claimed Risperdal caused him to grow enlarged breasts. The jury found that Johnson & Johnson failed to warn Risperdal could cause gynecomastia, and that the company “intentionally falsified, destroyed, or concealed records” that Risperdal could cause boys to develop breasts.

More Risperdal cases may be filed in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s recent jurisdictional decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County. In that case, a group of plaintiffs sued Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS), asserting claims based on injuries allegedly caused by the BMS drug Plavix. Of the more than 600 plaintiffs, 592 are residents of states other than California. BMS is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in New York. It maintains substantial operations in New York and New Jersey, and engages in business activities and sells Plavix in California. The nonresident plaintiffs did not allege that they obtained Plavix from a California source, that they were injured by Plavix in California, or that they were treated for their injuries in California. The United States Supreme Court found that California courts lack specific jurisdiction to consider the nonresidents’ claims. In order for a state court to exercise specific jurisdiction, the suit must arise out of or relate to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.

Ninety-four percent of the most recent filings in the Risperdal mass tort litigation are from outside of Pennsylvania. Plaintiffs from all over the country have filed suit in Philadelphia, which is a home venue for Janssen Pharmaceuticals.


COPYRIGHT © 2017, STARK & STARK


Thank You National Law Review and Stark and Stark

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

UC Berkeley Faculty Want To Shut Down Campus For Free Speech Week

frontpagemag
September 18, 2017
Mark Tapson

This Is A Clear Threat To Higher Education

A faculty letter addressed to the UC Berkeley campus and the Berkeley community at large is calling for a complete boycott of classes and campus activities during the upcoming “Free Speech Week," which will feature conservative speakers whose very names inspire college students to seek safe spaces and therapy.

The Berkeley paper called The Daily Californian reports that the letter was co-written by seven faculty members, including Michael Cohen, a campus associate teaching professor of African American studies. The letter urges fellow faculty members to take three steps: cancel classes and tell students to stay home; close buildings and departments and allow staff to stay home; and not penalize students who are afraid of coming to campus. The letter was signed by 132 campus faculty members from various departments, and by 56 individuals who aren’t part of the UC Berkeley faculty.

Cohen said that most of the students in his African American Studies class are students "of color," and he believes it is unethical and discriminatory for him to ask his students to be on campus during Free Speech Week, which will be held on campus from Sept. 24-27.

As noted by the Daily Californian, Free Speech Week is being hosted by the Berkeley Patriot, a conservative student newspaper. The four-day event includes themes such as “Feminism Awareness Day” and “Mario Savio is Dead.” Speakers scheduled to be on campus include Freedom Center founder David Horowitz, libertarian provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, conservative commentator Ann Coulter, and dreaded Breitbart honcho Steve Bannon.

“This is a clear threat to public higher education,” said Cohen. He and the other signers of the letter reluctantly concede that "we are legally bound by the Constitution to allow all viewpoints on campus." But "there are forms of speech that are not protected under the First Amendment. These include speech that presents imminent physical danger and speech that disrupts the university’s mission to educate."

The university's mission is to educate? Who knew?

"Milo, Coulter and Bannon do not come to educate; they and their followers come to humiliate and incite... The boycott is a refusal to allow this to happen on our campus.”

“We’re not afraid of Milo, Ann (Coulter) or Bannon’s words," claim the signatories of the letter. "We have a deep anxiety over the violence that their followers bring in response,” Cohen said.

Of course, the issue is not violence on the part of the followers of Yiannopoulos, Coulter, Bannon, et al; as always, it is the radical leftists who bring violence and mayhem to such events under the pretense of anti-fascism and self-defense.

“Chancellor [Carol T.] Christ’s idea that we can have these people on campus is a fantasy and a dangerous one,” Cohen complained, but he should be directing his complaint against the masked, black-clad, armed, anti-free speech protesters who come to assault innocent bystanders, intimidate peaceful conservative students, and vandalize public and private property. They are the ones who are truly dangerous.

Download a pdf of the full letter here.

From TruthRevolt.org
Tags: Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Free Speech, uc berkeley

Thank You Mr Tapson and FPM/TruthRevolt


Monday, September 18, 2017

Feinstein: 'We Know' That 'North Korea Can Hit Anywhere In The United States Now'.

CNSNews

By Susan Jones | September 18, 2017 | 7:29 AM EDT

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence committee, said on Sunday that she’s spent a lot of time on North Korea. “I have read most, if not all, of the intelligence, and the real intelligence,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

And she said she is concerned about the threat posed by a rogue nation with a nuclear arsenal: “We know that they can hit anywhere within the United States now,” Feinstein said.

“How concerned are you about the United States and the safety of the United States?” CNN’s Dana Bash asked Feinstein:

“How concerned are you about the United States and the safety of the United States?” CNN’s Dana Bash asked Feinstein:

Well, I am concerned about the safety of the United States. Our missile defense isn't perfect. It certainly leaves more to be desired. And it has to really be worked on to be improved. And we know that they can hit anywhere within the United States now.

And they have done this in a relatively short time. And this particular leader, over his father, has moved much more quickly. And it's been effective. The science apparently is good, because they have been able put together tests that are successful.

The Trump administration has insisted there will be no talks with North Korea until it ends its nuclear program, but Feinstein said she doesn’t think that is the right approach:

I have spent a lot of time on Intelligence looking at North Korea. I have read most, if not all, of the intelligence, and the real intelligence.

I think that North Korea is not going to give up its program with nothing on the table. I think that what could happen is that we could have reliable verification of a freeze of both the nuclear program and the missile arsenal, and that we could conceivably talk China into supporting that kind of a freeze, because it would carry with it no regime change and no war.

Feinstein expressed concern about North Korea's “recklessness":

“They now have very powerful weapons. They have done six nuclear tests. They have big missiles. And they have missiles that can carry a nuclear threat.”

Thank You Ms Jones and CNS.


Wonderful. Who was behind the Korean war and the Vietnam war?

Think real hard on this the next time (which is practically Every time) you're forced to buy something/anything/almost Everything, Made In China.

Hillary: She Doesn't Understand How Bad She Was, And Still Won't Go Away

freebeacon
Review: 'What Happened' by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Joseph Bottum
September 16, 2017 5:00 am

Almost no commentator, no reviewer, has mentioned the most newsworthy fact about Hillary Clinton's latest memoir—which is the near total lack of anything actually newsworthy in the book. With What Happened, Clinton would at last "let down her hair," Simon & Schuster's publicists loudly proclaimed before the book's publication. And that was the line dutifully repeated by reporter after reporter, as though it were a fact. As though, coming from Clinton's people, it didn't need to be checked or reported with even the slight distancing of "Hillary Clinton says she's let down her hair in her new book."

But then, there's a kind of fittingness in that hair cliché, for Clinton probably does believe she has exposed her real self, set forth the true inwardness of her feelings. She's let it all hang out. She's made it real. She's taken her hair down to talk to us, person to person. And with her belief in all that, she comes closest to revealing in the memoir what actually happened. Hillary Clinton lost in good part because she speaks and thinks, she moves and has her being, in a world of clichés.

So, for example, in What Happened she complains with unrelenting bitterness that she did tooaddress the concerns of the Rust Belt. She did too speak directly to the damaged blue-collar class. She did too appeal to the white voters who did not support her. It's not her fault that they didn't believe her. It's not her fault that, if they even heard her, they suspected her heart wasn't in the message. She had her well-disciplined talking points like ducks in a row. If the ducks proved dead—that's not her fault.

Has there been a more self-conscious major-party presidential candidate since Richard Nixon? The stiff way she moved, the personalizing of every slight, the grimacing smile as though she had been forced to teach herself how to wear her face: Nearly everything about Hillary Clinton spoke of a self-consciousness so vast, so heavy, that only the sternest will could shoulder it. Like a robot with slow actuators, she always seemed to have a gap between a stimulus and her response—a brief but noticeable moment of deciding how to react. Leave aside questions of her truthfulness about everything from her Rose Hill law firm's files to her private email server while she was at the State Department. Trump's needling epithet of "Crooked Hillary" gained traction because, regardless of her actual honesty, she had the affect of dishonesty—the pause that recalls for many viewers a liar choosing what to say.

At the same time, has there ever been a less self-reflective major-party presidential candidate? Richard Nixon was at least very smart, and from his 1978 Memoirs through his late books on foreign policy, he proved capable of a good deal of self-abstraction and intellectual acumen. Neither saved him from paranoia and a thin-skinnedness unrivaled by any other elected president, but by the end he could nonetheless distance himself from himself a little. Hillary Clinton can't seem to distance herself at all. However uncomfortable she is in her own skin, she's locked inside that skin, and all her attempts at self-reflection, self-criticism, and self-awareness prove little more than clichéd repetitions of the kinds of things people are supposed to say when engaging in those activities. Her expressions of her interior life in What Happened seem just as robotic, just as programmed, as her expressions of an exterior life.

And so she writes, "I've made mistakes, been defensive about them, stubbornly resisted apologizing," only to add, "but so have most men in politics (in fact, one of them just became president)"—deaf to the grating noise of her grievance trying to fit itself beside the insincerely borrowed language of a mea culpa. She speaks of loving hot sauce, only to add, "I've been a fan since 1992, when I became convinced it boosted my immune system, as research now shows it does"—unable to hear how the attempt to say she loves something is undone by that wooden "as research now shows it does."

Some tiredness has shown in the mainstream response to the book. Jon Kass wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "Hillary: How can we miss you when you won't go away?" In the New York Times, Susan Chira echoed the point, calling her "the woman who won't go away." Even David Remnick's recent hagiographical account in the New Yorker has a slight undercurrent of dismissal. Back in April, Bill Maher set the tone when he compared her to first baseman Bill Buckner losing the Red Sox a winnable World Series by letting an easy grounder slip between his legs.

What Happened might have been Clinton's way back from the woods to at least the status of elder stateswoman in the Democratic party, if it were better written. Some of the book is deadly dull. One chapter reads as though she were handed a staff-directory and told to say something about each worker at campaign headquarters. But most of the book is just plain dull.

She doesn't like Bernie Sanders, and she thinks he established the lines of attack that the Republicans would use against her. That's probably true, but how is it news? She really doesn't like Donald Trump, and she thinks that he pandered to the lowest common-denominator of America: "I was running a traditional presidential campaign … while Trump was running a reality TV show." Again, that may well be true, but after the billions of dollars spent during the last election—much of it by Clinton herself—why do we need What Happened to tell us so?

For that matter, wasn't it her husband who broke the traditional campaign she now mourns? Bill Clinton played the saxophone on late-night TV shows. He answered questions about his underwear. He triangulated every position down to the vanishing point. He ran a perpetual war room that smashed the incumbent Republican president's more old-fashioned campaign. It's a little late in the day for Hillary Clinton to bemoan the election of a man who carried some of her husband's campaign techniques to their logical extreme.

A sad endlessness suffuses the list of all those Clinton blames for her loss. The nation just wasn't ready for her. Fake news undid her. The New York Times was mean to her. James Comey and the FBI were out to get her. So were Vladimir Putin and Julian Assange. Misogyny and racism. Racism and misogyny. Misogyny again, just in case we missed it the first dozen times she mentions it. The FBI again, too.

The election of 2016 was fated by a number of factors to be a bad year for the Democrats. And the situation was made worse when the party nominated Hillary Clinton, who seemed at the time to be a bad retail politician after losing the 2008 primaries to Barack Obama despite all her institutional advantages and nearly losing the 2016 primaries to a socialist. But then—oh, miraculous day!—the other party screwed up the primaries enough to nominate Donald Trump, the only visible Republican that the Democrats could be sure of beating.

The fact that she went on to be defeated elevates her in a way that she cannot grasp with her strange combination of self-consciousness and unself-reflectiveness in What Happened. To lose to Donald Trump, with so much institutional weight behind her, raises her far beyond any other. This was not just a bad candidate. This was a terrible candidate—the worst campaigner ever to receive a nomination. Maybe the best way to look at her new memoir is that the book represents a determined, powerfully willful effort not to understand just how bad she was.
This entry was posted in Culture and tagged 2016 Election, Book reviews, Hillary Clinton. Bookmark the permalink.


Thank You Mr Bottum and Free Beacon.


No, what happened was that her own self proclaimed 'Experience' has been out on public display since the Governor's Mansion in Arkansas.

And America just couldn't get the horror she is out of their mind's eye.

That's 'What Happened'.

Feds Spend $587,441 to Make Engineering A 'Safe Zone' For LGBTQ Engineers

freebeacon

Elizabeth Harrington
September 18, 2017 5:00 am


Study seeks to combat 'chilly' environment for LGBTQ engineers

The National Science Foundation is spending over $100,000 to create "safe zone" inclusion training so more members of the LGBTQ community become engineers.

The project, which will not start until January 2018, is a joint study being conducted by the American Society For Engineering Education, Rowan University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The focus of the study is to find ways to combat what the researchers call a "chilly" environment for lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals in engineering labs.

Two separate grants totaling $587,441 were awarded Thursday. A grant worth $473,325 was awarded to the American Society For Engineering Education, and $114,116 was given to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Recent research on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in engineering has shown that the climate can be unfriendly (or ‘chilly') for both students and professionals," according to the grant for the study. "This project aims to increase the inclusion of LGBTQ students and professionals in engineering."

The study aims to "foster inclusion" and allow college faculty and professors to "become change agents."

"The project will identify issues faced by LGBTQ students and professionals in engineering, identify and implement strategies to create more welcoming engineering environments, and disseminate those strategies so that they can be expanded to a national level," the grant states.

The study also involves creating an online course called "SafeZone," which can train college engineering professors how to be inclusive to gay students and other sexual minorities.

"In addition, the research will be the basis of systematic development and formative refinement of an online SafeZone course to provide inclusion training to engineering students and professionals nationwide," the grant states.

"A chilly climate for LGBTQ individual [sic] can be found in every sector of STEM professions, where cultural norms and professional ideologies make it difficult to recognize and rectify exclusionary practices," the grant states. "One negative consequence of this chilly environment is difficulty in recruiting and retaining talented LGBTQ individuals into the engineering profession."

"This project uses qualitative research to generate new knowledge about the processes of developing a community of practice to promote LGBTQ inclusion in engineering, how the members of the community develop into change agents, and what strategies are effective in reshaping norms and increasing LGBTQ inclusion in engineering departments," the grant added.

Kelly Cross, a post-doctoral researcher for the University of Illinois, Stephanie Farrell, the chair of experiential engineering education at Rowan University, and Rocio Chavela Guerra of the American Society for Engineering Education, are leading the study.

Cross list of research interests includes "diversity and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction."
This entry was posted in Politics. Bookmark the permalink.


Thank You Ms Harrington and Free Beacon.

Everyone who can be labeled, by Themselves or Political Charlatans looking to gain advantage gets their own Special Parade.

If they understood how they're being played by people who don't in fact give a rat's left hind foot about them, people would Stop Labeling themselves as 'Special' and simply demand that the extant Laws be upheld.

63 Counties Projected To Have NO ObamaCare Insurer By 2018

Now 7 years into Glorious Leader's Brilliant 5 year ACA Plan.

Actually it was never a 5 year plan. It was and remains a 'Whatever it Takes' plan designed to destroy the American Private Healthcare system in order to Shove far worse than the ACA down America's throats, . . . . Single Payer. A complete 100% Government takeover.

freebeacon

BY: Ali Meyer
September 16, 2017 5:00 am

There are 63 counties in the United States that are projected to have no insurer participating in the Affordable Care Act exchanges in 2018, according to a reportfrom the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The agency has been tracking health insurer announcements since June and creates maps to show which counties will have no Obamacare insurer in 2018. The map will change based on future announcements if more insurers exit.

The first map the agency created on June 9 showed there would be 47 counties with no insurer participating.

Since that time, the number of counties with no insurer participating in Obamacare has fluctuated, dropping to even zero at one point on September 6. During this time, many articles came out criticizing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) for saying there were counties in the United States that had no insurer participating.

Recent data from the agency, however, shows that now there are even more counties with no choice than ever before.

"This map currently shows that nationwide 63 counties are projected to have no issuers, representing over 70,000 Americans in these counties that could be without coverage on the Exchanges in 2018," the report said. "It is also projected that 1,472 counties—over 45 percent of counties nationwide—could have only one issuer in 2018. This could represent more than 2.6 million Exchange participants with only one health insurance option, which means they will not have any choices."

Insurers such as Anthem and Aetna have announced this year that they are planning exits from the marketplace, which will leave some areas with no options. A representative from Anthem toldlawmakers on Thursday that the company was cautious about continuing their participation because of Obamacare's uncertainty.

Individuals who will be living in an area where there is no insurer offering coverage will still be bound by Obamacare's individual mandate to purchase health insurance or be forced to pay a penalty.

Senators Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) have introduced legislation that would protect these people from being penalized for not having insurance when there are no insurers operating on the exchanges in their area.

The Health Care Options Act of 2017 would waive the penalty in these cases and allow individuals to purchase coverage outside of the exchanges.

"This legislation would help those in Knoxville and across the country by allowing any American who receives a subsidy and has no insurance available on the exchange next year to use that subsidy to buy any state-approved insurance off of the exchange," Alexander said. "Second, the bill would waive the Affordable Care Act requirement that these Americans, who have zero insurance options with their subsidies, have to pay a penalty for not purchasing insurance."

This entry was posted in Issues and tagged Health Insurance, Obamacare Exchanges. Bookmark the permalink.


Thank You Ms Meyer and FB


Feinstein's 'Anti-Catholic Bigotry' Takes Center Stage

freebeacon

BY: Bill McMorris
September 15, 2017 4:35 pm

Former Thomas clerk says Feinstein-Durbin questioning of Notre Dame law professor crossed the line


Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D., Calif.) attack on the faith of a Catholic judicial nominee has stoked opposition from conservative activists.

The Judicial Crisis Network has made a six-figure ad buy taking aim at Feinstein and Sen. Dick Durbin's (D., Ill.) questioning of Notre Dame law school professor Amy Barrett regarding her Catholic faith. The ad, which is called Catholics Need Not Apply, focuses on Durbin asking Barrett, a married mother of seven, if she considered herself an "orthodox Catholic" and Feinstein objecting to her nomination by saying, "the dogma lives loudly within you."

The JCN says both lines of questioning reflect anti-Catholic bigotry.

continue reading

Risperdal Judge Explains Reasons For Denying Janssen A New Trial

lawyersandsettlements

September 17, 2017, 03:00:00PM. By Gordon Gibb

Philadelphia, PAAs the manufacturer of Risperdal (risperidone) continues their attempts to have a recent plaintiff verdict overturned, the Pennsylvania state judge assigned to the case explained last month why he denied a request by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. for a new trial in the Risperdal side effects lawsuit.

According to Court documents plaintiff Austin Pledger had begun taking Risperdal in 2002 to counter behavioral issues associated with autism. Pledger was prescribed Risperdal when he was seven years of age. At that time risperidone was sanctioned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use only in adults.

An expanded indication for use in children would come four years later – in October, 2006 when the FDA, on the 6th of that month issued an updated indication for irritability associated with Autistic Disorder in children as young as five years of age, and as old as 16. The FDA also, at the same time, updated the Risperdal label to reflect a 2.3 percent risk for male breast growth, a condition known as gynecomastia.

Prior to that, according to Law 360 (08/14/17), the Risperdal label had only referenced gynecomastia as a rare event.

Medical doctors have the medical and ethical authority to prescribe medications to their patients beyond restrictions mandated by the FDA – thus it was completely within the purview of Pledger’s physician to prescribe the boy risperidone for his autism. As noted above, Risperdal would eventually be sanctioned by the FDA for children as young as five when the indication for risperidone was expanded in 2006 – tagged as it was with a warning about a 2.3 percent risk for gynecomastia.

However, the heightened level of risk for Risperdal and growing male breasts was still four years out when Pledger first started taking Risperdal at the behest of his doctor. At the time, in 2002, gynecomastia was only considered rare.

Pledger, over the course of five years taking Risperdal, was seen to grow large breasts and was diagnosed with Risperdal gynecomastia. His family sued Janssen and, following a month-long trial in February, 2015 won a $2.5 million jury award (Pledger et al. v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. et al., Case No. 120401997, in the Court of Common Pleas of the State of Pennsylvania, County of Philadelphia).

In response, Janssen filed post-trial motions seeking a new trial on grounds that expert witness for the plaintiff Dr. David Goldstein had examined the plaintiff in Pledger’s home state of Alabama. The problem, as noted by the defendant, was that Goldstein was licensed to practice in Missouri and, as such may have violated the law.

Goldstein, at trial, withdrew as an expert witness in the face of the jurisdictional issue, and Pledger brought in a new expert witness. Janssen, however, cried foul asserting that the opinions of plastic surgeon Dr. Mark Solomon differed significantly from those of Goldstein. Because of that, Janssen asserted they had no opportunity to prepare an effective cross examination of the expert witness, and petitioned the Court for a new trial.

Judge Ramy Djerassi in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas took exception to Janssen’s tactics.

“The timing of Janssen’s motion and the nature of their accusation were extraordinary and seemed calculated for maximum surprise,” the opinion said. “If Janssen’s late motion were granted, plaintiff would have no choice but [to] move for voluntary nonsuit. If the motion were denied, then Dr. Goldstein would likely choose to take the Fifth Amendment or testify with predictable damage to his credibility. Either way, if the motion had been filed before trial, there would not have been extraordinary prejudice to plaintiff who would likely have moved for a continuance before undergoing the expense of trial.”



READ MORE RISPERDAL LEGAL NEWS

Risperdal Plaintiff Green Lighted to Pursue Risperdal Lawsuit in New York
Philadelphia Judge Refuses to Overturn $2.5 Million Risperdal Plaintiff Verdict
Father Worries about his Incarcerated Son with Risperdal “Female Boobs”


Djerassi also noted that Solomon had been deposed a few months prior in association with a separate Risperdal lawsuit for which he was acting as an expert witness also and thus, Janssen would have been well aware of the substance of Solomon’s testimony.

“There was no undue surprise to Janssen,” the opinion said. “The trial record shows Janssen’s trial lawyers were prepared.”

Janssen is continuing to appeal, in an effort to have the original verdict overturned. A spokesperson for Janssen said in a statement: “We continue to believe this verdict should be overturned, and we are appealing,” said Jessica Castles Smith, on behalf of Janssen. “Contrary to the impression the plaintiffs’ attorneys have attempted to create over the course of this litigation, Risperdal is an important FDA-approved medicine that, when used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan, continues to help millions of patients with mental illnesses and neurodevelopmental conditions.”


READ ABOUT RISPERDAL LAWSUITS or MORE RISPERDAL LEGAL NEWS ARTICLES


Thank You Mr Gibb and Lawyers and Settlements



Risperdal $2.5 Million Verdict Upheld On Appeal

Friday, September 15, 2017

Sanders Invites Canadian Doctor To Discuss Single-Payer: Admits To Year Long Wait Times

Townhall
Posted: Sep 14, 2017 5:45 PM
 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is getting more aggressive with his single-payer approach to health care. He’s cobbled together 15 Senate Democrats to sign onto his $32 trillion plan to expand coverage at the cost of reduced access to specialists and other treatments to reduce costs. Oh, and taxes are definitely going up. More taxes for degraded care, sounds like a Democratic plan to me because we all suffer together—equally. The Republican National Committee released a video showing how other countries that have enacted single-payer have fared. To put it bluntly, it’s yielded results that would not be tolerated by American voters. In fact, it’s an outright horror show. Patients dying, doctors leading protests over pay, which is reduced to keep costs down, and elderly patients being deprived of basic items, like water and food. Sounds like paradise, right? More than one million Canadians cannot find a general practitioner, while two hospital workers interviewed in the video admit that conditions are dangerous when the hospital is active with patients.

Even the Canadian doctor, Dr. Danielle Martin, which Sanders brought onto his podcast admitted to long wait times.

DR. DANIELLE MARTIN: “If I have a patient who’s got migraines and I need advice about how to manage it, they might wait several months to see a neurologist for a non-urgent problem like that. Or non-urgent surgeries, the classic example being a hip or a knee replacement.”
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: “So how long will it take me in the average?”
MARTIN: “It depends on where you are in the country. Sometimes it’s a few months, sometimes it’s a year. In some places, it’s sometimes it’s been even longer than that, that people wait for a hip or a knee replacement. And I think that is totally unacceptable. I don’t think that we should stand for it in our system. I think that there’s no reason why people should have to wait.”
Oh, and in the United Kingdom, at least a million people can’t find a general practitioner either. This was reported in the Telegraph back in July:
One million patients a week cannot get appointments with GPs, amid the longest waiting times on record, new figures show.
Doctors said they were working “flat out” but under “unsustainable” pressure, leaving “worrying” numbers of patients without any help.
The NHS figures show the number waiting at least a week to see their GP has risen by 56 per cent in five years, with one in five now waiting this long.
The pressures left 11.3 per cent of patients unable to get an appointment at all - a 27 per cent rise since 2012.  This amounts to around 47 million occasions on which patients attempted but failed to secure help from their GP, forcing them to give up, try again later or turn to Accident & Emergency departments.
Yikes.

Thank You Mr Vespa and Townhall.

And if that ain't up front sickening enough, there's video at the link to make your revulsion even more immediate and personal.
 

Shocker: Only 1 in 1,000 Dreamers Serve In Military

But, but, they're such a credit, such an invaluable resource to the country they're breaking the law by remaining in it!


dailycaller
JONAH BENNETT National Security/Politics Reporter


1:29 PM 09/14/2017

President Donald Trump drew attention Thursday to the illegals currently serving in the military as a reason why they should perhaps not be deported, but just 0.11 percent of DACA recipients are actually in service.

In a series of tweets Thursday, Trump appeared to completely reverse his stance on DACA, tweeting: “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!…..”

“…They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own – brought in by parents at young age,” Trump added. “Plus BIG border security.”

Although Trump expressed astonishment that the American public would want to send DACA recipients back to their respective home countries because some serve in the military, the Pentagon recently told The Daily Caller News Foundation that fewer than 900 DACA recipients out of a total of 800,000 are currently serving in the military, which amounts to 0.11 percent. In other words, about a tenth of a percent of DACA recipients are serving.


“There are less than 900 individuals currently serving in the military, or have signed contracts to serve, who are recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) authorization,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement last Wednesday. “These individuals are part of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) Pilot Program. The Department of Defense is coordinating with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security (DHS) regarding any impact a change in policy may have for DACA recipients. The Department defers to our colleagues at DHS on questions related to immigration, naturalization, or citizenship.”

The MAVNI program opened to DACA recipients in 2014. MAVNI was initiated in 2009 during the Obama administration, but was put on hold in September 2016 over security concerns. The program was suspended in part because reviews showed that some of the illegal enlistees representeda significant counterintelligence threat.

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Send tips to jonah@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags: Air Force, Army, DACA, Donald Trump, Marine Corps, Navy, Pentagon



Thank You Mr Bennett and Daily Caller.

Democrats Follow Bernie Sanders Off The Cliff: 'Medicare Fot All'

We're doomed I tell you, Doomed. 

It's not the fact that these crackpots are quadrupling down on all the fail of ObamaCare, but that there are people in this country dumb enough to have voted them into office.

They're still out there, and they will vote again.

Shades of Freddie Kruger.

freebeacon

BY: Matthew Continetti
September 15, 2017 5:00 am

Column: The bad math and foolish politics of single-payer health care

How rudderless is the Democratic Party? Its membership is so bereft of leadership and policy direction that 16 of its senators have signed on to a health care bill sponsored by a self-avowed independent democratic socialist from Vermont.

The "Medicare for All Act of 2017" would repeal Obamacare, along with most other private and public insurance, and replace it with a government-run, one-size-fits-all, centrally directed system of reimbursement for medical expenses. Sanders, who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, holds the same opinion of health insurance as he does antiperspirants: "You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different sneakers when children are hungry in this country."

Senators Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren, who in addition to cosponsoring the bill may soon be fighting each other, as well as Sanders, for the Democratic nomination, are generals re-enacting the last war. They saw how well Sanders did against Clinton, they have marched in the anti-Trump "resistance" movement, and they want to inoculate themselves from accusations of ideological heresy.

Which is why they embrace the thin-skinned and irritable senator whose wife is under federal investigation. What the copycats forget is the future in politics is never a straight-line projection of the present, much less of the bizarre circumstances surrounding the 2016 Democratic primary. "Medicare for All" might strike Warren & co. today as legislation worthy of support for reasons both moral and self-interested. In time, however, palling around with Bernie Bros may become a liability.

For one thing, the policy is remarkably vague. "Mr. Sanders did not say how he would pay for his bill," writes Robert Pear of the New York Times. "Aides said he would issue a list of financing options." The "options" are not included in the bill—but they are enough to raise the hair on the back of one's neck.

The experiences of Vermont, whose single-payer system collapsed several years ago, and of California and New Jersey, whose true-blue legislatures can't carry single payer across the finish line, and of Colorado, which voted overwhelmingly against a similar plan last year, suggest the tax increases necessary to sustain expanded coverage frighten even Democrats. Examining a similar policy introduced by Sanders during the presidential campaign, the liberal Urban Institute concluded the following:

National health expenditures would increase by $6.6 trillion between 2017 and 2026, while federal expenditures would increase by $32 trillion over that period. Sanders's revenue proposals, intended to finance all health and non-health spending he proposed, would raise $15.3 trillion from 2017 to 2026—thus, the proposal taxes are much too low to fully finance his health plan.

No wonder Sanders wants to avoid the details. He and his cosponsors are in a bind. There is no way to pay for the benefits they desire without a) economy-crushing tax hikes, b) rationing, or c) some combination thereof. That chases away support.

Nor is that support deep to begin with. Vox.com, citing research from the Kaiser Family Foundation, explains that "support for single-payer drops about 20 percent when people who initially said they supported the proposal are told it would give the government too much control or require Americans to pay higher taxes." Universal coverage with no copays sounds nice at first. But both voters and politicians recoil when they are confronted by the reality of exorbitant costs and diminished freedoms.

The inconvenient truth of the health debate is this: The vast majority of Americans are not only insured, they are satisfied with their insurance. They might grumble about premiums or deductibles or choice of doctors, but they are not about to embark on systemic change. Two-thirds of the some 150 million Americans who receive health coverage through their employer told the Gallup organization they were satisfied in 2016. About three-fourths of the plurality of Americans who receive coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA said the same. Why overthrow those arrangements cavalierly for Sanders' revolution?

As President Obama would say: This isn't my opinion. It's the conclusion of liberals who would embrace a single-payer system if they had to recreate American health care from scratch. "A commitment to universal health coverage—bringing in the people currently falling through Obamacare's cracks—should definitely be a litmus test," writes Paul Krugman. "But single-payer, while it has many virtues, isn't the only way to get there; it would be much harder politically than its advocates acknowledge; and there are more important priorities."

Recall what happened the last time Democrats tackled health care. The designers of the Affordable Care Act went out of their way to get buy-in from all the various players in the health care system. They based their plan on Mitt Romney's legacy in Massachusetts. Yet the controversy over Obamacare's mandates, taxes, regulations, and panels cost the Democrats the House, and the negative reaction to the law's implementation in 2013 and 2014 cost them the Senate. What would be the fallout if Democrats, reduced to their weakest position in years, took on not only the entirety of the health care industry but also the status-quo bias of the American people?

The headlines the left has generated this week include single-payer health care, draping a tarp over a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the University of Virginia campus, the resignation of the mayor of Seattle after a fifth accusation of child abuse, the Bob Menendez corruption trial, and Hillary Clinton's latest sanctimony tour. That man in the Oval Office? He can only be smiling.


Thank You Mr Continetti and Free Beacon.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

ICE:14,000 Detained Illegal Aliens Getting FREE Healthcare At 21 Facilities In 10 States


CNSNews

By Susan Jones | September 13, 2017 | 11:18 AM EDT


(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted that he's "very proud" to be introducing his "Medicare for All Act" on Wednesday.

And while liberal Democrats urge taxpayer-funded health care for all Americans, at least 14,000 non-Americans already have it -- right here in the USA.

"The ICE Health Service Corps administers direct care to 14,000 detained illegal aliens in 21 facilities across 10 states," the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency tweeted on Tuesday.

A second tweet said the ICE Health Service Corps is focused on the best patient outcomes, and this tweet linked to an ICE-generated article posted on the agency's website.

The article begins:


Manuel felt sudden intense chest pain and had difficulty breathing.

He knew something was terribly wrong and called out for his deportation officer. His current place of residence: a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Jena, Louisiana.

The deportation officer immediately announced a facility medical emergency and notified 911 while another staff member rushed over and began life-saving chest compressions on Manuel. The rest of the medical response team arrived within two minutes and observed Manuel was not breathing and pulseless. They assisted with providing emergency care, revived his vital signs and stabilized him until the ambulance arrived and transported him to the nearest hospital for additional care.

A typical day for the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC).

ICE says its health corps consists of physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, pharmacists, dentists and administrators. The 1,100-plus personnel include U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers, federal civil servants and contract health professionals.

These medical professionals undergo "a significant amount of training to ensure excellent detainee care," the article notes.

The article posted by ICE apparently comes in response to accusations by Human Rights Watch and others who have complained about substandard care at ICE detention facilities.

This past May, for example, Human Rights Watch produced a report examining "serious lapses in health care that have led to severe suffering and at times the preventable or premature death of individuals held in immigration detention facilities in the United States."

According to ICE, every detainee gets a full health assessment within two weeks of entering a detention center, and for some of them, it's the first time they've ever had a medical check-up.
"Detainees identified as high-risk during the intake process are moved to a higher level of care immediately," the article said. "If at any time a patient verbalizes an issue such as, 'I feel very bad' or 'I don’t have the medicine I need,' a nurse or mid-level practitioner has the authority to interact with a higher level medical provider to determine when the patient can be seen by a physician within 24 hours."

A "medical delivery care person" staffs each facility 24/7 "for direct patient access."

Dr. Luzviminda Peredo-Berger, chief medical officer of the ICE Health Service Corps, noted that for most people, seeing a private-practice doctor within 24 hours can be difficult, but the sick-call system at ICE detention centers means detainees are able to get quick attention when they need it.

"I’ve received thank you notes from patients who have said the health care they received from ICE has far exceeded anything they expected,” Peredo-Berger is quoted as saying.

The full article can be found here.

The provision of medical care to immigration detainees, many of them awaiting deportation or resolution of their legal cases, is authorized by federal law.


Thank You Ms Jones and CNS.

Kind'a gives you a warm feeling in the pit of your, . . . WALLET, . . as you're being crushed, bled out and sucked dry paying for Emperor Barry's ACA, . . . doesn't it?


Sanders 'Medicare For All' Plan Draws Criticism From Health Care Advocates, Experts, Lawmakers


BY: Ali Meyer
September 13, 2017 12:05 pm


What Happened To Those Millions From The Bernie Sanders Campaign?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) plans to unveil his "Medicare for All" plan today, which is drawing criticism from those who say a single-payer system would eliminate choice and put more burdens on hardworking taxpayers.

"Instead of wasting hundreds of billions of dollars trying to administer an enormously complicated system of hundreds of separate insurance plans, there would be one insurance plan for the American people with one single payer," a summary of the bill explains.

David Merritt, executive vice president at America's Health Insurance Plans, is criticizing the measure, saying that a government-controlled health care system can't work.

"Whether it’s called single payer or Medicare for All, government-controlled health care cannot work," Merritt said. "It will eliminate choice, undermine quality, put a chill on medical innovation, and place an even heavier burden on hardworking taxpayers."

"The most effective way to ensure affordable care and coverage is to strengthen the private market’s ability to serve the American people, whether it’s building upon private plans serving nearly 180 million people who get their coverage through their employer or the tens of millions who depend on private plans that partner with public programs," he said.

Merritt says every American deserves high-quality care and affordable coverage but more needs to be done to rein in increasing health care costs.

"Everyone—including doctors, health plans, patients, and government—must come together to find solutions that deliver real results," he said. "Let’s build on proven solutions that work—not theoretical, one-size-fits-all approaches that don’t. Proven solutions like value-based care; new tools, technology, and treatments driven by data; social services that coordinate around patients; market competition that drives down costs; community partnerships between the private sector and public programs; and more effective approaches to treat chronic illnesses."

A senior research fellow in health care policy at the Mercatus Center, Robert Graboyes says Medicare hasn’t been more efficient than private insurers, and its structure contributes to high health care costs: "Contrary to single-payer folklore, Medicare is not more administratively efficient than private insurers. Nor is the agency competent at holding down costs—and congressional attempts to force cost-cutting have failed miserably."

"America’s high ratio of health care spending to GDP results from Americans’ low saving rates and high accumulated wealth—not the particulars of our payment system," Graboyes said. "That aside, Medicare’s institutional structure contributes massively to our runaway health care costs."

In addition to health care advocates and experts, not all Democrat lawmakers are supporting Sanders's single-payer measure. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) has declined to back his colleague’s proposal and Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) has not yet signed off on the bill.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.) said he was skeptical of the plan and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said the price of single payer is enormous.

The Republican National Committee has launched a video ahead of Sanders's proposal, which outlines the failures of a single-payer system.

"Bernie Sanders’s single-payer proposal isn’t realistic, and with a $32 trillion price-tag, it certainly isn’t affordable," said RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "In fact, even Nancy Pelosi refuses to endorse the legislation and my DNC counterpart, Tom Perez, said the only way to pay for it is by imposing a massive tax increase on every American."

"The Democrats’ latest attempt at a government takeover of our health care system will cost too much, reduce the quality of care, and be a logistical nightmare for all," she said.


Thank You Ms Meyer and Free Beacon

pic cred to thepeoplescube.com