Dickie, we hardly knew ye!

Guess what!  Back in 2012, those troglodytes in Indiana’s Republican base recognized something about then-Senator Dick Lugar that the state party poo-bahs missed:

Former Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican, has given the maximum amount of money allowed under federal campaign finance laws to a candidate who hopes to help Democrats retain the Senate in the 2014 election.
...
The Lugar-backed 19th Star PAC gave [Michelle] Nunn $5,000, the most that a PAC can give an individual candidate, the Huffington Post reported.

After 36 years, Lugar lost his Senate seat from Indiana in 2010 when State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated him in the Republican primary by arguing that he was too moderate.

N.B.: ‘‘too moderate’’ = Washington-speak for being a petty, vindictive, bitter old man who would go to any length to maintain his personal power, and who would take his ball and go home rather than let someone else win.

‘‘When Dick Lugar moved to Washington, he left behind more than his house.  He left behind his conservative Hoosier values,’’ one Mourdock ad against Lugar told voters.  ‘‘Lugar’s been in Washington 36 years.  That’s too long. Time for a change.’’

Back at primary time, Ace noted:

...Reports that Dick Lugar is a mature, sober, responsible, modestly genial grown-up adult with a long-view take on things seem to have been greatly overstated.

...and last Tuesday night, ‘Maetenloch’ administered the coup-de-grace:

Well I guess he can finally stop pretending to be conservative and we can stop pretending he was really a Republican.

Indiana is well rid of him; too bad it didn’t happen 20 years ago.

Previously:

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...and so ‘‘Happy’’ New Year

In which 2014 promises to be more ‘‘interesting’’ than 2013:

Welcome to Venezuela New York.  Let’s check em’ off:

promise ‘‘progressive’’ governing
‘‘graceless and smug’’ speeches
‘‘pointless and tacky haranguing”
‘‘utterly bogus claim(s)”
‘‘We won’t wait!”

Yep, so far, about as expected...

Build Up That Credibility, Gang!  There’s an Election a-Comin’!

Politico has a headline for the ages up right now: ‘‘Management Experts Knock Obama.”  Management ‘‘experts” are just noticing now, after five years, that Obama’s lack of experience is significant.  Maybe these ‘‘experts” aren’t so expert.

(from Power Line)

...or maybe they were too ‘‘fascinated’’ to tell us...

BARBARA WALTERS: ...He made so many promises.  We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn’t say this at Christmastime, but – the next Messiah.  And the whole ObamaCare, or whatever you want to call it, the Affordable Health Act, it just hasn’t worked for him, and he’s stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more...

Somebody said confession is good for the soul (but I don’t see much confessin’ here).

...and so do hack Chief Justices:

Budget Cuts Imperil Federal Court System, Roberts Says

(via SteveF at Daily Pundit, who replies most succinctly.)

Cold Hands, Warm (?) Heart:

The Chinese icebreaker which helped transport passengers away from a stranded Antarctic ship has itself become stuck in ice

You can’t make this stuff up.

And why will Buffalo(!) be warmer than Indianapolis next week?

Merry New Year, all!

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The NSA surveillance controversy explained in one sentence and two links

Glenn Reynolds (of course!):

They can’t find terrorists by data-trawling, but if they’ve identified someone in advance, like, say, a political enemy, they can easily find dirt on them.

Unexpectedly...

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The perfect Progressive program

Glenn Reynolds:

Ethanol makes food more expensive, hurts engines, and is bad for the environment.  It’s liquid pork.

Well, that’s four for four...

Not to mention more government-telling-people-what-to-do, and more bureaucrats employed to tell them.  No wonder the ‘‘progressives’’ love it!

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Too much information?

The Register:

I guess the NSA must have gotten behind on their reading.

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‘‘Progress’’

Seventy-two years ago, we got mousetrapped^[1] into a war to save civilization.  After a certain amount of fumbling^[2] (and with a lot of help from the folks who’d got there first), 1365 days later^[3] it was Mission Accomplished.  The future was bright, and the sky was... well, not ‘‘the limit’’ anymore, but the Edge of a New Frontier.

Sixty-eight years after, and...

We don’t have an Orbital Hilton or a tourist lodge on the moon and Pan-Am can’t run you up there on a shuttle -- in fact, they’re struggling to make the trains run on time while NASA astronauts have to bum a lift from the Russians.  But our .gov can bigawd tune in every cel-phone call, walkie-talkie and baby monitor everywhere, and read everyone’s e-mail and web-browsing history to boot.  China plans to put a missile base on the Moon and this country’s space program is all about listening at keyholes and peering in windows.

And that’s exactly what the midget-minds in Washington intended.

How far we’ve come!

------

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ObamaCare: If you like your volunteer fire department...

Scranton Times-Tribune:

The International Association of Fire Chiefs has asked the Internal Revenue Service... to clarify if current IRS treatment of volunteer firefighters as employees means their hose companies or towns must offer health insurance coverage or pay a penalty if they don’t.
...
‘‘It could be a huge deal,’’ said U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta [R-PA]..., who is seeking clarification from the IRS.  ‘‘In Pennsylvania, 97 percent of fire departments are fully or mostly volunteer firefighters.  It’s the fourth highest amount in the country.’’
...
The health care reform law, known officially as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act..., requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer health insurance...[or] pay fines.

The requirement is complicated by differing interpretations about the status of volunteer firefighters within the federal government.  The Department of Labor... classifies most volunteers as non-employees, but the IRS considers all volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel to be employees of their departments.
...
...The problem could be even more complicated if the IRS counts volunteer hose companies as one department in towns with more than one hose company, or as part of a town’s workforce.  Definitions like that could bump the total numbers beyond the 50-employee threshold and require offering coverage that towns or hose companies cannot afford...

And those ‘‘unintended consequences’’ just keep on coming!

(Via: Ace’s Friday Morning News Dump)

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...and Don’t You Forget It!

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Latest: If you want your hospital, you *can’t* keep your hospital.

Walter Russell Mead:

The article goes on to list every insurance company that offers plans in the Washington exchange as well as the hospitals that are in-network for those companies.  Pivoting off of that list, Steve Roth points out that two of Washington’s biggest insurers—Primera and Lifewise— don’t have any of the state’s four top specialty hospitals in their networks.  If you want the best cancer, trauma, ER, or pediatric care, and your plan is with one of the two biggest carriers in your state, you’re out of luck.

And here I was told that ObamaCare was supposed to get rid of all the ‘‘junk plans’’...!

(Dang, fooled again!)

Of couse the номенклату́ра- starting with the Senate Majority Leader’s buddies- get exempted from dealing with this shit.

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You want insurance? Well you can’t have it.

The situation, as interpreted by James Nichol (consumer sales manager, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of North Dakota):

Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 2:02 PM
...
Subject: The President’s Announcement
Importance: High

These are fun times, don’t you think?

The statement the President made to the press today has put a few thing on hold. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303789604579197733759439274

As of right now I would advise we do nothing in terms of advice or enrolling in either a Qualified Health Insurance (metallic) plan or a non-grandfathered plan. That would include AffordaBlue PLUS. Frankly we don’t know the full implications of what the president has said. We are certain the ND Department of Insurance will also have something to add to the conversation. So simply put, I don’t know what to advise anyone seeking health insurance as of this minute.

I will send out an update tomorrow to bring everyone up to speed on BCBSND’s position.

STAY TUNED, more to come tomorrow.

Thanks,

JD (Jim) Nichol
Consumer Sales Manager
BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD OF NORTH DAKOTA

Chaos, piled atop incompetence.

(Via: Ace)

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