PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU’S 2015 SPEECH TO CONGRESS:

WHITE HOUSE admits Obama recovery has made inequality worse. But it won’t stop them from doubling down on the same failed policies.

HEY, WE’RE RULERS. Rules are for little people.

HILLARY CLINTON: I’m a member of the ruling class; the rules don’t apply to me.

She’s self-imploding, but who will replace her?

DUTCH NONPROFIT MARS ONE has named 100 people who will remain in the running for a one-way trip to Mars, expected to leave Earth in 2024.

I happened to catch a ‘pundit-cast’ on television the other day, where the participants were horrified to learn that people would actually volunteer for a ‘suicide mission’. I can’t help but wonder what they would have thought when the Pilgrims left Europe to found the Plymouth Colony in 1621. Or when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon in 1969 -- there was no certainty that they would be able return to Earth.

If Mars One had been a going concern 50 years ago, I might well have been one of the many volunteers.

POLITICIZED SCIENCE: Obama is lying to you about Keystone XL.

BRYN MAWR changes admission guidelines to accept transwomen.

“During its meetings this past weekend, the College’s Board of Trustees discussed and approved a recommendation from a Board working group that was created at the September 2014 Board meeting to examine the mission of the College with respect to transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming applicants,” an email from the Board of Trustees said.

I'll believe in 'gender' when an individual, born male, gets pregnant and delivers a child without prior medical intervention. Until then, it's sex, not ‘gender’.

ARE ‘SOVEREIGN CITIZEN EXTREMISTS’ the latest threat to the United States? I suspect that to the Obama administration the answer is “yes”, because they’re living proof that much of Obama’s vision of government can be done without.

TWITTER is for twits.

MATH IS HARD: Sen. Bernie Sanders (Dumb, VT) thinks the Walton family are cheapskates.

Bernie, I know as a Socialist you’re too dumb to do math without help, so grab your calculator and follow along....

WalMart has roughly 1.3 million employees in the U.S. alone. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that they all work only 29 hours/week so that the evil WalMart doesn’t have to pay for health insurance. Then for a one dollar/hour increase in employee wages:

1,300,000 employees * $1/hour/employee * 29 hours/week * 52 weeks/year equals $1.96 billion/year.

That’s not pocket change, even for the Walton family. Let’s go a bit further and assume, optimistically, that all employees work a standard 40 hour week. Then:

1,300,000 employees * $1/hour/employee * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year equals $2.70 billion/year.

And that doesn't include the added cost of ObamaCare compliance.

Now I know you think that money grows on government printing presses, but I can assure you that the Waltons (and I) know that it does not. I think we can also safely assume, that by actually having a job, WalMart employees prefer their salaries and advancement opportunities to being unemployed and living on your Government welfare largesse.

POWERLINE: Climate haters gotta hate.

YES, VIRGINIA, there are flying saucers.



Watch the guy in in the white hat who starts the roll program....

OBAMAVILLE:




Heaven on Earth....

OBAMA’S LEGACY:

The liberal left got what it wanted in 2009 with a supermajority in the Senate and large majority in the House, a subservient mainstream media, the good will of the American people, and the most liberal president in American history. It only took that liberal hierarchy six years to erode the Democratic Party to levels that we have not seen since the 1920s. Almost every policy initiative we have seen — whether climate change, foreign policy, health care, or race relations — has imploded.

And so he doubles down. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over in hopes of getting a better outcome the next time.

A NUCLEAR DEAL with Iran is imminent.

GREG GUTFELD: 'Gun-free zone' is liberalspeak for ‘sitting duck’.

THE CLINTONS: Kardashians without the class.

MY FIRST MOUSE:

Since I have a wireless mouse with no ‘tail’ to grab, whenever I reach out for it Rusty uses his nose to push my hand away from ‘his’ mouse.

NEWSPEAK: An A-to-Z guide to political correctness. PowerLine suggests annual updates, but I suspect that will not be often enough.

A THOUGHT ON OBAMACARE:

I'm a 54 year old consulting engineer and make between $60,000 and $125,000 per year, depending on how hard I work and whether or not there are work projects out there for me.

My girlfriend is 61 and makes about $18,000 per year, working as a part-time mail clerk.

For me, making $60,000 a year, under ObamaCare, the cheapest, lowest grade policy I can buy, which also happens to impose a $5,000 deductible, costs $482 per month.

For my girlfriend, the same exact policy, same deductible, costs $1 per month. That's right, $1 per month. I'm not making this up.

Don't believe me? Just go to www.coveredca.gov , the ObamaCare website for California and enter the parameters I've mentioned above and see for yourself. By the way, my zip code is 93940. You'll need to enter that.

So OK, clearly ObamaCare is a scheme that involves putting the cost burden of healthcare onto the middle and upper-income wage earners. But there's a lot more to it. Stick with me.

And before I make my next points, I'd like you to think about something:

I live in Monterey County, in Central California. We have a large land mass but just 426,000 residents - about the population of Colorado Springs or the city of Omaha.

But we do have a large Hispanic population, including a large number of illegal aliens, and to serve this group we have Natividad Medical Center, a massive, Federally subsidized county medical complex that takes up an area about one-third the size of the Chrysler Corporation automobile assembly plant in Belvedere, Illinois (see Google Earth View). Natividad has state-of-the-art operating rooms, Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging, fully equipped, 24 hour emergency room, and much more. If you have no insurance, if you've been in a drive-by shooting or have overdosed on crack cocaine, this is where you go. And it's essentially free, because almost everyone who ends up in the ER is uninsured.

Last year, 2,735 babies were born at Natividad. 32% of these were born to out-of-wedlock teenage mothers, 93% of which were Hispanic. Less than 20% could demonstrate proof of citizenship, and 71% listed their native language as Spanish. Of these 876 births, only 40 were covered under [any kind of] private health insurance. The taxpayers paid for the other 836. And in case you were wondering about the entire population - all 2,735 births - less than 24% involved insured coverage or even partial payment on behalf of the patient to the hospital in exchange for services. Keep this in mind as we move forward.

Now consider this:

If I want to upgrade my policy to a low-deductible premium policy, such as what I had with my last employer, my cost is $886 per month. But my girlfriend can upgrade her policy to the very same level, for just $4 per month. That's right, $4 per month. $48 per year for a zero-deductible, premium healthcare policy - the kind of thing you get when you work at IBM (except of course, IBM employees pay an average of $170 per month out of pocket for their coverage).

I mean, it's bad enough that I will be forced to subsidize the ObamaCare scheme in the first place. But even if I agreed with the basic scheme, which of course I do not, I wouldnever agree to subsidize premium policies. If I have to pay $482 a month for a budget policy, I sure as hell do not want the guy I'm subsidizing to get a better policy, for less that 1% of what I have to fork out each month for a low-end policy.

Why must I pay $482 per month for something the other guy gets for a dollar? And why should the other guy get to buy an $886 policy for $4 a month? Think about this: I have to pay $10,632 a year for the same thing that the other guy can get for $48. $10,000 of net income is 60 days of full time work as an engineer. $48 is something I could could pay for collecting aluminum cans and plastic bottles, one day a month.

Are you with me on this? Are you starting to get an idea what ObamaCare is really about?

ObamaCare is not about dealing with inequities in the healthcare system. That's just the cover story. The real story is that it is a massive, political power grab. Do you think anyone who can insure himself with a premium policy for $4 a month will vote for anyone but the political party that provides him such a deal? ObamaCare is about enabling, subsizdizing, and expanding the Left's political power base, at taxpayer expense. Why would I vote for anyone but a Democrat if I can have babies for $4 a month? For that matter, why would I go to college or strive for a better job or income if it means I have to pay real money for healthcare coverage? Heck, why study engineering when I can be a schlub for $20K per year and buy a new F-150 with all the money I'm saving?

And think about those $4-a-month babies - think in terms of propagation models. Think of just how many babies will be born to irresponsible, under-educated mothers. Will we get a new crop of brain surgeons and particle physicists from the dollar baby club, or will we need more cops, criminal courts and prisons? One thing you can be certain of: At $4 a month, they'll multiply, and multiply, and multiply.

ObamaCare: It's all about political power.

From my email.