117 responses to “Sandbox – 3mar17”

1. 

   BradC

   07 March 2017

   But, if you are rich, you’re cool,
   Higher-income Americans could pay fewer taxes, get more tax benefits. The legislation would eliminate two taxes that Obamacare levied on the wealthy to help pay for the law. Nearly everyone in the Top 1%, who earn more than $774,000 a year, would enjoy a hefty tax cut, averaging $33,000, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Those in the Top 0.1% would get an average tax cut of about $197,000.
   And the bill would allow folks to contribute more to Health Savings Accounts, which are primarily used by better-off Americans who can afford to sock money away for health care expenses.
   Also, the Republicans would enable people higher on the income scale to claim the tax credit to help pay their premiums. Under Obamacare, an enrollee who makes more than $47,500 is no longer eligible for a subsidy. The GOP plan would let a policyholder making up to $75,000 claim the full tax credit. The benefit would phase out slowly until the enrollee hits $215,000 in income.
   http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/06/news/economy/republicans-obamacare-repeal-replacement-bill/

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2. 

   fish

   07 March 2017

   Posted by: BradC | 07 March 2017 at 07:07 AM
   Indeed…..we should stick with ODummy Care (which is really Pelosi Care….Barry really should have more careful who he let do his homework for him) which will be dead in about 15 months anyway.
   Maybe then they can work on extracting most of the no benefit added government influence and make medical care affordable again.
   The Republican Party….snatching defeat from the jaws of victory almost every single day.

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3. 

   Russ

   07 March 2017

   Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed
   Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
   The first full part of the series, “Year Zero”, comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virgina. It follows an introductory disclosure last month of CIA targeting French political parties and candidates in the lead up to the 2012 presidential election.
   Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized “zero day” exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive.
   “Year Zero” introduces the scope and direction of the CIA’s global covert hacking program, its malware arsenal and dozens of “zero day” weaponized exploits against a wide range of U.S. and European company products, include Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows and even Samsung TVs, which are turned into covert microphones.
   Since 2001 the CIA has gained political and budgetary preeminence over the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA found itself building not just its now infamous drone fleet, but a very different type of covert, globe-spanning force — its own substantial fleet of hackers. The agency’s hacking division freed it from having to disclose its often controversial operations to the NSA (its primary bureaucratic rival) in order to draw on the NSA’s hacking capacities.
   https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

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4. 

   fish

   07 March 2017

   Yeah…..stupid shit like this!
   

   The handicappers general in the Department of Justice strike again: the University of California, Berkeley, is deleting a massive amount of free, online content in order to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
   Berkeley previously housed an online library consisting of more than 200,000 videos of lectures. These videos were free and accessible to the public. But they are free no longer: next week, administrators will withdraw access to anyone who isn’t a Berkeley student or professor.
   Why? Because the federal government left them no other choice.
   Two employees of Gallaudet University—a school for the deaf in Washington, D.C.—filed a complaint with DOJ alleging that Berkeley’s online content was inaccessible to the hearing-disabled community. After looking into the matter, DOJ determined that Berkeley had indeed violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to Inside Higher Ed.
   Berkeley had two choices: spend a fortune adding closed captioning to the videos, or remove them from public view. Cost-conscious administrators chose the latter option.

   Yeah….lets make sure Uncle Stupid gets to “help” us with other things too!~
   http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/07/berkeley-deletes-200000-free-online-vide

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5. 

   Bill Tozer

   07 March 2017

   Have a good one.
   https://www.facebook.com/UncleSamsMisguidedChildren.Net/photos/a.169953786533962.1073741830.169676909894983/644734039055932/?type=3&theater

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6. 

   Todd Juvinall

   07 March 2017

   Page A10 in today’s Union has a article from the AP that is a prime example of why AP is distrusted. They write a article making it look like the pro trump people are the perps in Berkeley while it was the anti. I sent a letter to Hamilton asking “why” is that.

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7. 

   George Rebane

   07 March 2017

   BradC 707am – My goodness, are we still selling Ocare as giving us something for nothing? Even stipulating that the hipshot analysis is in the ballpark, Ocare premiums have been rising at levels higher than you quote, and the entire system is collapsing (which the Left denies as insurance companies exit ACA). Somewhere along the line we will have to pay the actual cost of the healthcare we ourselves decide that we need. The only real contribution the govt can make is to simplify the rules, regs, procedures, red tape, fees, … that it imposes on the industry, supposedly for our ‘safety’. And what we have under Ocare is a more expensive healthcare system that continues to ‘accidentally’ kill us at over 120,000 patients per annum. Perhaps you should look for another free lunch somewhere.

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8. 

   Don Bessee

   07 March 2017

   A female war correspondent named Magda Gad is in Iraq reporting on the war against isis. She reports that a woman is safer at night in war torn Mosul than in Sweden. Now that’s saying something! 😉

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9. 

   Walt

   07 March 2017

   Another reason the EPA needs to go.
   http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/07/delingpole-the-epas-air-pollution-scare-is-just-another-fake-news-myth/

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10. 

    BradC

    07 March 2017

    Posted by: George Rebane | 07 March 2017 at 10:10 AM –
    ” Somewhere along the line we will have to pay the actual cost of the healthcare we ourselves decide that we need.” Makes sense, and that is exactly what is/was happening with Obamacare – premiums were rising in order to ‘pay the actual cost of the healthcare’.
    “Ocare premiums have been rising at levels higher than you quote” – in some areas this might be true. Could be solved with tweaks to Obamacare.
    But it sounds like you are cool with just raising the premiums even more as long as it is not called Ocare.
    Even GOPers have issues with the plan, since no one knows how much the entitlements will cost the government.
    “Ocare… continues to ‘accidentally’ kill us at over 120,000 patients per annum” – link to statistic please.
    Trumpercare is not a reinvention of national healthcare – same thing could be done with tweaks to Ocare, hence the new name for Trump’s plan is Obamacare Lite.
    By now we know that having things named after Trump is oh so important to him so I am helping him out and will henceforth refer to it as Trumpercare – even though the Trumpers who voted for him risk ending up with less affordable health care.
    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/31/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-health-care-law-has-led-50000-/

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11. 

    George Rebane

    07 March 2017

    BradC 1158am – the medical accidents deathrate is not unique to Ocare, it was there before 2010. I’m surprised you are unaware of that horrible statistic that requires caring relatives to literally park themselves bedside when a loved one is in the hospital for the simple reason of catching medical mistakes. Where have you been? Google ‘medical mistakes death rate’ and get a snootful.
    https://www.propublica.org/article/how-many-die-from-medical-mistakes-in-us-hospitals
    But the bottom line is that Ocare made delivery of healthcare more expensive, uncertain, and unavailable. As a government program it did nothing to simplify/improve the industry so that economies of process, scale, and technologies could be brought to bear. All it is/was is a wealth transfer and govt growth/jobs program imposed on an already unnecessarily inefficient system to buy the votes of the gullible, poor, and indigent.

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12. 

    Todd Juvinall

    07 March 2017

    Well the Republicans and President Trump are doing what they said they would do. ObamaCare is on its way to the dustbin of history. A major democrat-only mistake that wrecked the country. I am so hopeful the mandates on each and every American will be lifted. No more 30 hour work week maximum. People can get full time jobs again. No more penalties on young people who are just trying to get by. This is the first in a three part change for the better. More competition and less government regulations. And we can fire the 10,000 IRS agents hired to implement ObamaCare. Thanks to Trump and the Republicans for bringing common sense back to our out-of-control government. Let’s go!

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13. 

    Walt

    07 March 2017

    Note to Brad. Before, I had decent health care coverage I could afford. AFTER LIBS got control, and Ca. got into the picture, I was mandated to give up what I had, and was dumped into the VA system. I get repaired, but the cure can be worse than the ailment. I’m lucky they even put me under for a surgery. When I woke up screaming in pain, they handed me a fist full of Tylenol-3 and sent me home. I should have been kept in the hospital with decent pain management. But NOPE…
    I’m due to go back for another “fix”. Again. NO anesthetic for this one either.
    A needle in the spine this time. OH JOY…. Strip naked, lay face down on the table in a butt cold room, and wait for the sharp pain to hit.
    The same procedure ay my previous Dr., I wouldn’t feel a thing.
    I know, I Know… “What ya’ bitching about? You got it for free.”
    I would gladly pay to avoid the inflicted pain…So how bout you?

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14. 

    Russ

    08 March 2017

    Trending!
    Trump’s first full month in office brings massive employment boom as U.S. companies added whopping 298,000 new jobs in February
    New job figures from ADP beat economists’ estimates by more than 100,000
    Official February numbers will be out on Friday and are expected to lower the unemployment rate to 4.7 per cent
    Trump tweeted that January and February ‘were the strongest consecutive months for hiring since August and September 2015’
    That language came from a similar report compiled by LinkedIn
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4293622/Trump-s-month-brings-massive-employment-boom.html
    Why do we get more important news from the UK Press, than the US Press?

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15. 

    Russ

    08 March 2017

    How the Obama DOJ Killed an Open Education Effort at Berkeley.
    The University of California, Berkeley, will cut off public access to tens of thousands of video lectures and podcasts in response to a U.S. Justice Department order that it make the educational content accessible to people with disabilities.
    Today, the content is available to the public on YouTube, iTunes U and the university’s webcast.berkeley site. On March 15, the university will begin removing the more than 20,000 audio and video files from those platforms — a process that will take three to five months — and require users sign in with University of California credentials to view or listen to them.
    http://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/03/07/how-the-obama-doj-killed-an-open-education-effort-at-berkeley/
    Berkeley today then the rest of the University MOOC Courses tomorrow.
    This is just protecting the higher education industry in general — a major source of money and footsoldiers for the Democrats — from low-cost competition.
    I was looking for a Python Users Group on Sacramento Area Facebook and discovered that there is a local Facebook Meet Up Page for students of all ages taking MOOC courses. They hold regular meet ups to discuss problems and issues, sharing MOOC education insights. This provides one of the missing aspects of a MOOC education, social interaction with other students.

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16. 

    George Rebane

    08 March 2017

    UC Berkeley cutting the most cost effective part of its education delivery alternatives should not be a surprise to anyone. Their administrators lead the nation in butt-stupid progressive policies, and their brain-trust now thinks it can kill two birds with this pout – deny low-cost benefits to those in greatest need, hoping they will militate against the feds, and drive more of those who can to pay the full ticket for on-campus enrollment. They will fail on both counts as other non- and for-profit schools gladly take up the slack. This luddite response will demonstrate to more people how well they can cope without the help of UCB.

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17. 

    fish

    08 March 2017

    Is it any wonder why Obamacare….and most major newspapers are dying?
    

    Trumpcare: Euthanasia to cure a cold

    http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article137080908.html

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