Open thread for Sunday, October 19th: Bigmouth Strikes Again
Here is the open thread for Sunday, October 19th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we covered another 14 stories here at America’s Watchtower. We had lengthy discussions on several posts this week and between blogging, work, and real life I was not able to participate in as much of the discussion as I would have liked to, which is why I simply “liked” several comments I usually would have responded to.
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The Smiths have been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so I have decided to use them for the musical selection of the week, however there are so many great songs by this band that I had trouble deciding which one to post.
In the end I decided to post the song which introduced me to The Smiths. Much like the opening guitar riff to Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in the ’90’s introduced me to that band, the opening guitar riff of ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ introduced me to The Smiths several years earlier.
Enjoy:
Obamacare: Some healthcare exchange enrollees don’t want to use insurance because the deductibles are too high
If we believe the numbers roughly 7-8 millions of people have used the Obamacare exchanges to sign up for healthcare plans. Many of these people had the costs of their plans reduced because they were elegible for government subsidies. (At least right now, the Federal exchange is being challenged in the courts and others may lose their subsides for not estimating their income correctly.)
There was another way that insurance companies used to bring down the price of premiums and that was to increase out of pocket expenses, deductibles, before insurance companies would start paying for some services. In some cases it can be thousands of dollars and according to One Sure Insurance many people are not using their healthcare plans because they cannot afford to pay up to the deductible level.
Barack Obama secretly plans to let foreign Ebola patients into the United States for treatment
The calls for a travel ban into Ebola stricken nations is growing all across the United States but Barack Obama refuses to take this measure because, he claims, this would actually make Americans less safe.
However, according to this report, Barack Obama is secretly preparing to fly foreign Ebola stricken individuals into the United States for treatment.
Here is more:
Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Fear of Ebola
Here is the latest Afterburner video by Bill Whittle entitled ‘Fear of Ebola.’ In this video he has a very interesting take on why Americans should not fear a serious outbreak of the disease in the country while also explaining what we should fear.
I think you guys are going to like this one. Enjoy:
Ebola Czar was involved in Solyndra scandal
Barack Obama has appointed Ron Klain, a man according to CNN who has no medical experience, as his new Ebola Czar. While Mr. Klain has no experience in the medical field he is a Democratic insider with plenty of experience within the government.
In fact he was a “key player” in the Solyndra scandal. He downplayed the risk that was involved in loaning money to Solyndra.
Here is more:
Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Play the Hand
It looks like am a little late with this but here is the latest Afterburner video from Bill Whittle entitled ‘Play the Hand.’ This one is about our wounded warriors and their heroism. Enjoy:
What did the NIH budget prioritize over Ebola research?
The head of the NIH, Francis Collins, tried to blame budget cuts for the fact the Federal government is ill-prepared for a possible outbreak of Ebola in America. (By this they mean Republican budget cuts.)
“NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It’s not like we suddenly woke up and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'” he said. “Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.”
However there is one problem with this excuse and it is the fact that the CDC actually got an 8% budget increase in 2014, which was more than even Barack Obama was asking for. (Oh, and one more thing; the one part of the budget which was cut came at the request of Barack Obama.)
Here is more:
Can you catch Ebola from sitting next to someone on a bus or can’t you? The CDC gives conflicting messages
That seems like an easy question to answer but we have heard conflicting opinions on this. The CDC has not exactly covered themselves in glory while trying to deal with Ebola.
Here is the latest baffling statement made by CDC director Tom Frieden:
“I think there are two different parts of that equation,” he continued. “The first is, if you’re a member of the traveling public and are healthy, should you be worried that you might have gotten it by sitting next to someone? And the answer is no.”
“Second, if you are sick and you may have Ebola, should you get on a bus? And the answer to that is also no. You might become ill, you might have a problem that exposes someone around you,” he said.
So, according to this statement; if you are healthy you should not be concerned with catching Ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus, but if you might have Ebola you should not ride the bus because you could expose someone to the disease.
So which is it and what are we not being told?
The New York Times is reporting the United States found 5,000 chemical weapons in Iraq
According to this story in the New York Times today soldiers fighting in Iraq found 5,000 chemical weapons and this has been kept hidden from the American people.
Here is more:
It was August 2008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells.
Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before.
He lifted a shell. Oily paste oozed from a crack. “That doesn’t look like pond water,” said his team leader, Staff Sgt. Eric J. Duling.
The specialist swabbed the shell with chemical detection paper. It turned red — indicating sulfur mustard, the chemical warfare agent designed to burn a victim’s airway, skin and eyes.
In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
This, as we all remember, was the justification for going to war in Iraq and yet this information was hidden by both the Bush and Obama regimes. Why is that? Well, we know why the Obama regime would not want this information to be made public, but what about the Bush regime? Why would they not release this information to prove the President was right? It makes no sense to me whatsoever…
Latest New Hampshire poll (10/14/14) shows Scott Brown with a one point lead over Jeanne Shaheen
The latest New Hampshire poll is out and it shows Scott Brown leading Jeanne Shaheen by one point. Here is more:
For the third straight week, New England College’s poll of the U.S. Senate race shows a race too close to call – but for the first time, Republican Scott Brown leads Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, if only by just more than a single percentage point.
Brown’s 48 to 46.9 percent lead was the top talking point of the poll released Tuesday evening
Late last month a poll was released which showed Scott Brown ahead of Jeanne Shaheen by four points, however that poll was done by a Republican polling firm so it might have been a bit skewed.
This looks to be an interesting few weeks heading into next month’s election and right now it looks as if all the races in New Hampshire are trending toward the Republicans. Marilinda Garcia is closing the gap on Anne Kuster, as is Walt Havenstein in the governor’s race, and Frank Guinta has pulled ahead of Carol Shea-Porter.
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