11.20.13

Black kid gets caught with crack, he is going to Rikers Island. If you are a Republican congressman like Florida's Trey Radel, you get a year's probation. What makes it doubly sweet is that this is one of the guys that wants to drug test welfare recipients. Typical GOP hypocrite.

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Obama may be a decent orator but he definitely stinks as a manager. Horrible with relationships, even with his own party, he apparently never asked the most important question regarding the ACA rollout, "Will this thing work?" I thought that his statement last week was so weak, "I wanted to fix health site myself but I don't write code." Talk about passing the buck. Word is that there were only 10 programmers trying to write the entire system which is simply ludicrous considering the size and scope.

It is a shame because the goal of insuring the many uninsured people in this country is a good one. But now it gets lost in the miasma of technical difficulties. Gives the people who hated the concept something else to harp about and there is definitely plenty here to criticize.

My own plan is going to cost me an additional 26% next year. I meet my health advisor tomorrow. My coverage will be much less broad on the exchange, with a higher deductible. Obama's pronouncements that people would be able to keep their existing health plans will be remembered for a long time, further damaging his already suspect credibility.

Of course Republicans, champions of repeal and replace, really have nothing to replace it with. The cost of funding high risk pools would be as expensive and unachievable as their prospects for coming up with a realistic immigration plan. Don't hold your breath waiting for either to happen.

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The Canton, Ohio Walmart's food drive to help poverty stricken employees is certainly interesting. Kind of reminds me of the McDonalds directive a few weeks past instructing their employees how to get food stamps. Or maybe sell their christmas presents. Perhaps if they paid their employees a sufficient livable wage...

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I had a conversation with the guys at coffee a few weeks ago that stuck. Sometime back the government was giving away surplus cheese to the poor and indigent. A guy pulled up in his cadillac and said that he paid ample taxes and had earned that cheese four times over, driving away with the jack. The crux of their argument was that he deserved it more than some poor schmuck. And I guess that is the dividing line, would you give the cheese to somebody that was actually hungry or some guy that said that he had earned it?

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