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Monthly Archives: October 2013
Happy Halloween
Obamacare too costly for rich Coloradans, Democrat congressman says
By Tori Richards | Watchdog.org
One of President Obama’s most ardent liberal supporters has defected from Obamacare.
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, told a Colorado health policy think tank that Obamacare premiums will be too expensive for some of the wealthiest addresses in America – ski resorts like Breckenridge and Keystone. He says he’s asking the feds to let them sit out the president’s national health system.
“We will be encouraging a waiver,” Polis told Health Policy Solutions in a story that ran today. “It will be difficult for Summit County residents to become insured. For the vast majority, it’s too high a price to pay.”
The resorts are in Summit County and Aspen is in a neighboring county, which Polis also represents. He has consistently voted in favor of Obamacare.
Read more at Colorado Watchdog.org
Seattle uses eminent domain to purchase a parking lot to turn it into a parking lot.
City tells 103-year-old: We’re buying your parking lot, like it or not
SEATTLE — The city is forcing a 103-year-old Spokane woman to sell her parking lot in Seattle to make way for, well, a parking lot.
The Seattle City Council voted Monday to take the lot near the waterfront by eminent domain, using a portion of the $30 million provided by the state to take care of parking issues around the waterfront. Hundreds of public parking spaces will be lost when the state begins dismantling the Alaskan Way Viaduct for the digging of the tunnel. The construction will last until 2020.
The lot is owned by Spokane resident Myrtle Woldson. She doesn’t want to sell, so the City Council voted unanimously to use it’s power of eminent domain to take it after paying Woldson “fair market value.”
Read more and see video at Q13 Fox News
Veteran Gets Last Word After Flag Destroyed
According to one Texas veteran, a gang of delinquent youths have repeatedly targeted the U.S. flag he proudly displays on his property. After recently discovering the third destroyed flag outside his home, Larry Lorance decided to install a security camera to catch the vandals in the act.
He was successful in capturing three individuals stalking his property during the night, damaging the Stars and Stripes in the process.
“Not only did they tear it down,” he said; one of the trespassers “stomped up and down on the flag.”
The Plano resident recalled wondering, “Where are the parents?”
Read more at Center for Western Journalism
Boy Scout Troop Rescued from West Fork
Flagstaff—Coconino County Sheriff’s Deputies and Search and Rescue Volunteers assisted a group of eight Boy Scouts and three adult leaders out of the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon after one of their leaders sustained a leg injury.
On Saturday, October 19, 2013 at about 11:00 pm the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office received a call from an adult male approximately thirty years of age who identified himself as one of three adult leaders who had taken a troop of Boy Scouts ranging in age from eight to twelve years on a hike through the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. According to the caller approximately three miles into their hike the group encountered an unexpected large body of water that ceased their forward progress.
According to the caller the group was not equipped or prepared to wade through the water that at its highest point was chest high on some of the boys. During this same time period the other male leader who was seventy-one years of age injured his leg to the point that he found hiking or walking to be painful. The reporting party hiked out to the West Fork Trail Head off of Woody Mountain Road which was the point where the group began their hike to call for help. He was able to obtain cellular telephone service and called the Sheriff’s Office for help and subsequently hiked back to the location where he left the rest of his group.
Sheriff’s Deputies and Search and Rescue Volunteers hiked to the group’s location. Some of the rescuers immediately escorted the boy scouts and a thirty year old female leader back to Woody Mountain Road. A group of Search and Rescue Volunteers remained with the injured leader and administered wilderness first aid preparing him to hike back to the starting point. The rescuers and the injured leader reached Woody Mountain Road on Sunday, October 20, 2013 at about 7:20 a.m. A crew from Guardian Medical Transport met the victim as he arrived and conducted an initial medical assessment. The injured person refused additional medical care and declined transportation to the medical center. The Boy Scouts and their leaders returned to the Phoenix area where they live.
Williams Rotary Club Harvest Auction drawing near.
WILLIAMS—The Williams Rotary club is currently selling tickets for the drawing to be held during their Harvest Auction event on November 2. The auction will be held at Miss Kitty’s Steakhouse at the Mountainside Inn at 642 Route 66 in Williams on the east end of town.
The auction starts at 5 pm with musical entertainment followed by a catered dinner, the auction and a costume contest. Tickets for the auction are $35 per person. The evening will finish with a drawing for cash prizes.
The tickets for the drawing are $20 each and only 1000 are to be sold. While the ticket for the top prize of $5000 has been sold to this author, there are still prizes for $3000, $1000 and ten prizes of $100. The rules for the raffle can be found at the Williams Rotary Club web site. Tickets can be obtained through a Rotary Member.
The Williams Rotary Club meets Thursdays at 12 p.m. at Doc Holliday’s Steakhouse & Saloon at 950 North Grand Canyon Boulevard in Williams. For more information contact Brian Prager at 928-607-4661.
On Labor Day 2013, Welfare Pays More Than Minimum-Wage Work In 35 States
Avik Roy
Since 2009, the Fair Labor Standards Act has dictated that the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Some people think that’s too low; others think it’s too high. But it turns out that, in 35 states, it’s a better deal not to work—and instead, to take advantage of federal welfare programs—than to take a minimum-wage job. That’s the takeaway from a new study published by Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes of the Cato Institute.
“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” Tanner and Hughes write in their new paper. “Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” which offers extra subsidies to low-income workers who take work. “In 13 states [welfare] pays more than $15 per hour.”
Read more at Forbes
Don’t Believe The Debt Ceiling Hype:
The Federal Government Can Survive Without An Increase
Jeffrey Dorfman, Forbes
Ignore what you hear and read in the news. The federal government actually reached the legal debt ceiling about four months ago. Since then, the government has been financing its monthly budget deficit by stealing/borrowing money from other government funds, like the federal government employees’ pension fund. In about two weeks, the government will run out of tricks to keep operating as if nothing has happened. If the debt ceiling is not raised by then, the government has to balance its budget.
That’s right. As much as the politicians and news media have tried to convince you that the world will end without a debt ceiling increase, it is simply not true. The federal debt ceiling sets a legal limit for how much money the federal government can borrow. In other words, it places an upper limit on the national debt. It is like the credit limit on the government’s gold card.
Read more at Forbes
Army Ranger believed to be unconscious salutes during Purple Heart ceremony
Army Ranger Josh Hargis was unconscious, hooked to a breathing tube at a military hospital in Afghanistan after losing both his legs in battle last week.
But when the Purple Heart ceremony began at Hargis’ bedside, it turned out he was not unconscious, as doctors believed. Instead, he struggled with an attending doctor to raise his heavily bandaged hand to salute a commanding officer presenting him with the medal.
“I cannot impart on you the level of emotion that poured through the intensive care unit that day,” the commander wrote to the Ranger’s wife. “Grown men began to weep, and we were speechless at a gesture that speaks volumes about Josh’s courage and character.”
Read more at FOX News