Tag Archives: New Year’s Day

Disturbing

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On Wednesday, Breitbart reported that the driver of the truck that drove into the crowd in New Orleans was a U.S. Citizen and an Army veteran who carried an ISIS flag in his truck.

The article reports:

The suspect accused of plowing a pickup truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 15 and injuring at least 30 on New Year’s Day, is named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The article includes a statement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI):

The subject has been identified as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was driving a Ford pickup truck, which appears to have been rented, and we are working to confirm how the subject came into possession of the vehicle.

An ISIS flag was located in the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject’s potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations.

Weapons and a potential IED were located in the subject’s vehicle. Other potential IEDs were also located in the French Quarter. The FBI’s special agent bomb technicians are working with our law enforcement partners to determine if any of these devices are viable, and they will work to render those devices safe.

At what point (and how) was this person radicalized? It is disturbing to me that the man was an Army veteran. Was he a radical who joined the army without revealing his views or was he radicalized during or after his service? I think it would be helpful to know that.

I Wish Someone Had Read The Bill Before They Passed It

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There is new bad news coming out about ObamaCare every day. The President has unilaterally changed the law so many times it seems as if he is making it up as he goes along (maybe he is), and now there is a new twist for senior citizens.

On December 12, the Washington Examiner reported that beginning January 1, there will be major cuts to programs in Medicare and Medicaid that help senior citizens.

The article reports:

An estimated 3.5 million poor and ill homebound senior citizens will wake up on New Year’s Day to discover Obamacare has slashed funding for their home health care program.

It will happen because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quietly issued a regulation Nov. 22 announcing a 14-percent cut over the next four years in funding for the Home Health Care Prospective Payment program.

The rule cuts Medicare payments to home health care providers by 3.5 percent each year beginning in 2014, for a total cut of 14 percent.

…Nearly a half million skilled home care workers are also projected to lose their jobs over the next four years due to the cuts, according to the program’s supporters.

The cuts may also have a disproportionate impact on minorities and those living in underserved rural communities.

A November 2013 study by Avalere Health, a Washington, D.C., health care business analysis firm, found that two out of three home health care recipients fall at or below the federal poverty line.

The study also estimated that one in four seniors getting home health care are age 85 or older.

Federal officials had discretion to keep Medicare home payments at the same level or impose a maximum 3.5 percent cut each year through 2017 to reach the 14-percent reduction.

But CMS opted to impose the maximum reduction, beginning on New Year’s Day 2014.

The cuts that are being made to Medicare are being made to fund ObamaCare. In other words, ObamaCare takes money from the care of the elderly and uses that money to fund a government takeover of the health insurance agency.

The article reports some push-back from Congress on the issue:

Fifty-one senators appealed in a September letter to Tavenner to reject the proposed cuts to home health care agencies, saying enactment “would raise serious concerns about access to care for vulnerable seniors.”

There were 35 Democratic signers of the letter to Tavenner, 15 Republicans and one independent.

Also in September, 142 members of the House of Representatives wrote Tavenner that “home health is a critical service that allows patients to be treated in a cost effective manner in the environment they prefer — their home.”

Sixty-six House Democrats joined 76 House Republicans in signing that letter.

As January 1 rapidly approaches, the promises made about ObamaCare are becoming nightmares for the American public.

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The January 2013 Surprise

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article on the fiscal fiasco that is waiting for America on January 1, 2013.

The article reminds us what is coming:

‘The way to deal with sequestration is put revenues on the table.” That is third-ranking Senate Democrat Charles Schumer of New York’s coded way of telling congressional Republicans that if you want to prevent the budgetary devastation of the U.S. military, you’ll have to break your promises to voters and agree to major tax hikes.

After the presidential and congressional elections this November, a lame-duck Congress will address an impending fiscal calamity.

The first thing you have to remember here is that in the mind of the average Democrat, Washington will NEVER have enough money to spend!

So what happens between election day and January 2013? First of all, you have a lame duck Congress. If the Democrats lose the Senate, they will do everything they can to make sure everyone pays highers taxes.

Even if the Democrats don’t get away with raising taxes, this is what happens on January 1st:

Heritage Foundation senior fellow and former Treasury Department tax economist J.D. Foster recently warned that on New Year’s Day, “some $494 billion in tax hikes will crash down on America’s taxpayers and economy” — not just the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that gave us a boom and cut unemployment to under 5%, but “a jump in the payroll tax rate,” “the return of the death tax,” ” a bigger, badder” Alternative Minimum Tax, and the tax hikes for ObamaCare.

The ObamaCare 3.8% surcharge goes into effect in 2013, “not just on wage and salary income, but all income, thus breaking the historical link between Medicare and labor earnings,” Foster recently noted.

If we are to avoid fiscal catastrophe in the coming year, we need to make sure the Republicans control both the House and the Senate after the November election. That way as soon as Congress is sworn in in January, they can quickly deal with any mischief done in the lame-duck session.

Intentionally or otherwise, the Democrat party is in the process of taking a wrecking ball to the economic well-being of our country. They need to be stopped.

 

 

 

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