“Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted,” the bill states.”
– Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Mo Brooks / Scribed.
The beauty of the thing is that it is simple, effective, and out in the open (unlike Ryan’s Whack-a-Bill failure). Thus, the beauty guarantees the GOP will never pass it.
The war on women marches on… Last year, a dolt in Rhode Island was critical of women in yoga pants. I covered the issue in tight, form-hugging fashion.
A United Airlines gate agent barred two girls from boarding a flight Sunday morning because the girls were wearing leggings.
Another girl who was wearing gray leggings had to change before she was allowed to board the flight from Denver to Minneapolis, a witness said.
“She’s forcing them to change or put dresses on over leggings or they can’t board,” Shannon Watts, who was at a gate at Denver International Airport, said on Twitter. “Since when does @united police women’s clothing?”
United, responding to tweets about the incident tweeted that “United shall have the right to refuse passengers who are not properly clothed via our Contract of Carriage.” And added, ” This is left to the discretion of the agents.”
The airline’s passenger contract says for the safety of all passengers and crew members, the airline can refuse to let a passenger on board if the passengers is “barefoot or not properly clothed.”
Honestly, proper clothing has gone as out of style in America as have proper tastes, proper etiquette, and proper weights and proportions. A typically American “thought” emerged at the end of the AJC article: “I think this policy is arbitrary and sexist. It singles out women for their clothing and sexualizes little girls.”
And, that is the question! Were these “little” girls? We don’t know. No information and no pictures or videos. If they were both petite and attractive, then they would have been the perfect seatmates on any flight. Aisle seat, window seat, and middle of the yoga pants sandwich seat. If they’re hot, and this is my own personal judgment, then let them fly by the seat of their yoga pants.
It’s the “girls” and their mothers who sexualize themselves – with the pants. Gurl power. The airlines merely try to impose a few standards. I have no standards. That is, unless the yoga pants are fitted onto something the size of a hippopotamus. That great fear is what keeps me off commercial flights.
My rules for yoga pants: If you’re 22, toned, and hot, then you go girl! If you’re not 22, toned, and hot, then you go girl – go and change.
I did find a picture approximating what may have happened:
Mercer, the world’s largest human resources consulting company, has recently published its 19th annual rankings, naming the world’s best and the worst cities to live in.
For the eighth year in a row, Vienna took the top spot on Mercer’s chart of 230 cities. In fact, most of the best cities on the list can be found in Western Europe — namely Switzerland and Germany. Baghdad was named as the worst place for quality of living, being put at the very bottom of the list. One of the largest cities of the Middle East with a population of nine million people, Baghdad is the least safe city in the world with its constant terrorist attacks and high levels of kidnapping and banditry.
This year, infrastructure was ranked separately. According to Mercer, “city infrastructure plays an important role when multinationals decide where to establish locations abroad and send expatriate workers. Easy access to transportation, reliable electricity, and drinkable water are all important considerations when determining hardship allowances based on differences between a given assignee’s home and host locations.”
Other essential factors include: consumer goods, economic environment, housing, medical and health considerations, natural environment, political and social environment, public services and transport, recreation, education and socio-cultural environment.
Mercer / Sputnik.
I’m not big on the slide presentation but the juxtapositions are interesting. The top cities are all either European or Euro-centric. The worst are all African or Afro-centric. This, in part, explains the desperate immigration/invasion trends and the”refugees”. It also suggests the potential dangers of importing people from places they ruined into better places (that the can also ruin). There is no magic dirt. Additionally, this also subtly speaks against the general idea of equality. All people and all places, it turns out, may not be equal after all.
“Mixed” cities do not appear on the list at either end – looking at you, America. Food for thought. If one thinks…
Glenn Harlan Reynolds accurately details the incomprehensible Republican failure and stupidity last week in D.C.
The plan to replace Obamacare with a new bill crafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan has failed, and embarrassingly so. And that failure is part and parcel of a larger failure of the Republican-led Congress to push an agenda in the new administration.
Talking to a friend at lunch not long ago, he expressed his amazement that the House and Senate leadership didn’t have bills “lined up like airplanes on a runway” ready to take off in the new year. I was surprised, too.
It’s not like the need to do something about Obamacare was a surprise. Republicans have been promising to repeal it for most of a decade. And it’s not like Obamacare was popular or successful. Premiums are rising, providers are dropping out, and costs are going up. It’s true that the Obamacare bill, pushed through on a procedural technicality that avoided a filibuster but left it impossible to fix at the time, was a mess. It’s also true that the legislation was drafted, and the regulations implementing it were designed, in part to make it hard to undo.
Nonetheless, the Republican inability to deliver a bill that could get a majority in the GOP-led House is a colossal failure, and pretty much undercuts its entire reason for being. For years the congressional GOP leadership failed to deliver on promises to constituents, and offered the excuse that it couldn’t do anything without control of the White House. Well, they’ve got that, so what’s their excuse now? And where are the bills on infrastructure, on tax reform, on free speech?
The congressional GOP’s failure to deliver on its promises is one of the things that led to the election of President Trump. Now they’re still failing. What comes next?
If history has taught us anything about Republicans, then “what comes next” is more failure. The Atlanta Falcons of politics.
Last night I caught a few minutes of Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox – I could not turn away as she utterly skewered Paul Ryan:
Paul Ryan needs to step down as Speaker of the House.
The reason? He failed to deliver the votes on his health care bill. The one trumpeted to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The one that he had seven years to work on. The one he hid under lock and key in the basement of Congress. The one that had to be pulled to prevent the embarrassment of not having enough votes to pass.
But this bill didn’t just fail — it failed when Republicans had the House, the Senate, the White House.
And the timing? It failed within the first 70 days of President Donald Trump’s administration. A president who made replacement of ObamaCare the hallmark of his campaign. And then used valuable political capital to accomplish it.
Americans elected the one man they believed could do it. A complete outsider. Someone beholden to no one — but them.
And Speaker Ryan, you come in, with all your swagger and experience, and you sell him a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure. And you allow our president, in his first one hundred days, to come out of the box like that? Based on what? Your legislative expertise? Your knowledge of the arcane ins and outs of the bill writing process? Your relationships? What? Your drinks at the Hay-Adams with your pals?
Folks, I want to be clear: this is NOT on President Trump. No one expected a businessman to completely understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of Washington and its legislative process. How would he know which individuals upon whom he would be able to rely? Many of them, friends and establishment colleagues of Speaker Ryan.
You, on the other hand, Speaker Ryan, know very well who the 15 hard liners, the 10 moderates, and all the other ones.
Amen. No, this one is not on Trump. This one and this one alone. No more passes in the future. He’s a smart enough man to learn how the jellyfish sting. Whether he’s willing to use what he learns and whether that is enough remains to be seen.
The whole 61st (61st!!) failure to repeal ObamaCare boiled down to not getting conservative Republicans on board. Hell, as Pirro says, they were physically locked out of the process. How could anyone have expected their support? The Bill could have been passed with their help and without a single Democrat vote in favor. This is strictly a GOP problem.
Their “solution” is strict GOP stupidity. The conservatives in the “conservative” party were not consulted, then. Now, instead on trying to get them on board, the GOP and Trump are opening to the idea of bringing Democrats into the fold. I wonder what their suggestions might entail?
And the GOP is splintering. Blaming those fellow conservatives who were never invited to participate, Rep. Ted Poe is abandoning the House Freedom Caucus.
Ted Poe / Twitter.
Despite decades of jading, I had high hopes for Trump’s Presidency. I still do though that old shade of green is creeping back into my views. If he cannot marshal this band of derelicts and losers into a solid party, then there isn’t much faith in his (their?) agenda. If that happens, one can expect similar failures on: the debt ceiling (a given no matter what); tax cuts; immigration; etc.
The whole thing starts to look like the Contract with America. Remember that stellar GOP success? Neither do I.
It seems the London attacker, Khalid (the tan “Asian” knife salesman) Masood, may not have been a lone wolf after all. In fact, he may have been acting under specific orders from ISIS.
ISIS fanatics used the secretive messaging site Telegram to call for a “lone wolf” attack on Parliament just weeks before Khalid Masood struck.
A Sunday Mirror probe has uncovered chilling messages in which jihadi masterminds urged terrorists to mount atrocities in the UK.
They shared an image of an IS fighter dressed like executioner Jihadi John, wielding a sword in front of Big Ben.
The illustration – headlined Fight Them – showed a fireball and a tattered Union Flag flying from a pole.
And some social media outlets are being defensive about revealing terror activity on their networks. After all, the Jihadis need their privacy and all. This as Facebook and Twitter are in a virtual SJW war against normies everywhere.
This cat gets more “Asian” by the day. Telegraph.
The same idiots that double standard social media also run many governments, cities, and schools, in Europe and America. As they host secret messaging for terrorists, they also place adult “refugees” and known criminals in your child’s classroom. In London, some people were run down and stabbed; in Maryland a girl was raped. The SJWs can’t see what all the fuss is about. The diversity of it all…
We, the sane, need to take a hard look at that ISIS slogan: Fight Them. All of them and everywhere.
At first glance I assumed a member of Congress had left the reservation. Not so:
A 31-year-old man in Virginia was arrested and charged with wearing a mask in public Friday after he was spotted walking around dressed as the iconic comic book supervillain the Joker, police said.
Police in Winchester — located about 75 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. — said the Winchester Emergency Communications Center received “several calls” around 2 p.m. on Friday of a suspicious male wearing a black cape and carrying a sword walking around the city.
Jeremy Putman was charged with wearing a mask in public, a felony that could land him in jail for up to five years, the Winchester Police Department said in a statement.
Winchester, VA P.D.
Don’t they know the real super criminals are in D.C.? And how does painting your face warrant a five-year felony? No sense – this guy or the law. Ah, well. Why so serious?
A great man once said, “stupid is as stupid does”. Someone in France has a case of the stupids. A seeming terror attack in Lille, France turned out to be a mere, ordinary criminal misadventure.
Although anti-terrorist police were called to the scene, there were later reports the shooting was a ‘revenge attack’.
“A car pulled up outside the station and targeted the three youths,” said a police source.
“It appears this was a settling of scores.”
Police sources say a car pulled up outside the station and targeted the three youths.
The shooting was thought to be related to the drugs trade in Lille, and was carried out by ‘a hooded man’, said the police source.
None of the injuries are said to be life threatening.
A thug in a hoodie pulled a drive-by. Has Lille become Chicago?
I realize drugs or high school disputes over girls or whatever must be important. But don’t these fools know ISIS is moving in for a lock on mass violence? When the French suffer a terrorist attack, they want real terrorists. Mundane thuggery is so American. That’s why they imported so many angry, violent, third world primitives. They want professional mayhem.
This ain’t ISIS… HuffPo.
All those shots and no life threatening injuries. ISIS would have done ten times the damage, with deaths a-plenty, utilizing no more than a rented Citroen C-Crosser. Sad…
Well, at least no one will call for banning trucks or knives as a result of this episode.
The Republicans are the Atlanta Falcons of politics. Losers from Loserville. Early last month the real Falcons showed the sporting world how to blow a 25-point lead, insurmountable by practical standards, and lose a Super Bowl in spectacular, if typical, Atlanta fashion. Yesterday, not to be out-done, the GOP squandered control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, losing their bid to reform ObamaCare for something like the 60th time.
It’s worse really, and not just because millions actually depend on the outcome. Atlanta lost to the greatest team, coach, and quarterback in history – all striding through the second half like no team has before (or likely will after). Trump, Ryan, and Co. “lost” to a Democrat party with no clear leadership, no agenda, and no motives. Failure to internally think, plan, and communicate led the Speaker to pull the AHCA Bill just prior to a vote.
Republicans abruptly pulled their health care bill from the House floor on Friday, just minutes ahead of a planned vote, dealing a devastating blow to efforts by President Donald Trump and the GOP to repeal and replace Obamacare.
“This is a disappointing day for us,” Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters shortly after the bill was yanked. “Doing big things is hard. All of us, myself included, will need time to reflect how we got to this moment, what we could have done to do it better.”
Ryan said he told Trump around noon the White House that they didn’t have the Republican votes needed to pass the bill. “I told him that the best thing I think to do is to pull this bill and he agreed with that decision,” Ryan said.
Speaking via phone later at 3:00 p.m. EST, Trump said Democrats in the House — all of whom had planned to vote against the bill — shoulder the blame for the defeat. “Obamacare is exploding,” the president said in the Oval Office. “With no Democrat support, we couldn’t quite get there. We were just a very small number of votes short in terms of getting our bill passed.”
“I’m disappointed,” Trump said, adding, “I’m a little surprised to be honest with you.”
Welcome to Washington, Mr. Trump. The irresistible force has met the immovable object. Even the Donald’s charismatic juggernaut has limits.
A friend and I debated whether the circus clown might be a better symbol for the GOP than the noble elephant. I think I’ve found a better. The elephant is large, powerful, dangerous even. And it is a smart animal, as animals go. No relation to the GOP in the 21st Century. No, a better mascot would be the jellyfish: a brainless, spineless creature dedicating to drifting the currents and soaking up nutrients. As seemingly harmless as it is useless, it can still deliver a nasty sting to those foolish enough to associate with it. Trump feels the burning sting this weekend.
Carlos Slim’s Blog.
In fairness, the Repubs have been working on repealing, repealing and replacing, or amending ObamaCare for seven years. Only seven. It took the Democrats over 15 years to craft the law – from Bill and Hillary’s hints in 1992-3 to Obama’s collusion with Big Insurance and the Devil in 2010. But the Dems really are stubborn like donkeys. They bide their time and plan strategically. The predictable failure of ObamaCare even fits their long-term plans for socialism.
The “conservatives” have no plans and no idea how to handle authority. Monday, they’ll be on to a similar debacle with tax cuts. However, then (or now), they will find the debt ceiling looming once again on the D.C. horizon. The debt will rise; it always does. This year promises, perhaps, some extra suspense and entertainment.
Well, as much of those things as a jellyfish can generate.
The woes of monitoring the Mohammedan invasion of Europe- poor MI5:
Because of his age, Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood does not fit the profile of a suicide attacker. Fifty-two is about double the norm.
But being a local-born extremist, and radicalised in prison, is typical.
The attackers of 7/7, Madrid, Paris, Nice, Charlie Hebdo and Lee Rigby were almost all local volunteers striking at soft targets – in common with the pattern seen for atrocities in the Islamic world.
There are relatively few exceptions to this, although they include the 9/11 hijackers and the Berlin truck attacker Anis Amri, a radical from Tunisia (via prison in Italy).
Masood shows the scale of the challenge MI5 faces. The security services are monitoring more than 3,000 Islamist extremists in the UK.
Masood (not his birth name) wasn’t among those “top” 3,000 threats, although he was long ago investigated, with little evidence to suggest the convert was more than a “peripheral” figure.
While Isis has claimed him as its “soldier”, there is no evidence the group knew in advance of the attack, or had any contact with him. Try stopping that.
Theresa May struck a dignified tone as she led tributes to PC Keith Palmer. The former Home Secretary left any talk of extra powers for MI5 for another day.
3,000!? If that was even close to the real number of problem persons, they would be lucky. I offer a better metric: anyone who does not fit the general British demographic of, say, 1900 (or 1800, or 1500) should be considered an invader and a threat. Better yet, just look for scenes like this:
inews (UK).
That’s a sure sign there’s trouble in the neighborhood.
Bob Woodward seems to think someone from the Obama administration is (or should be) going to jail for various illegal activities related to the wiretapping of Trump Tower.
The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward warned on Wednesday that there are people from the Obama administration who could be facing criminal charges for unmasking the names of Trump transition team members from surveillance of foreign officials.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said earlier that he had briefed Trump on new information, unrelated to an investigation into Russian activities, that suggested that several members of Trump’s transition team and perhaps Trump himself had their identities “unmasked” after their communications were intercepted by U.S. intelligence officials.
It’s too soon to tell if this might include Barry himself. If it does, then perhaps he can share a cell with John McCain.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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