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The Affordable Care Act primarily affects the roughly 15 million people who buy their insurance on their own. In that group, some premiums will increase, while others will decrease. Some will get subsidies while others will not. But insurance pricing is tricky. What follows is a brief primer on some of the nuts and bolts of rates and premiums, which, not so incidently are key to the success or failure of Obamacare.
Judges don't want to know what happens after they slam the gavel and prison doors.They don't want any scrutiny of what they do and they don't want to scrutinize the actions of their fellow judges.In fact, even when federal judges are caught and prosecuted for their corruption,they have no worries, knowing they will face a fellow judge for sentencing, one who will,at best,administer a slap on the wrist, nothing comparable to
According to the American Medical Association, as of yesterday I have a disease today.
The demonstrators, many of whom were relatives of Gitmo prisoners highlighted the failure of the US government to fulfill its obligations to close the prison in Cuba. Activists have also gathered to draw attention to the deteriorating state of health of many prisoners who have been on hunger strike since February.
There is reason to be hopeful that our lawmakers can put aside their ideological differences every now and then and do what makes sense for constituents.
Putin knows Obama would even give up playing basketball if he could find a way to sneak out of getting bogged in Syria's civil war. Putin knows Obama simply cannot order a no-fly zone over Syria by decree -- as much as he may be under pressure by the usual warmonger senators, armchair warrior think tankers, corporate media and weapons manufacturers.
For defense contractors, the government officials who write them mega checks, and the hawks in the media who cheer them on, the name of the game is threat inflation. And no one has been better at it than the folks at Booz Allen Hamilton, the inventors of the new boondoggle called cyberwarfare.
By Steven Jonas
The Permanence of Permanent War, Part 2 - The "Three P's:" Power, Profits, and the Promotion of Fear In my column on this subject yesterday, I endeavoured to "set the stage" for a consideration of this subject. Today, I am dealing with the question "why?" It has nothing to do with the "War on Terror" (which is a "war" only in the sense that a "War on Flanking Manuevers" can be considered a war.)It all comes down to what can be called "The Three P's:" Power, Profits, and the Promotion of Fear."
There are a lot of congressional Districts in the country that are virtually unwinnable for Democrats. Paradoxically, the very difficulty of winning these seats presents Democrats with an important opportunity. Democrats in those districts may not be able to win that battle, but they can help win the war. Here's how.
The story from Vermont, of all places, is breath-takingly simple: the elected city council, in a bi-partisan vote, has decided to keep its law-making process secret, rather than openly address the question of whether a draconian no-trespass law it passed last winter is patently unconstitutional.
Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned. He was 33. Hastings leaves behind a remarkable legacy of reporting, including an exposé of America's drone war, an exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his hideout in the English countryside, an investigation into the Army's illicit use of "psychological operations" to influence sitting Senators and a profile of Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl, "America's Last Prisoner of War."
Firefighters battle a blaze that began just before noon on Tuesday just outside Prescott, AZ and homeowners have been evacuated.
Ocean acidification due to rising carbon dioxide levels will reduce the density of coral skeletons, making coral reefs more vulnerable to disruption and erosion, according to a new study of corals growing where submarine springs naturally lower the pH of seawater.
Solar Panel Prices Continue 'Seemingly Inexorable Decline' | ThinkProgress
US imports of crystalline silicon solar cells and channels from China fell to their lowest level in at least two years even amid the peak, year-end selling season based on federal government data.
An appeal from Afghanistan to whistle-blow on war
This article introduces and explains the Great March for Climate Action. Starting next year, 1000 people will march across the nation, from Los Angeles to Washington DC, to inspire society to address climate change.
What is the right message to send our kids about marijuana?
Republicans do horrible things and Democrats let them get away with it. That's the story. That's the story in 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012, and this morning's headline. Lately, the headline's changed a little. Republicans do horrible things and Democrats do too.
Today's Congressional hearing -- one of many to come -- into the NSA's wiretapping program has given us a peek into the spies who are spying on us, seemingly without significant oversight.
Assange's detractors believe he is using his notoriety to escape the Swedish justice system. Assange, in writing to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa one year ago, said he was being persecuted and could not return to his native Australia, fearing he could be extradited to "a foreign country that applies the death penalty for the crime of espionage and sedition."
Julian Assange will not leave Ecuador's embassy even if Sweden drops its extradition bid over accusations of sexual assault, because he fears moves are already underway by the US to prosecute him on espionage charges, he has said. "While I remain hopeful that a diplomatic solution can be reached, or that the Swedish and US authorities will cease their pursuit of me, it remains the case that it is highly unlikely that Sweden or the UK will ever publicly say no to the US in this matter."
By Mary Lynn Ritch
The Psychology of the Boston Marathon Bombing This is an article in response to what I saw on Social Media the week of the the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Talk Radio giants are claiming their propaganda is legally the same as 'bonafide news.' It will be, if the FCC says so. We must not allow that to happen.
By Sam Kephart
Freedom on the Rocks: Tyranny versus Terrorism The REAL inside story on what the NSA is up to with its domestic spying agenda.
Schooling Ourselves in an Unequal America - REBECCA STRAUSSNYTimes.com
"Averages can be misleading. The familiar, one-dimensional story told about American education is that it was once the best system in the world but that now it's headed down the drain, with piles of money thrown down after it. The truth is that there are two very different education stories in America. The children of the wealthiest 10 percent or so do receive some of the best education in the world, and the quality keeps getting better. For most everyone else, this is not the case. America's average standing in global education rankings has tumbled not because everyone is falling, but because of the country's deep, still-widening achievement gap between socioeconomic groups. And while America does spend plenty on education, it funnels a disproportionate share into educating wealthier students, worsening that gap. The majority of other advanced countries do things differently, at least"
The Times and columnists like Tom Friedman and Bill Keller are leading apologists for the NSA and the national security state, argues TCBH! journalist Dave Lilndorff
By David Swanson
It's the Ownership Workers own and run factories in Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington DC, Amarillo, and many other cities. Labor unions that once opposed worker ownership, including the Steelworkers and several others, now create worker-owned companies.
By Tom Engelhardt
Nick Turse, Blowback Central The other day, Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-supported Afghan president who was once sardonically nicknamed "the mayor of Kabul," had a few curious things to say about American policy in the Muslim world. Karzai, of course, is a man whose opinions -- whether on U.S. special operations forces and their (out of control) militias, U.S. night raids on Afghan homes, or U.S. air strikes on Afghan villages -- Washington loves to ignore. Latest Articles
Today, on the 60th anniversary of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the issues raised by their case resonate from the Oval Office of the White House to Bradley Manning, who is being tried under the Espionage Act of 1917, as were Ethel and Julius.
On the two incidents in Baluchistan that has rocked Pakistan!
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The Most Important Protest You've Never Heard Of
"Since the election of Republican Governor Pat McCrory in 2012, all bets have been off as Republicans gained control of the entire North Carolina state government for the first time since Reconstruction. Art Pope himself was put in charge of the state's budget and the legislature has been racing to pass all manner of extreme right-wing legislation. Now progressives are fighting back with weekly "Moral Monday" protests against these extreme policies. More than 480 people have been arrested in the demonstrations, including 84 just yesterday. Many of those arrested have been clergy who have not been previously involved in civil disobedience. Last week, police even arrested a journalist simply trying to cover the protests.BOTTOM LINE: North Carolina shows just what the extreme right will do when they get control of all of the levers of power and isn't pretty."
The Faulty Logic of the 'Math Wars'
T"here is a great progressive tradition in American thought that urges us not to look for the aims of education beyond education itself. Teaching and learning should not be conceived as merely instrumental affairs; the goal of education is rather to awaken individuals' capacities for independent thought. Or, in the words of the great progressivist John Dewey, the goal of education "is to enable individuals to continue their education.... For a vivid illustration of the challenges, we can turn to raging debates about K-12 mathematics education that get referred to as the "math wars" and that seem particularly pertinent now that most of the United States is making a transition to Common Core State Standards in mathematics. At stake in the math wars is the value of a "reform" strategy for teaching math that, over the past 25 years, has taken American schools by storm.
The House Tuesday passed a bill that would ban most abortions nationwide after 20 weeks. The most far-reaching abortion legislation in the House in a decade was approved 228-196, mostly along party lines. The vote is largely symbolic: The bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate. And the White House has already threatened to veto the "fetal pain" legislation, which is based on the controversial assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that stage of development. In pushing the legislation, Republicans are issuing a rallying cry for their base still fighting Roe v. Wade 40 years later. Similar fetal pain bills have passed in nearly a dozen states, although some have been challenged in court.
Govt and Corporations Work Together to Wage War against Reality
This column is by Peter Ludlow ("The Stone"), and remarkably it appears in the NYTimes, which has shamelessly conveyed much of the disinformation that has poisoned our polity these 12 years. "The modern American surveillance state is not really the stuff of paranoid fantasies; it has arrived." Government agencies and also private intelligence firms are involved "not just with the concealment of reality, but with the manufacture of it." When corporations hack into your emails for their own profit, this is a legitimate exercise in data collection. But when activists hack into corporate computers and reveal to the public that we are being manipulated, the Obama Justice Dept goes after them with a vengeance. The line between public relations and psychological warfare has disappeared.
Russia has warned the United States and the European Union (EU) against their decision to supply arms to foreign-backed Takfiri militants in Syria, urging them to reconsider the move. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland that the West must consider the consequences of supplying weapons to anti-Syria militants, saying the move would be a major blow to the chances for peace.
The shine has come off Obama's image since he was last in Berlin in 2008. This week's visit is set to be overshadowed by the NSA surveillance scandal, which Chancellor Merkel says she fully intends to address. Free trade will likely top the agenda. His brief visit will be overshadowed by news about the National Security Agency's surveillance of worldwide Internet communications. But Obama is touching down in Germany in the run-up to the general election, and in Berlin, not only the opposition but also Chancellor Angela Merkel's junior coalition partners, the Free Democrats, are demanding answers.
Intelligence officials said Tuesday that the government's sweeping surveillance efforts have helped thwart "potential terrorist events" more than 50 times since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and the officials detailed two new examples to illustrate the utility of the programs. He said at least 10 of the plots targeted the United States.
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