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Post by kode54 on Nov 24, 2013 1:34:20 GMT -5
Lies.
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Post by kode54 on Nov 24, 2013 2:09:09 GMT -5
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Tails82
Lord of Terror++
Loyal Vassal
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Posts: 34,371
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Post by Tails82 on Nov 24, 2013 10:49:21 GMT -5
blog.heritage.org/2013/11/23/obamacare-navigator-fraud-caught-video/If you earn cash on the side, do not tell the government — that’s what multiple Obamacare navigators are saying in Texas.
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released a second video exposing more Obamacare navigators who encouraged undercover investigators to lie and hide income when applying for Obamacare.
“I have two jobs. One is part time and the other is part time but I don’t claim the income, so how does that work?” a Project Veritas investigator asked an Obamacare navigator.
“Nora,” an Obamacare navigator at Community Health Centers of South Central Texas, said, “If you don’t claim the income then you don’t have to.”
A second navigator advised an undercover investigator to get her income as low as possible before reporting it.
“I like went on to the calculator thing online and it said I qualify for these things,” the investigator said. “But then if you add my additional income, I do like every Friday, Saturday, Sunday I nanny for a family and it makes, I make substantial extra income from that, that put me over.”
The navigator, Kris McCray from Change Happens located in Houston, Texas, said, “Well see I don’t know if you have to report all that stuff. I think they’re going to go off on where you file for your taxes. So stuff like that, to get a lower premium, I wouldn’t include in it.”
McCray continued, “If I was cutting grass on the weekends, and they were just giving me money, that’s my money.”
“I would just try to get the number as low as you can. It would help you qualify you for more stuff as far as aid and stuff like that,” he said to the investigator.
Watch the video to see more and hear a navigator explain that he hasn’t been able to sign anybody up for Obamacare.online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579206290376860788President Obama says not to worry about the Affordable Care Act's botched rollout because the country will love it once the website is fixed and subsidies start rolling. But what if the troubles are only beginning because they're built into the law? In the tradition of service journalism, we thought we'd offer a reader's guide to the many potential ObamaCare traumas to come.
Technology woes beyond Dec. 1. President Obama has promised for weeks that the 36 federal exchanges and the Healthcare.gov website will work for "the vast majority of users" by the end of November. But he's refused to say how he defines success...Health and Human Services deputy Henry Chao told a House hearing this week that about 30% to 40% of the information technology that supports enrollment—such as the "back end" systems that send out monthly subsidies—still needs to be built.
All of which suggests that the Dec. 1 deadline is political, not a reflection of the repair team's progress. The White House had to say things would work by then to pre-empt a Democratic mutiny and because people whose insurance has been terminated must register by Dec. 15 for a new plan by the New Year.
More cancelled health plans. Millions and perhaps tens of millions more Americans will lose their coverage, despite the White House's one-year suspension of the mandates that force insurers to liquidate their old products. The problem is backloaded.
The wave would have been worse if not for a loophole that allowed early renewals: If people renewed their 2013 plans early, they could keep them in 2014 without complying with the mandates. Some 42 states allowed this loophole, but it only lasts through next November.
Small business insurance disruption. Thus far the cancellations have been largely contained in the individual market but will soon spread to small businesses. Companies with 50 employers or fewer were more likely to choose or to qualify for locking in their old benefits. They're next on the cancellation block when the dispensation runs out.
The viability of the exchanges. The enrollment period is supposed to end in March, assuming the window is not extended or the individual mandate is not delayed by Congress or executive fiat. Then we'll learn how many people wanted or were able to sign up and if they represent the cross-section of health risks, ages and incomes on which the financial viability of the exchanges depends.
The early signs are not good. Insurers privately admit that enrollment thus far is too low and the mix skews toward high-cost beneficiaries whose premiums won't cover their care. The enrollment figures from the first month comport with no known industry standard, and only about a third of applicants qualified for subsidies.
This suggests they're older people with more income but also more expensive chronic conditions. Many of them will be people who had their old plans terminated, not the new uninsured consumers the health industry is after.
Rate shock round two. Most insurers thought they could break even on the exchanges, but that outlook has soured to losses of 3% to 5% with a 5% to 10% downside over the long term. Also in February and March, the insurers will start the months-long process of repricing their premiums for 2015, on the basis of what they learned this year.
The insurers will try to pass along the higher costs of the failed launch in the next year's rates. The consumers who were forced to buy more expensive ObamaCare-compliant insurance this cycle will be exposed to another big price spike.
You can't even keep your ObamaCare plan. The White House and regulators will lean on insurers to block these price hikes, but they can't deny reality forever. Companies accountable to shareholders will flee unprofitable states as some are already doing, leading to even fewer options. New Hampshire already has just one for the entire state.
. . . or your Medicare Advantage plan. The Affordable Care Act's deep cuts to the popular private insurance alternative to traditional fee-for-service Medicare are starting to burn, and seniors are starting to see higher premiums, reduced benefits and fewer choices. The steepest funding cliff arrives for the 2015 plans that will start to be sold in September.
And maybe not your doctor. The exchanges don't offer what most people expect from normal commercial insurance and instead feature tighter administrative oversight of smaller groups of physicians akin to Medicaid. Clinton-era HMO-style plans are coming back, and doctor-patient relationships will be the next political casualty.
In the 1990s Americans rebelled against cost containment pressure, such as the "drive through" rules that told women to leave hospitals a day after giving birth. As beneficiaries seek care, they'll find they can't visit their family physicians without huge out-of-network markups, or can't get certain procedures without prior authorization. Such methods are the only way to keep premiums affordable amid ObamaCare's costly benefit mandates.
Physician dissatisfaction. U.S. medicine is under major financial strain, but not because the government is paying for quality instead of volume as liberals claim. The fee-for-service status quo is largely intact and reimbursement is merely being squeezed down. Exchange insurance with Medicaid-style networks pays Medicaid rates, while ObamaCare's Medicare cuts are also sending that program's price controls to Medicaid levels.
These rates are already so low that many doctors won't take new government patients. Look for many doctors to start to conclude they will make a better living — and have more autonomy — by opting out. Providers participating in federal programs are subject to onerous quality-reporting rules, even if the metrics don't accurately measure quality. The Affordable Care Act treats health professionals like robots on a factory line who can be reprogrammed to execute federal work orders.
Our guess is that President Obama will try to power through all of this the way he always has: Blame others, stretch or break the law to plug the holes, squeeze insurers and try to keep Democrats from breaking ranks before the 2014 election. Perhaps it will work. But if the disruption spreads, and complaints multiply, don't be surprised if Democrats force the White House to reopen the law.online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304337404579214183070687104To better understand why Senate Democrats killed the filibuster for presidential appointees, consider their latest legal rebuke. Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to remake the court that is a check on his lawlessness.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this week ruled that the Department of Energy can no longer require utilities to pay annual fees for a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The Obama Administration at the behest of Mr. Reid has abandoned work on the Yucca Mountain facility, so the court ruled that it is "quite unfair to force [operators] to pay fees for a hypothetical option." Quite.
This is the third judicial slapdown on Yucca in the past year. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 created a timetable to build an underground repository for radioactive waste, and in 1987 Congress made Yucca the site. Yet Mr. Reid has blocked all progress.
Meanwhile, the Administration has continued to soak the nuclear industry for fees to build the site it won't allow to be built. The 1982 Act requires operators to pay 0.1 cents on every electric kilowatt hour generated by nuclear power. This money, about $750 million a year, is supposed to go to a fund to finance Yucca. Yet Mr. Reid has also blocked Congress from spending any money for Yucca, so the nuclear fees go to Treasury to spend in return for IOUs.
The Energy Department is supposed to analyze repository costs each year to determine if the fees need adjustment. Instead, Energy quit doing the analysis. Utilities sued, and the D.C. Circuit last year ordered the Energy Department to do its job. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz then came back with the convenient argument that he can't determine if the fees are right because the issue is now hypothetical. But he still wants to keep the fees.
The larger context of this legal rebuke is how this nuclear co-dependency of Messrs. Reid and Obama has contributed to Washington's dysfunction. Many people have wondered why Mr. Reid is so determined to do White House bidding even when it might hurt the political prospects of Senate Democrats. The answer is Yucca Mt.
Blocking Yucca is Harry's top priority and his political survival depends on it. This means he needs Mr. Obama to help him control the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and back him on spending for Yucca. But that in turn gives Mr. Obama enormous political leverage on Mr. Reid to carry the President's water.
It's not too much to say that the Senate and its agenda is essentially hostage to Yucca Mt. And because the D.C. Circuit keeps interfering with Harry's obsession, Mr. Reid is now helping Mr. Obama pack the court with liberals by blowing up the Senate filibuster.blog.heritage.org/2013/11/22/40-congressmen-challenging-obamacare/Forty members of the House of Representatives, led by Trent Franks (R–AZ), have filed an amicus brief in the latest case challenging the constitutionality of the Obama Administration’s crowning achievement (or failure, depending on your perspective). The lawsuit claims that the Obamacare legislation violates Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the Constitution, otherwise known as the Origination Clause.Finally In last year’s surprising and oft-criticized opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the act under Congress’s authority “To lay and collect Taxes” under the Spending Clause of the Constitution. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, found that, despite the plain text of the statute, the individual mandate was actually a tax and not a penalty.
The Origination Clause provides: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.” Our Founding Fathers understood that the power to tax, if abused, involved the power to destroy. They viewed the Origination Clause as a safeguard for liberty by insisting that the power to initiate new taxes should be left with the lawmakers who were most directly accountable to voters—members of the House, who are elected every two years in local districts.
What this means for Obamacare is that if the individual mandate is indeed a tax, as the Supreme Court said it is, then it would have to have been introduced in the House. With Obamacare, Senate Democrats used a tactic known as “gut and amend”: They took a bill providing tax credits for veterans purchasing new homes, H.R. 3590, and stripped away the entire language of the bill, keeping only the related House bill number. They then “amended” the bill with the language that would become the 2,074 pages of Obamacare.
While all bills raising revenue must originate in the House, the Senate is allowed to amend such spending bills. However, Franks and his colleagues argue that because the original veterans’ bill did not “raise revenue” and was entirely unrelated to health care, it would stretch the notion of “amending” bills to include complete demolition of a bill’s language and intent, then inserting completely new language on an unrelated issue.
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Tails82
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Loyal Vassal
still...sipping?
Posts: 34,371
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Post by Tails82 on Nov 26, 2013 13:19:53 GMT -5
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303653004579213841747969928The Next ObamaCare Mirage
The new line is that the health-care law will save money. That's also not true.
Supporters of President Obama are working overtime to backtrack from his promise that "If you like your health-care insurance, you can keep it. Period." While the president has conceded that this statement was inaccurate, the administration doesn't seem to have learned its lesson...On Wednesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers published a report claiming that "the ACA is contributing to the recent slow growth in health care prices and spending."
These assertions border on nonsense.
National spending on health care is projected to reach a record $2.9 trillion in 2013, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This is more than 25% above pre-recession spending levels in 2007. Health-care expenditures per capita and as a percentage of GDP are also at record highs, expected to top out this year at $9,216 and 18% respectively.
According to health-care actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, health-care spending will begin spiraling upward again starting next year, as the Affordable Care Act takes full effect. It will reach $5 trillion in 2022, or 20% of GDP, or $14,664 per capita. By 2022, ObamaCare alone is projected to increase cumulative health spending by roughly $621 billion, according to CMS.
In his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama promised that his health-care reform plan would save a typical family $2,500 in annual premiums by the end of his first term...Those cost savings haven't materialized...CMS actuaries find that any positive effects of the ObamaCare delivery system experiments on the cost of health care "remain highly speculative." When they compare their September 2013 projections with earlier estimates in April 2010, these actuaries find that the law would increase national health spending higher than previously expected by an additional $27 billion in 2019 alone.
To argue that the Affordable Care Act has been and will be a key driver of slower health-care spending is irreconcilable with the most basic facts about such spending over the last decade, as well as with the judgment of the executive branch's own team of actuaries responsible for health-care accounting and future projections.online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304465604579217933666283664Polls show an increasing majority of Americans dislike President Obama's health-care law and disapprove of the job the president is doing. Perhaps more disconcerting for Mr. Obama is a recent Quinnipiac University poll that finds, for the first time in his presidency, a majority (54%) of registered voters feel he is not honest and trustworthy.
In response, the administration rolls out ObamaCare delays or stopgap fixes just a month after Republicans were labeled extremists for proposing delays and fixes. The White House tries shifting blame for the embarrassing rollout to others—information technology contractors, insurance companies and of course, Republicans. The administration is even working to discourage use of the word "ObamaCare," which the president had proudly embraced before the law encountered reality.
Most interestingly, the administration and congressional Democrats seem genuinely surprised that their prized legislation, which was to be the crown jewel of the president's legacy and the culmination of decades of liberal ambition, simply doesn't work. Did these folks ever study history, economics or sociology? If they had, they would have known there was little chance of success for their attempt to snatch one-sixth of our economy and thrust it under a complex set of bureaucratic regulations, market disincentives, higher costs and new taxes.
Large government interventions in the market almost always fall short of their backers' dreams (although not usually this rapidly). Such programs suffer from a common set of flaws, all of which are found in ObamaCare. First, and perhaps foremost, is the hubris inherent in the assumption that bureaucrats in Washington (or Moscow, Beijing or Pyongyang) know better than families, individuals and businesses do what is best for them.
We also often find a certain "looseness" with the facts. There is overpromising at the beginning. Mr. Obama actually promised to provide better health care to more people while spending less money. While some of us saw that was obviously absurd, many are just now coming to this realization. We were told we could keep our existing plan if we liked it, "period." But it turns out that means "only as long as the government, in its wisdom, decides it's right for you." The posturing and spinning continues as the administration tries to inflate the pathetically low enrollment figures. The left's mindset is that such obfuscation (to be generous) is fine as long as it is deployed in the furtherance of the greater good, which they see as coming only from their policies.
ObamaCare embodies the usual hypocrisy of large liberal programs, as the administration bestows benefits and exemptions on favored constituencies and the politically connected. We see waivers for big labor, relief from inconvenient mandates for congressional staff, and decisions timed to minimize harm to Democrats in the next election. Conversely, those who don't have politically correct views are ignored or mocked. We see lip service given to conscientious objections to abortion and birth control, but ObamaCare policies that run roughshod over these objections.
Perhaps most disappointing, we can observe in the administration's handling of ObamaCare a now all too familiar subversion of the rule of law, a fundamental precept of our nation's founding and of democracies everywhere. George Will notes that the administration has apparently decided it can adopt legislation by press conference as Mr. Obama simply announces changes to the law or that he will not enforce certain provisions. His administration then proceeds to strong-arm businesses and demonize critics.
There is the usual governmental failure to anticipate how people respond to economic incentives. Why would the administration expect the required large numbers of healthy, young people to enroll in ObamaCare in response to higher premiums? Why would the administration expect businesses to refrain from adjusting their staffing decisions based on the additional cost of ObamaCare?
Finally, we see the familiar curse of unintended consequences as the fantasy of better, more affordable insurance with more options runs into the reality of higher costs and fewer options. The failed exchange and the cancelled plans were just the beginning, followed by sticker shock at the cost of the government-mandated coverage and doctors being dropped from networks or opting out.
We don't yet know every way in which ObamaCare will damage our health-care system, our economy and our freedom, but we can be sure more pain is coming.www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/11/25/barry_seizes_more_power_as_he_falls_in_pollsThe American public is souring on Obama as a person and as a brand, and that spells trouble for his agenda. And in spite of the media doing everything they can to prop him up. My point last week, and I'll make it again, it took the media four years to get George Bush down to the 36%. The media has not taken Barack Obama down in these polls. They have been trying to stave this off. The media has been trying to prop him up. They are his PR firm.
That's all the media is today, folks. I mean, even more so than saying it's a Democrat Party PR firm, it is a Barack Obama PR firm. Crisis management firm. They don't do news. They're not reporting anything. They simply are doing everything they can to protect Obama, keep his image built up or to keep it from slacking too low. Despite that, the numbers are plummeting.
You have all these Democrat senators up for reelection wanting to abandon Obamacare and delay the individual mandate. Signature issue, willing to walk away from it. The very people who voted for it nevertheless. I don't think they should be allowed to walk away from it. They need to have it hung around their necks.
Let me give you a couple of pull quotes from Joe Curl..."no one is afraid of the party’s top cop. Nearly 40 Dems bailed on him to support the 'Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013' just a day after Bubba made his pronouncement. They weren’t worried in the least about fallout or retribution. They were busy saving their own skins -- which meant breaking hard from the president. Now, here’s the thing: Republicans, contrary to media reports, were never confused about Obamacare. Not one voted for the bill Mr. Obama signed into law in 2010. That means RINOs, lefty-middle righties, conservatives, tea partyers, moderates, even mavericks -- the whole big tent -- stood as one in opposition to a law they knew was insanity."
Obamacare is essentially a computer virus, knowingly sold as clean software to trusting customers. And as this virus crashes people's computers -- and, by the way, it collects all of their private data while this is happening. It promises to improve their system, while this virus is knowingly sold as clean software that improves your operating system and makes you more productive, and makes it cheaper, as the virus crashes people's computers while collecting all their private personal data at the same time, the Regime still markets and sells and distributes it, even while the virus is crashing people's computers.
Then, when everyone's computers crash, the Regime offers their solution to people with crashed computers, and that is brand-new software installed by the Regime that only has one operating system: the Regime's operating system. And the only way you'll be able to use your computer is through the Regime's operating system. Your only options are what they make available. Thus, single payer socialized Internet. Single payer socialized medicine. Obamacare is a virus. It's tearing everybody's computer, i.e., health care, apart. And while this is happening the Regime continues to sell, market and distribute it, while people's computers continue to crash. People's health care continues to crash. The people who can fix your computer leave the industry. Doctors are leaving health care. It's a little bit more involved than that, but that's just a brief analysis.Appeasement. www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/abject-surrender-united-states_768140.htmlAbject Surrender by the United States
This interim agreement is badly skewed from America’s perspective. Iran retains its full capacity to enrich uranium, thus abandoning a decade of Western insistence and Security Council resolutions that Iran stop all uranium-enrichment activities. Allowing Iran to continue enriching, and despite modest (indeed, utterly inadequate) measures to prevent it from increasing its enriched-uranium stockpiles and its overall nuclear infrastructure, lays the predicate for Iran fully enjoying its “right” to enrichment in any “final” agreement. Indeed, the interim agreement itself acknowledges that a “comprehensive solution” will “involve a mutually defined enrichment program.” This is not, as the Obama administration leaked before the deal became public, a “compromise” on Iran’s claimed “right” to enrichment. This is abject surrender by the United States.
In exchange for superficial concessions, Iran achieved three critical breakthroughs. First, it bought time to continue all aspects of its nuclear-weapons program the agreement does not cover (centrifuge manufacturing and testing; weaponization research and fabrication; and its entire ballistic missile program). Indeed, given that the interim agreement contemplates periodic renewals, Iran may have gained all of the time it needs to achieve weaponization not of simply a handful of nuclear weapons, but of dozens or more.
Second, Iran has gained legitimacy. This central banker of international terrorism and flagrant nuclear proliferator is once again part of the international club. Much as the Syria chemical-weapons agreement buttressed Bashar al-Assad, the mullahs have escaped the political deep freezer.
Third, Iran has broken the psychological momentum and effect of the international economic sanctions. While estimates differ on Iran’s precise gain, it is considerable ($7 billion is the lowest estimate), and presages much more. Tehran correctly assessed that a mere six-months’ easing of sanctions will make it extraordinarily hard for the West to reverse direction, even faced with systematic violations of Iran’s nuclear pledges. Major oil-importing countries (China, India, South Korea, and others) were already chafing under U.S. sanctions, sensing President Obama had no stomach either to impose sanctions on them, or pay the domestic political price of granting further waivers.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s earlier warning that this was “the deal of the century” for Iran has unfortunately been vindicated. Given such an inadequate deal, what motivated Obama to agree? The inescapable conclusion is that, the mantra notwithstanding, the White House actually did prefer a bad deal to the diplomatic process grinding to a halt. This deal was a “hail Mary” to buy time. Why?
Buying time for its own sake makes sense in some negotiating contexts, but the sub silentio objective here was to jerry-rig yet another argument to wield against Israel and its fateful decision whether or not to strike Iran. Obama, fearing that strike more than an Iranian nuclear weapon, clearly needed greater international pressure on Jerusalem. And Jerusalem fully understands that Israel was the real target of the Geneva negotiations. How, therefore, should Israel react?
Tehran judges correctly that they have Obama obediently moving in their direction, with the European Union straining at the bit for still-more relaxation of the sanctions regimes.
Instead, those opposing Obama’s “Munich moment” in Geneva (to borrow a Kerry phrase from the Syrian crisis), should focus on the larger and more permanent strategic problem: A terrorist, nuclear Iran still threatens American interests and allies, and almost certainly means widespread nuclear proliferation across the Middle East. A nuclear Iran would also be essentially invulnerable, providing a refuge that al Qaeda leaders hiding in Afghan and Pakistani caves could only dream of.
So in truth, an Israeli military strike is the only way to avoid Tehran’s otherwise inevitable march to nuclear weapons, and the proliferation that will surely follow.online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303281504579219931479934854In 1938, Chamberlain bought time to rearm. In 2013, Obama gives Iran time to go nuclear...To adapt Churchill : Never in the field of global diplomacy has so much been given away by so many for so little.
Britain and France's capitulation to Nazi Germany at Munich has long been a byword for ignominy, moral and diplomatic. Yet neither Neville Chamberlain nor Édouard Daladier had the public support or military wherewithal to stand up to Hitler in September 1938. Britain had just 384,000 men in its regular army; the first Spitfire aircraft only entered RAF service that summer. "Peace for our time" it was not, but at least appeasement bought the West a year to rearm.
The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 was a betrayal of an embattled U.S. ally and the abandonment of an effort for which 58,000 American troops gave their lives. Yet it did end America's participation in a peripheral war, which neither Congress nor the public could indefinitely support. "Peace with honor" it was not, as the victims of Cambodia's Killing Fields or Vietnam's re-education camps can attest. But, for American purposes at least, it was peace.
By contrast, the interim nuclear agreement signed in Geneva on Sunday by Iran and the six big powers has many of the flaws of Munich and Paris. But it has none of their redeeming or exculpating aspects.
Consider: Britain and France came to Munich as military weaklings. The U.S. and its allies face Iran from a position of overwhelming strength. Britain and France won time to rearm. The U.S. and its allies have given Iran more time to stockpile uranium and develop its nuclear infrastructure. Britain and France had overwhelming domestic constituencies in favor of any deal that would avoid war. The Obama administration is defying broad bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress for the sake of a deal.
As for the Vietnam parallels, the U.S. showed military resolve in the run-up to the Paris Accords with a massive bombing and mining campaign of the North that demonstrated presidential resolve and forced Hanoi to sign the deal. The administration comes to Geneva fresh from worming its way out of its own threat to use force to punish Syria's Bashar Assad for his use of chemical weapons against his own people.
The Nixon administration also exited Vietnam in the context of a durable opening to Beijing that helped tilt the global balance of power against Moscow. Now the U.S. is attempting a fleeting opening with Tehran at the expense of a durable alliance of values with Israel and interests with Saudi Arabia.
That's where the differences end between Geneva and the previous accords. What they have in common is that each deal was a betrayal of small countries—Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, Israel—that had relied on Western security guarantees. Each was a victory for the dictatorships: "No matter the world wants it or not," Iranian President Hasan Rouhani said Sunday, "this path will, God willingly, continue to the peak that has been considered by the martyred nuclear scientists." Each deal increased the contempt of the dictatorships for the democracies...And each deal was a prelude to worse.
Iran will gradually shake free of sanctions and glide into a zone of nuclear ambiguity that will keep its adversaries guessing until it opts to make its capabilities known. Saudi Arabia will move swiftly to acquire a nuclear deterrent from its clients in Islamabad; Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal made that clear to the Journal last week when he indiscreetly discussed "the arrangement with Pakistan." Egypt is beginning to ponder a nuclear option of its own while drawing closer to a security alliance with Russia.
As for Israel, it cannot afford to live in a neighborhood where Iran becomes nuclear, Assad remains in power, and Hezbollah—Israel's most immediate military threat—gains strength, clout and battlefield experience. The chances that Israel will hazard a strike on Iran's nuclear sites greatly increased since Geneva. More so the chances of another war with Hezbollah.
After World War II the U.S. created a global system of security alliances to prevent the kind of foreign policy freelancing that is again becoming rampant in the Middle East. It worked until President Obama decided in his wisdom to throw it away.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2013 11:27:33 GMT -5
Naw, back in the day they weren't even really sold on the whole " one god above all" thing, and nowadays they seem to forget that the acceptance of other gods was even an issue. It shows up in the bible a few times, with God telling his followers to ignore the other gods like Apis, Astarte, Chemosh, and Molech. ( Apis has been mostly retconned out of the bible, but the other three I listed were mentioned too often) I remember Molech a bunch of times, not the others. Certainly not a few times. But what are you saying, Zetta? I mean, even in Bible times, they would have been considered false gods, mere idols, by the Hebrews. For Astarte and pals, you might just know them by different names; Astarte mentions in the bible can go by Ashtaroth/Ashtoreth, Ash′taroth, Ashtarot, Asherah, etc. depending on version/passage. Sometimes they even mistranslate her as a tree! And naw, far from it. The bible is from the times where the shift in religion had not yet taken hold, otherwise there'd be a lot fewer hits on this search and the ones that mention these other gods by name. Basically it started the same as any other culture war; some guys had different idea, they got a sizeable following, and they immediately did anything in their power to leverage their cult for power and authority. Take right here for example. In the same passage it's "gotta fuck their shit up for having other gods" and immediately back into "our god is the only god, honest". Also, remember Astarte up there? Yeah, she was kinda worshipped alongside Yahweh... and Baal... and "El"... and all these other gods that "god" says not to mention yet might as well be the same guy as him. |
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Post by Jordan Ω on Nov 27, 2013 12:12:33 GMT -5
I remember Molech a bunch of times, not the others. Certainly not a few times. But what are you saying, Zetta? I mean, even in Bible times, they would have been considered false gods, mere idols, by the Hebrews. For Astarte and pals, you might just know them by different names; Astarte mentions in the bible can go by Ashtaroth/Ashtoreth, Ash′taroth, Ashtarot, Asherah, etc. depending on version/passage. Sometimes they even mistranslate her as a tree! And naw, far from it. The bible is from the times where the shift in religion had not yet taken hold, otherwise there'd be a lot fewer hits on this search and the ones that mention these other gods by name. Basically it started the same as any other culture war; some guys had different idea, they got a sizeable following, and they immediately did anything in their power to leverage their cult for power and authority. Take right here for example. In the same passage it's "gotta fuck their shit up for having other gods" and immediately back into "our god is the only god, honest". Also, remember Astarte up there? Yeah, she was kinda worshipped alongside Yahweh... and Baal... and "El"... and all these other gods that "god" says not to mention yet might as well be the same guy as him. I don't know when Astarte was worshipped. Never heard of her. Or Ashteroth (outside of SCII) or any of them. Any references? To address that one specific example, at least, the original hebrew doesn't say 'other gods', as if these 'others' are on the same level, it says 'the gods of others', and the word it uses for 'gods' is also used for 'false gods', incontrovertibly. There's no way that, in the bible, God says these that others worship are Gods. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2013 12:43:51 GMT -5
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Post by Jordan Ω on Nov 27, 2013 12:55:29 GMT -5
Suspiciously not there  Jokes, but it actually doesn't show up. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2013 12:56:33 GMT -5
Try scolling up and down a bit, the page can be kinda wonky about letting things show up. Edit: lets see of hotlinking works:    |
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Post by Jordan Ω on Nov 27, 2013 13:11:46 GMT -5
Um. I don't know where that guy got his info from, but it definitely wasn't from the written or oral Torah, at least none that I've ever heard of. The 'god Y-weh who was chosen'? That name appeared hundreds of times in the bible, which, even if you don't believe it came from God about 3322 years ago, it definitely came BEFORE the 2nd temple (destroyed in about 70 A.D.), which is what he says. And all of this evidence comes from way later, anyway.
I dunno, man. Seems fishy.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2013 13:22:44 GMT -5
That's, uh, exactly the point. His worship was simultaneous with the others'.
Edit: To clarify what I mean by that, why else would they be finding stuff that talks about "Yahweh and his Asherah" significantly after "Yahweh is the only god" was supposed to be a thing?
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Post by Jordan Ω on Nov 27, 2013 13:34:26 GMT -5
That's, uh, exactly the point. His worship was simultaneous with the others'. Edit: To clarify what I mean by that, why else would they be finding stuff that talks about "Yahweh and his Asherah" significantly after "Yahweh is the only god" was supposed to be a thing? Honestly, I don't know. Hm. Let's say, assuming all this points ineluctably that there were Jews that worshipped false gods. It could have been just one sect. We do know that during the 2nd temple period there were idol worshippers; I'm pretty sure that was the main reason it was destroyed (from a divine standpoint, not a physical one). So it did say in the Torah not to serve idols, or to make images of God (both THE GOD and false gods). Clearly, as made apparent by this article, they transgressed the prohobition of making statues of God, so they also served idols illegally. My point is, just because some Jews did something, doesn't mean all Jews did. So I think I went off track a bit. I don't really get the argument anymore. What was the point you were making? |
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Post by Mastery on Nov 27, 2013 13:40:35 GMT -5
Looked more like a discussion than an argument to me.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2013 13:45:21 GMT -5
Tails was all "blah blah my religion says X blah absolute morality blah"; my point was "yeah, well we all know how original your god is". Yahweh is not unique. He was swiped from the pantheon of even older religions and his monotheistic worship formed as a splinter from their group, and slowly at that. Looked more like a discussion than an argument to me. That happens when Tails doesn't get involved too much.  |
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Post by Jordan Ω on Nov 27, 2013 14:45:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I didn't mean argument. My bad.
So my point, then, was that He's still original, those carvings or statues or whatever was found from a time period long after the religion started, wasn't it?
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