BloggeRhythms

As the POTUS continues his fence-mending trip, trying to find a nation that he hasn’t alienated, insulted or completely abandoned for a wide variety of reasons, Jon Stone @independent.co.uk, writes about the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Britain.  

“Boris Johnson has criticised the US president Barack Obama and suggested his attitude to Britain might be based on his “part-Kenyan” heritage and “ancestral dislike of the British empire”. 

“Writing a column for The Sun newspaper the outgoing Mayor of London recounted a story about a bust of Winston Churchill purportedly being removed from White House. 

“Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” he wrote.” 

While the mayor’s “suggestion” might be considered by many to be somewhat over the top, even for typically outspoken Brit politicians, they certainly indicate just how far this POTUS has let one of the nation’s longest, closest relationships deteriorate. 

And then, on a recurring topic, Jason Samenow is “the Washington Post’s weather editor and Capital Weather Gang's chief meteorologist. He earned a master's degree in atmospheric science, and spent 10 years as a climate change science analyst for the U.S. government. He holds the Digital Seal of Approval from the National Weather Association.”

Today, Samenow wrote a column headed: “Why does anyone pay attention to John Coleman, Weather Channel co-founder, on climate change?”

The text begins “Both Fox News and CNN have recently invited John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel and former TV meteorologist, to express his views about climate change to their national audiences. Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and I’m not even sure he knows what he actually believes.”

Regarding Mr. Coleman, Wikipedia describes him as: “an American TV weatherman and founder of The Weather Channel. He has retired from broadcasting after nearly 61 years, working the last twenty at KUSI-TV in San Diego.”

Getting to the rub of the matter, Mr. Coleman has called climate change the "greatest scam in history". He claimed "The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number."

On the other side, his critics have questioned his lack of academic credentials, noting he has not conducted actual research in the area of climate change. Despite the fact that he started his career in 1953 at WCIA in Champaign, Illinois, doing the early evening weather forecast and has been in the business daily ever since. 

Samenow condescendingly writes: “I credit Coleman for expending the effort to learn about the issue, but if you lack professional credentials and established expertise on a topic, expect to have your arguments more closely scrutinized. And, if you view an issue through a skewed and biased lens, be ready for criticism. 

“Coleman has gained a name in the climate change debate by challenging the widely-accepted consensus that most of the observed climate warming in recent decades is due to human activity. On CNN, he said this consensus is manufactured by the Democratic party’s funding of research with preordained results. “If you’re gonna get the money, you’ve got to support their position,” Coleman said. “Therefore, 97 percent of the reports published support global warming.” 

And then, Samenow gets to his point, belittling Mr. Coleman’s career because he isn’t appropriately credentialed academically, as follows: “To begin, Coleman hasn’t published a single peer-reviewed paper pertaining to climate change science. His career, a successful and distinguished one, was in TV weather for over half a century, prior to his retirement in San Diego last April. He’s worked in the top markets: Chicago and New York, including a 7-year stint on Good Morning America when it launched. If you watch Coleman on-camera, his skill is obvious. He speaks with authority, injects an irreverent sense of humor and knows how to connect with his viewer. But a climate scientist, he is not.” 

Which means, that by Samenow’s standards, practical knowledge gained by one’s hands-on, day to day experience has less value than what is gained from “academic credentials.” And therefore,  if one wished information regarding computers or software, it’s preferable to read an engineer’s published text than seek answers from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, both college drop-outs. And by Samenow’s standards, both toatlly unqualified. 

Or perhaps, although he eventually graduated, one should ignore investment input from Warren Buffett who transferred to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln after being rejected by Harvard Business School. 

Thus, to put it more succinctly, Samenow is a moron.   

Staying on the subject of scams, Marilyn Tavenner, is today the president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP.) 

According to Eric Pianin @fiscaltimes.com: she’s “the former administration official who headed the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and oversaw the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov, the Obamacare website.” 

Mr. Pianin today, writes about “the growing uncertainty about the evolving makeup of the Obamacare health insurance market. With many insurers struggling to find profitability in the program, the collapse of nearly half of the 23 Obamacare insurance co-ops and this week’s announcement that giant UnitedHealth Group intends to pull out of most Obamacare markets across the country, anticipating future premiums and copayments is largely risky guesswork. 

When asked by Mr. Pianin about future costs to customers, Ms Tavenner responded: “I’ve been asked, what are the premiums going to look like? I don’t know because it also varies by state, market, even within markets. But I think the overall trend is going to be higher than we saw previous years. That’s my big prediction. 

“If Tavenner is right, Obamacare will jump dramatically—last year’s premium for the popular silver-level plan surged 11 percent on average. Although Tavenner didn’t mention deductibles, in 2016, some states saw jumps of 76 percent, while the average deductible for a 27-year-old male on a silver plan was 8 percent.” 

The major reasons for Tavenner’s increase expectation include: 

“A general rise in the nation’s health care tab. Overall, U.S. health care spending grew by 5.3 percent in 2014

“Soaring prescription drug prices.

“The combination of market forces and limitations imposed by the Affordable Care Act will put enormous pressure on insurers to up their premiums.

“Finally, two of three federal “risk mitigation” programs created under Obamacare are due to expire in 2017. Those programs were set up to protect insurers from huge, unexpected losses from providing health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. UnitedHealth and other major insurers have found it difficult to accurately anticipate their costs in providing coverage to sicker or older Americans, and set premiums that were inadequate to cover their risks. Without those programs to fall back on, many companies likely will seek to jack up their premiums.”

Thus, at this point, every negative expectation of the health care tax’s dissenters is not only coming true, the costs to those footing the bill is draining them incrementally, just like socialism always does.

Bringing us to today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife (which includes the other presidential candidates, as well.) 

Peggy Noonan headed her column @wsj.com, yesterday: “That moment when2016 hits you.”

To open, Ms Noonan asks: “Have you had your 2016 Moment? I think you probably have, or will. 

“The Moment is that sliver of time in which you fully realize something epochal is happening in politics, that there has never been a presidential year like 2016, and suddenly you are aware of it in a new, true and personal way. It tends to involve a poignant sense of dislocation, a knowledge that our politics have changed and won’t be going back. 

“We’ve had a lot to absorb—the breaking of a party, the rise of an outlandish outsider; a lurch to the left in the other party, the popular rise of a socialist. Alongside that, the enduring power of a candidate even her most ardent supporters accept as corrupt. Add the lowering of standards, the feeling of no options, the coarsening, and all the new estrangements.” 

Farther along in the piece, Ms Noonan writes: ‘'Then to my own email, full of notes from people pro- and anti- Trump, but all seemed marked by some kind of grieving. I looked up and saw Hillary Clinton yelling on TV and switched channels. Breaking news, said the crawl. A caravan of Trump supporters driving to an outdoor rally in Fountain Hills, Ariz., had been blocked by demonstrators. The helicopter shot showed a highway backed up for miles. No one seemed to be in charge, as is often the case in America. It was like an unmovable force against an unmovable object. 

“I watched dumbly, tiredly. Then for no reason—this is true, it just doesn’t sound it—I thought of an old Paul Simon song that had been crossing my mind, “The Boy in the Bubble.” I muted the TV, found the song on YouTube, and listened as I stared at the soundless mile of cars and the soundless demonstrators. As the lyrics came—“The way we look to a distant constellation / That’s dying in a corner of the sky / . . . Don’t cry baby / Don’t cry”—my eyes filled with tears. And a sob welled up and I literally put my hands to my face and sobbed, silently, for I suppose a minute. 

“Because my country is in trouble. 

“Because I felt anguish at all the estrangements. 

“Because some things that shouldn’t have changed have changed.

“Because too much is being lost. Because the great choice in a nation of 320 million may come down to Crazy Man versus Criminal. 

“And yes, I know this is all personal, and not column-ish. 

“But that was my Moment. 

“You’ll feel better the next day, I promise, but you won’t be able to tell yourself that this is history as usual anymore. This is big, what we’re living through.” 

And, as usual, Ms Noonan has captured the essence of the nation’s political quandary brilliantly. However, although she may be correct that the presidential race may come down to choosing between “Crazy Man versus Criminal,” this is still only April, with 6 months for the public to tire of the Crazy Man’s bombastic vapidity on one side. And the FBI is still out there on the other. 

Raising the ongoing question once more: Joe Biden, Mayor Bloomberg, Jerry Brown, and Starbuck’s chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, are reading this.  

That’s it for today folks.   

Adios