Blah blah blah... Cruz

Texas Senator Ted Cruz's wife Heidi is taking a leave to help her husband's campaign for the president. The Cruzes are leaving the $20,000 per year coverage she enjoyed at Goldman.

"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care " Cruz. 

 

Heidi Cruz's coverage became the subject of a small media tempest in 2013, after Cruz and House conservatives insisted on de-funding the ACA through the appropriations process. After the resultant government shutdown ended, Heidi Cruz confirmed that she was covered, and her husband benefited from Goldman's generous plan. 

 

Cruz is deftly using the oddly-enough angle of this news—Obama care-hating senator forced into Obama-care for a populist cause. He's not the first Republican to do so. 

 

One day after announcing himself as presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz fired a few shots across the bow of Wall Street, and the firm that employs his wife as managing director. 

 

He promise to repeal Obama care by 2017. After my wife goes back to work.

After five years of the Affordable Care Act, more than 16 million uninsured Americans have gained the security of health insurance.

 

Just a thought. 

Lorena Bobbitt again

Image is not related.

Investigators determined that the appendage of a 32-year-old man had "completely disappeared" following December attacks in the central province of Henan, government-owned media outlet HNR said.

Fan's wife took the radical step of chopping off his .... after she found out he was in a relationship with a 21-year-old woman.

Fan "rushed to a hospital" after the incident, and doctors re-attached his penis.

But his wife crept into a ward as he slept to claim the organ again.
The two subsequently clashed outside the facility, with a naked and bleeding Fan repeatedly beating his wife, until police arrived.

The double attacks appeared to have strengthened the romance between Fan and his mistress, with the two deciding to marry.
She was quoted as saying: "It doesn't matter if he turns out to be infertile, he has five children anyway."

The story may be, as reported, is fake. Just a thought.

What for?

Suicide bombers attacked a pair of mosques Friday in the Yemeni capital, unleashing monstrous blasts that ripped through worshippers and killed 137 people targeting Shiite rebels.

Shiite rebels known as Houthis have taken over the capital, Sanaa, and nine of the country's 21 provinces over the past six months, raising fears of a civil war tinged with sectarianism. The government has fled to the southern port city of Aden.

 

Yemen is already home to the most powerful branch of the al-Qaida network, which has been battling the Houthis for months.  Al-Qaida militants seized control of a southern provincial capital, al-Houta, in the group's most dramatic grab of territory in years. 

 

Both mosques are controlled by the Shiite Houthis, but they are also frequented by Sunni worshippers. Two suicide bombers activated during midday prayers, when large crowds turn out to attend weekly sermons. 

 

It also reported that a fifth suicide bomb attack on another mosque was foiled in the northern city of Saada a Houthi stronghold.

 

Can someone explain what is happening?

Just a thought.

Dance the Alternative?

Noted conservative commentator and talked-about Republican presidential contender Ben Carson cut to the chase about the fate of Obamacare.  There is absolutely no reason politicians can’t unravel, reinvent or outright repeal the health care plan and those who say otherwise are selling a lie.

“Health care is a gigantic issue, and there’s no question that the system was broken and that we needed to do something about it”. “What we did not need to do is create another massive government program, and we need to be looking at different ways of taking care of it.

There are things that can be done. We keep listening to people saying ‘the horse is out of the barn, you can’t get it back in there, end of story,’ [and] that’s a bunch of crap.

Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, also decried how Obamacare shifted the role of power in the nation and took health care out of the hands of the people and put it into the control of government.

All what I'm getting from the Republicans is "we can do it differently". When and who is going to have a healthcare system similar to what we currently have with more people covered?  So what is it? Give us the plan......

Just a thought.

Defending a terrorist...

He married his rehab nurse.

A long-time friend of the Boston Marathon bomber testified in court  that he gave Tsarnaev the gun later used in the shooting death of an MIT police officer.

Silva was the subject of an undercover federal investigation and pleaded guilty to charges including distribution of heroin, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

 

Silva testified he gave Tsarnaev a 9-millimeter handgun to use "for a rip" a robbery.

He "talked religion not in depth, not all the time" and described the suspect as not-violent and well liked. He emphasized that the pair enjoyed "typical teenage things," . In one dramatic moment, Silva was reminded that Tsarnaev once told him, "You don’t want to meet my brother."

 

Defense lawyers  elicit testimony that Tsarnaev was under the influence of his older brother and that he was not himself a committed terrorist.

 

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to the 30 counts against him, including charges of using a "weapon of mass destruction resulting in death," but his defense attorney has said that he participated in the bombing.

 

What a real uphill battle defending this guy.. He got caught, and got medically treated.

If you didn't liked it here you could have gone back. 

Just a thought.

Minimum Wage fight.

The contentious issue that is the minimum wage fight was never going to be a slam dunk. Now as the nation's biggest minimum wage hike ramps up in Seattle beginning next month, a top franchise lobby has been fighting back with a lawsuit that seeks to grant small businesses more time to comply with the law.

Seattle's City Council voted to raise the minimum wage in increments—to $15 an hour by 2017 for larger businesses with at least 500 staffers. But the International Franchise Association argues Seattle's ordinance discriminates against its members by lumping smaller franchisees with big businesses.

The national franchise group and five franchisees in the city filed the suit against the city last year. Oral arguments took place last week on a preliminary injunction motion potentially buying franchisees more time to implement the increase.

Under the ordinance, franchises are treated as large businesses because they receive the benefits of being associated with the larger franchisor network of many more than 500 employees," spokesman Viet Shelton said in an email to CNBC.

As a result, franchises have distinct advantages over the typical independent small business training, product development, and marketing support to name just a few.

We are big business when the money comes, small to pay. Franchises will pay.

Just a thought.

Hate no one.

A 20-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a shooting outside the headquarters of the Ferguson police department that injured two officers.  He was charged........

The two officers were injured during heated protests outside the police department after the resignation of the city’s police chief who stepped down in the wake of a Justice Department report that documented widespread racial bias in the city.  Biases that have gained national attention since the shooting of a black teen Michael Brown.

A handgun recovered matched shell casings found from the scene of the shooting.

It appears Williams [suspect] was the only person who fired any shots but there may be other people who were "participants." The investigation is ongoing.

Attorney General Eric Holder released a written statement on the arrest, saying it "sends a clear message that acts of violence against our law enforcement personnel will never be tolerated."

A statement on behalf of the Fraternal Order of Police in St. Louis said, "We are relieved for our brother officers, their families and the people of Ferguson that this dangerous gunman is off the street and behind bars where he belongs.

The man who shot at the police didn't help any one by his criminal act. Not his race, nor other races, not the elderly, nor the very young, not the business nor the town. It is just pure ignoranance and psychotic hate.

 Just a thought.

Driven part 3- Pao-Pao

During the emotional peak of Ellen Pao's cross-examination, Kleiner's attorney Lynne Hermle held an enormous board game on her shoulder, clutched at a Buddha and a book all gifts Pao and one of her partners had exchanged, offered as evidence.

Suddenly the gender discrimination lawsuit filed by Pao against her former employer, seemed almost funny.

Hermle chipped away at each of these, showing small but sometimes crucial moments when Pao could have voiced concerns to fix the issues she was having but didn't, instead only collecting evidence.
 

Three weeks into this trial, and, at times, it's getting absurd. The day was a rough slog through now familiar episodes in Pao's testimony  that the advances of a colleague, Ajit Nazre, had been unwelcome; that she'd received a book of erotic poetry and sketches from Randy Komisar; that she'd been left out of meetings and parties. Hermle chipped away at each these, showing small but sometimes crucial moments when Pao could have voiced concerns to fix the issues she was having but didn't, instead only collecting evidence.

     

In Hermle's recast of the events, Pao had ample opportunities and support from the firm to address workplace drama. Only after she was rejected from a number of job opportunities in 2011, and heard about a fellow colleague's experience being harassed by Nazre, did a plan emerge for asking the firm to pay her a severance. Hermle sought to show that Pao's notion of "having her story be told" and creating opportunities for other women only came in retrospect. The truth will come out no matter what

Just a thought.

Walkaway...!

 

An Indian bride has walked out of her wedding ceremony after her groom-to-be failed to solve a simple math problem. The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong, she walked out.  The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six. His reply: 17.

The groom's family tried persuading the bride to return, but she refused. She said the groom had misled them about his education. Local police mediated between the families and both sides returned all the gifts that had been exchanged before the wedding.

Most marriages in India are arranged by the families of the bride and groom. Except for brief meetings, the couple rarely get to know each other before the nuptials.

India is not the only country that has arranged marriages.   Look around you. They are closer than you think.

Just a thought.

Intactivists- Integrity

A judge issued an arrest order for a Florida woman who fled with her son to prevent his circumcision and ignored a demand to appear in court.

Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen signed the order in a seven-minute hearing, three days after finding Heather Hironimus in contempt and warning that she would face imprisonment unless she reported to court with the child.

Her attorney, Thomas Hunker, said his client is staying with her 4-year-old son in a shelter for domestic violence victims because the boy was "scared to death" of undergoing the surgery.

Hironimus and the boy's father, Dennis Nebus, were never married but share custody of their child. In a parenting agreement filed in court, the two agreed to the boy's circumcision, but the mother later changed her mind, leading to a long court battle.

Circuit and appellate judges have sided with the father, but potential surgeons have backed out after refusing to get the mother's consent or becoming the target of anti-circumcision protesters who side with her.

"She did this for one reason and one reason only: because the child is scared to death of this procedure," Hunker told Gillen, launching into a defense that was cut off by the judge.

Circumcision rates have fallen in the U.S.  Meantime, a movement opposing circumcision has developed, and the case has become a rallying cry for so-called "intactivists" who deride the surgery as barbaric. A small group of those anti-circumcision advocates gathered outside the court to demonstrate in support of Hironimus, and expressed outrage over the judge's order.

The mother doesn't want the procedure for her son, but she should have appeared in court. The father doesn't want to get married. That is a wash.

Just a thought.