The little act that is destroying the country; The legacy of China's one-child policy...more links

The little act that is destroying the country
...With his Executive Order 10988 in 1962, President Kennedy imposed the “little Wagner act” on the entire country.  Now federal employees could join unions and negotiate wages, hours and overtime, vacations and holidays, work rules, and job security.  Other cities and states followed suit.  Politicians became entrenched with union support, the unions grew rich on Democrat largesse, the Democratic Party became the Party of Government, and the costs of operating government began to soar.

We’re still paying the consequences of that little act.  Our national debt doubles every eight years.  But no amount of money, it seems, is enough to improve the performance of employees who cannot be fired.  In recent years, we’ve learned of mind-numbing incompetence and spirit-sapping malfeasance by federal employees.  In “Fast and Furious,” the ATF sold guns to Mexican drug cartels – then lost track of them with predictable consequences.  Homeland Security failed to find 95% of smuggled weapons and explosives in a security test.  The EPA accidentally poisoned Colorado’s Animas River with three million gallons of toxic sludge.  The Department of Veterans Affairs wasted $6 billion on artwork, furniture, bloated contracts, and employee bonuses, while veterans died waiting for medical treatment.  Terrible tales of bungling have similarly tainted the CDC, the GSA, the IRS, the Pentagon, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, and even the Secret Service.

But nobody takes responsibility, nobody pays a price.  So when politicians tell us that some of us aren’t paying our “fair share,” and when we find out that we can’t dismiss even grossly incompetent “public servants,” well, that’s when our stomachs start to churn...

One Million Reasons Obamacare Made Things Worse   ...Yet if you paid any attention to the news over the weekend you probably noticed a Bloomberg story titled: “More Than 1 Million to Lose Obamacare Plans as Insurers Quit.” Its basic thrust is that insurance companies have been fleeing federal and state exchanges in droves because the law’s perverse incentives make further participation financially unsustainable. Thus, as it is phrased in the article, “At least 1.4 million people in 32 states will lose the Obamacare plan they have now, according to state officials.” This is the system Hillary pledges to “defend and expand” on her campaign website.

And, as with all stories about Obamacare, the further you read the uglier it gets. The Bloomberg story continues: “For the people losing plans, there are fewer and fewer choices… for at least 19 percent of the people in Obamacare’s individual market next year there will be only one insurer to choose from.” These plans will, of course, cost enrollees far more than the plans they are about to lose. Even the conservative estimates recently released by the Kaiser Family Foundation predicted that the average 2017 rate hike will double this year’s increases. Some states will see increases exceeding 50 percent...

Local GOP office in North Carolina firebombed

8 killed, 40 wounded in Chicago weekend shootings  

China drops one-child policy, but exhausted ‘tiger moms’ say one is plenty ...The problem is that many people don’t want a second child anymore. Having only one has become ingrained in Chinese culture and society, and people no longer believe the party should be telling them what to do in the bedroom.

So when officials in the city of Yichang in Hubei province issued a public letter in September exhorting party members to “respond to the party’s call” and “fully implement the two-child policy,” there was outrage online.

“You can’t just make people have kids when you want them to, or stop when you tell them, we are humans not pigs!” one person posted...


Oct 14, 2016

10 years ago Planet Earth changed our view of the world. Now we take you closer than ever before. This is life in all its wonder. This is Planet Earth II.