March 31st . Did you Sign up?

 Hi Folks did ya enroll ? Ides of March 31st are
here.

It's here the  ***March 31st deadline to en-roll into the Obama-Care ( California Covered) insurance scheme is upon us . So Far nation wide 5 million have enrolled , but who are they? Between all the glitches on the web site over the past year , many of kinks seemed to ironed out . Now Obama - Care is still failing to enroll younger people on average it's been stacking up with older Americans with catastrophic illness . There is a penalty for not signing up for any health care by Monday’s deadline. You pay $95 or 1 percent of your income, whichever is greater. The amount increases every year. The government is making exceptions if you at least tried to sign up or have special circumstances. Obama administration officials are adamant that the fast-approaching March 31 deadline to enroll in health coverage will not budge. President Obama himself stressed the firm deadline at a town-hall event Thursday in Washington aimed at urging Latinos to enroll. One could be excused for thinking that the individual-mandate deadline might be allowed to slip. The first two months of open enrollment were hobbled by the massive problems with HealthCare.gov and some of the state-run exchanges. And so many other aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have changed since the law went into effect, including two delays to the employer mandate to provide coverage. Several regulatory changes were just announced on Wednesday.The biggest change was that the administration is now allowing people with plans that don’t meet ACA criteria to extend those plans to the end of 2016, if the insurers agree. That itself is the second such extension of so-called subpar plans, a remedy aimed at addressing Mr. Obama’s frequent false promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Ah -ha. t' is funny, in an expensive kind of way. They will keep delaying it until they are able to bribe enough suckers to make their quotas. Meanwhile  still Millions of people in the United States will remain uninsured despite this week’s final, frenzied push to sign them up under the health law. Their reasons are all over the map.You’ve heard about the achievement gap, the wide disparity in educational performance between disadvantaged minorities and the rest of the student population.Now comes the insurance gap, and in California it’s playing out most notably in the number of Latinos and Asian-Americans signing up for private health plans under the new health care law.Of the nearly 700,000 people who enrolled in a health plan as of Feb. 28 through the Covered California health insurance exchangeand identified their ethnicity, 23.1 percent were Asian or Pacific Islander. Twenty-two percent were Latino. Experts attribute the disparity to several factors: Asians are more comfortable and more familiar with using government services, and the level of outreach by ethnic community groups on Obamacare has been much more strategic in Asian communities than in the Latino community. Also, fears about interacting with the government in Latino households with mixed immigration statuses have held down the number of Latinos signing up for health plans. The Times notes that Covered California, the state version of HealthCare.gov, "did not offer applications in Spanish until the end of December, and a Spanish-language site was dogged by translation errors." Surprisingly, this did not yield the turnout among Latinos they were expecting. The "Big" joke here is that Of course they haven't enrolled. If you could live totally off of the grid in a cash and barter based society. ## Pay little to no taxes. Receive all of the social services you need. Live in relative comfort and safety far better than you've ever know....Would you risk exposure to pay for something you already get for free?

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** and if you can't enroll by the April 15th, you can apply for the April 30th extension. If that's not good for you, there is all ways the May 15th extension, or, if needed the May 30th extension. If you think your schedule will still be a problem, then take advantage of the 2 for 1 special - apply now for a June 15th deadline extension and get a FREE upgrade to the June 30 extension! Hurry! Apply for your extension while this amazing offer is still available! ‘Signing up’ means you have visited the websites (either Fed or State) and completed an insurance application; it doesn’t mean they actually have insurance, nor that they have paid for the policy.. Let’s see what the Insurance Co’s report in their Q1 SEC reporting; I’ll bet you’re going to see a ‘lot fewer’ actual paid policies issued than 6 million.. ##. Latinos maybe are going get MORE out of Obama-Care as reported “Whether they’re Mexican nationals or whether they’re United States citizens or whether they’re in transition– and if they’re there it is our responsibility within all of America to educate on the Affordable Care Act,” Enroll America field organizer Jose Medrano told Breitbart News on Wednesday. Mexican nationals and U.S. citizens alike were encouraged to sign up for coverage under the Obamacare exchange at a “health fair” hosted by theMexican Consulate in Brownsville, Texas, last week.“Promoting Obamacare at a Mexican consulate raises three major policy concerns,” Stephen Miller, a spokesman for top immigration hawk, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told Breitbart News. “One, the possibility that illegal immigrants could fraudulently access federal subsidies; two, that such promotions provide a financial inducement to unlawfully enter the U.S. [or overstay a visa] by offering households headed by illegal immigrants federal subsidies through their legal relatives or dependents; and three, that these activities widen an existing flaw in our legal admissions process by continuing to subvert the principle that those seeking to lawfully enter the U.S. should be financially self-sufficient.”

" By Their fruits Yee shall know them."

Senator Yee Scandal , how many more are
are  in  line ?

California Democratic State Senator Leland Yee  scandal broke out this week , and as the page turns in the news it gets even  more LURID as in details. Who would not know that your your elected government official as being 'corrupt' ? Come on now . An affidavit filed in federal court in San Francisco by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua said there was probable cause to believe that Yee had conducted wire fraud and had engaged in a conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally export firearms. Here what's  we now becomes lurid .  Quoting some news sources  that *** Yee  wanted to sell  shoulder-fired automatic weapons and missiles to a Muslim separatist group  , in exchange for campaign donations, according to court documents unsealed Wednesday. Leland Yee is well know in  ##California as a anti-gum Senator He's one of the biggest anti-Amendment Two people you'll find in the Democrat Party. This story also uncovered 26 people, a high-profile case that could affect statewide elections and brings to three the number of Democratic state senators who face criminal charges  Yee was released on $500,000 bond and declined to comment on the case. A criminal complaint posted online by the U.S. Attorney office for the Northern District of California alleges that Yee did favors for an undercover FBI agent in exchange for campaign contributions. The complaint alleges that Yee also offered to facilitate a meeting between the undercover agent and an arms dealer, and discussed the types of weapons that the undercover agent might need. Yee's arrest deals a body blow to California Democrats, whose two-thirds majority in the state Senate was eroded when Senator Ron Calderon, indicted on corruption charges, and State Senator Rod Wright, found guilty of voter fraud, took paid leaves of absence earlier this year. I don't whine when any corrupt politician gets busted...I don't know why people of both political stripes put so much faith in these idiots...all of you need to wake up and realize politicians DO NOT have your interests in mind...no one is "fighting" for you...get a grip.  So there are currently 28 Democrats in the CA State Senate, and this news means more than 10% of them are confirmed criminals. Sen. Wright was convicted on 8 counts of voter fraud, Sen. Calderon has been charged with 24 counts including wire fraud, bribery, money laundering, and tax evasion, and now Sen. Yee is involved in this latest mess. How much of the Chinese crime syndicate is involved is yet to be seen , Yee himself is a member of  the  "secret organization" himself. One of the warrants was served at the Ghee Kung Tong Supreme Lodge in San Francisco’s Chinatown, which houses the Chinese Freemasons of the World at 36 Spofford St. Believe me this is going  to get stranger, Yee may be one of the biggest hypocrite ever. 

Matthew 7:16-20

 Yee shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits yee shall know them.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

***The object of Senator Yee’s conspiracy was to distribute a wide array of weapons ranging from the Israeli made Tavor assault rifle to shoulder fired rockets and even including discussions about acquiring artillery pieces.  During conversations about the plot, Senator Yee, told the undercover FBI agent that there would be “multiple opportunities” for him to help in future arms deals, especially if Senator Yee became California Secretary of State.  Senator Yee specifically noted that “Africa was a largely untapped market for trade” and that by utilizing his new position as California Secretary of State, he could help the undercover agent “ship weapons directly to Africa.”  Senator Yee insisted that the conspirators focus on his election campaign for California Secretary of State, then turn their attention to completing the arms deal. ##Yee authored bills like SB 47, SB 108 and SB249 to regulate and eliminate magazine fed firearms in California.. To the FBI buyer, Senator Yee was precise when he asked and guaranteed delivery of fully automatic weapons along with shoulder fired missiles. Yee sold public safety to the public media while seeking to privately profit from public violence. Stated simply, Yee sought to disarm ordinary citizens while he funneled guns to criminals.

SAVING GREAT BRITAIN. The UK.

 Scotland wants to be free of England . I say
not so fast.

As the saying goes of the UK goes so does the world. I stand here for SAVING the United Kingdom of England . While the west is soaking in Russia's issues with Ukraine and Crimea . No media has barked about the Scotland's referendum of independence . It sound's good and dandy that SCOTLAND seeks independence from ENGLAND , but I hearken just where will be the term UNITED KINGDOM? Exactly six months from now, Scots will go to the polls to vote on the future of their country. On September 18, voters will be presented with a simple yes/no question: Should Scotland be an independent country?The Scottish government, led by the Scottish National Party, says this is a "once in a generation opportunity" for Scotland's people to take control of the decisions that affect them most. A "yes" vote means that "Scotland's future will be in Scotland's hands," it says, and that life will be better and fairer for its people. British Prime Minister David Cameron wants Scotland to remain part of an undivided United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He says that it is a decision solely for the Scottish people -- but that remaining part of the United Kingdom will give them security and strength. "There will be no going back," he warns.Can I ask the Scots just who they think they are gaining "independence" from? Westminster, maybe? Do they think of Scotland as a "country"? The truth is that Scotland is a "region" of the EU, and has been since 1988 when the EU drafted Regulation 2052/88 which led to the splitting of the UK into 12 "regions", and our traditional counties and divisions disappeared. Of course it suits the (mis)leaders to maintain the myth and thus divide us even more. It is not Westminster running Scotland, but Brussels. Of course for me it's -un conceivable that a United Kingdom would remain ruled symbolically by a ** queen if this happens . As debate over Scotland's independence referendum heats up, an opinion poll showed a rising number of English and Welsh want Scotland to stay in the 307-year group forged by the Treaty of the Union that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain. A YouGov poll found 54 percent want voters north of the border to reject independence at a referendum on Sept. 18. Scottish independence might have a destabilizing effect on the whole UK. The British government warned Scotland  that if it votes to leave the United Kingdom, it would not be able to keep the British currency, the venerable pound sterling.Scotland would certainly be accepted by the EU and adopt the Euro. If Scotland leaves, there is no UK obligation to allow Scotland's continued use of the pound. Indeed, imprudent Scottish economic decisions could be a detriment to the pound just as Irish, Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese economic policies have injured the euro. well for the record i do not want Scotland to leave the United Kingdom. but i fully understand that if on September 18th the Scottish vote YES to leave then that is their democratic right. make no mistake about it, it will be a sad day in our History. So as the rest of the UK contemplates the possibility of Scotland leaving we have to continue with the business of what's best for our future and National interests. Which raises the real question at the heart of the independence debate: would it actually be worth it? All I say to this here . I want to keep the United Kingdom united , it makes more sense in the word , it would make England almost non-existent .

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** The Queen is also Queen of Scotland by right.  Her private property (e.g. Balmoral) will remain her own private property and the state property (e.g. Hollyrood House and the Scottish crown jewels) would transfer to Scotland from the UK

America . Let go of Crimea .

There is no reason for hostilities with
Russia.

I was just  curious about Crimea , just thumbing looking at  'Hammond Atlas of World History'  I found  looking up on the history of Crimea and the Ukraine . To my shock and astonishment both Crimea and Ukraine have been in Russian hands for nearly 1000 years . Between 1492-1610 Crimea was under the control of the Mongols , it seems odd that only in the 1000 year history the city of  ## Kiev was Russian. I have now to question , with all this is are we getting all the information , just to assume the Ukraine was always some independent state? Sarcasm is sometimes hard to see in print. As Americans we are used to see our  political propaganda waved down to us from our government much like any authoritarian system in disguise as "democratic". The U.S. is being confrontational with Russia for no reason. This is between Crimea and the Ukraine. If the U.S./EU are funding the unelected Ukraine govt. why shouldn't Russia support the Russians in Crimea? They wanted protection from the Ukrainian thugs, that's all that Putin has done. There are international monitors at the polling places in Crimea. The votes are more honest than in the U.S. since the U.S. wont allow monitors. I am glad Putin decided to be aggressive politically instead of being cooperative with Kerry. I don't think the U.S. expected Russia to stand up for itself and its views. Most of the problem was not really Russia's OWN FAULT , you have throw the blame on the Ukrainian people who revolted in the first place  . So far you have to draw the line Crimea had been part of Russia since the 18th century until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in 1954, a mere formality until the 1991 Soviet breakup left the region part of Ukraine. Putin noted that both Russians and Crimea's majority ethnic Russian population see annexation as correcting a historic insult. So my take is for America is let Crimea go.....


NOTES AND COMMENTS:

The people of Crimea has spoken. They want what they want! Right or wrong who are we to judge What is the benefit to any of us if Crimea ,that many Americans don't have an idea where it is, to be With Russia or Ukraine.Leave the people alone start fighting poverty racism, unemployment, and dis pare in the USA and I can assure you that the people of Ukraine will find the way out without our help! Why is this action of any concern to the USA? We can topple governments, overthrow regimes and it is ok. But if anyone else does it.... Oh No!!! We need to fix the USA and its problems and let the world deal with their problems. Our foreign policy really really sucks. ## KIEV was one of the first Russian Capitals in the 9th Century AD founded by Vikings called Rus , although over the 1,400 year period Kiev remained semi independent from the emerging Kingdom's of Poland and Lithuania until   1667, the Truce of Andrusovo was concluded, in which the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded Smolensk, Severia and Chernigov, and, on paper only for a period of two years, the city of Kiev to the Tsardom of Russia. Finally, the Eternal Peace of 1686 acknowledged the status quo, and put Kiev under the control of Russia for the centuries to come with the territory, slowly losing the autonomy which was finally abolished in 1775 by the Empress Catherine the Great. None of the Polish-Russian treaties concerning Kiev have ever been ratified.^[22]

Government Spying on the "Spy".

Hypocrisy runs deep in Congress.

The followup revelations that leaked this week show that our American government is not too sure of it's self anymore . Case in point . CIA spying on US Senators . The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the CIA of secretly removing classified documents from her staff's computers in the middle of an oversight investigation, while another lawmaker said Congress should "declare war" on the spy agency if it's true. I all most laughed , just how low and ridiculous the "spying" has gotten to. Right now I going to thank Edward Snowden for leaking things , OK we did not realize that a government agency like the NSA was wire tapping civilian cell phones , and internet communications without a warrant. Yes, some of the spying I agree is needed to sniff out terrorists alike , but I think our government took much liberty on more spying ,  ease dropping on American's because  since it is also fighting  @cyber-crime. Dianne Feinstein didn’t mean to pick a fight with Edward Snowden when she took to the floor of the Senate on Tuesday to demand that the C.I.A. apologize after they, in her words, “went and searched the committee's computers.” The committee in question is the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Feinstein chairs—and which has been investigating the C.I.A.’s “Detention and Interrogation” (read: torture) program for years.  ***The senior senator from California called Agency’s alleged search and removal of documents from committee drives a “defining moment” in congressional oversight and vows that she’s “not taking it lightly.” But this is hardly the first time Feinstein has thrown a blow: Earlier this year, she accused N.S.A. whistleblower Edward Snowden of “treason” and grilled the N.S.A. for not having been able to prevent the former Booz Allen contractor from disclosing the agency’s unpredicted surveillance programs. It's okay to spy on the American people but when they spy on Feinstein or other Senators she doesn't like it. Have a taste of your own medicine Feinstein, it's about time you realize what the average American people worry about daily, your people snooping on average American's phone calls with no reasoning behind it.As it happened, John Brennan, the director of the C.I.A., was scheduled to appear at the Council on Foreign Relations soon after she spoke. Feinstein had described an “emergency meeting” where she was informed that “without prior notification or approval, C.I.A. personnel had conducted a search—that was John Brennan’s word,” of her staff’s computers. She said that she’d sent him letters with questions and had got no answers. At C.F.R., Andrea Mitchell, of NBC, asked Brennan about Feinstein’s complaints. “As far as the allegations of, you know, C.I.A. hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan replied. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean that’s, that’s, that’s—just beyond the scope of reason.” News sources say.  Thankfully the liberal  media is grilling back , Jon Stewart tore into Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Wednesday night's "Daily Show," ripping her for what he perceived ashypocrisy in a burgeoning CIA spying scandal. But Stewart took on Feinstein because she has offered full-throated defenses of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. "See she doesn't mind that if our security apparatus might be looking at your stuff, cause your stuff is s—," Stewart said. "But her s— is stuff."Stewart said it was shocking the allegations were not coming from more privacy-focused senators, like Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden or Kentucky Republican Rand Paul. Rather, they came from "Dianne 'so the NSA is looking at your data' Feinstein." The hypocrisy here is f*cking astounding. Ms Feinstein defends the NSA's unfettered spying on telephone and Internet activities of the American people; world leaders (that are our allies); the C.I.A.’s authority over drone strikes and the F.B.I.’s nefarious actions under the Patriot Act. But, she gets completely apoplectic over the fact that the CIA targeted her; her staff and the Senate intel comm. Citing constitutional violations. The Constitution! You know it's that thing that Congress demands to be protected by, but the American people are becoming less and less protected by. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

***What? Since when has the CIA ever been interested in the wrongdoings of any administration? They have more often than not been a tool of those administrations' wrongdoing. @  The irony about the cyber-crime is the fallout from all the spying The Wall Street Journal reported that the Commerce Department announced the decision to transition out of managing domain names and addresses for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The move is planned for September 2015, when the current contract runs out, the Journal added.According to the Journal, the move is considered a response to international backlash that the U.S. faced as a result of the National Security Agency spying scandal. The Washington Post adds that the move is likely to please those critics, but business leaders could be concerned. Back in January, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé warned HuffPost Live that the "biggest threat" to innovation on the Internet is a fragmented web."If we cannot find a way to govern the Internet in an equal footing, in an open transparent way this year, we might descend into a fragmented version of the Internet," Chehadé said. "The moment we fragment the Internet it is possible there will be tariffs between borders, there will be rules... it will not be the internet as we know it."

Fight 370 MYSTERY .

Like the in Twilight Zone  a whole airliner
vanishes !

Conspiracy theory time. Just what happened to  Malaysia Airlines flight 370 ? I have read several on the internet . I hope and presume ( though not much encouragement ) that any of the flights passengers are alive . The media is abuzz with theories including UFO's . There is a suspicious thing about the flight just disappearing  off the radar that is uncanny . Still no wreckage . As of now and what I write might be "proven" wrong so I put this as my disclaimer , that is that the airliner was "hijacked" and flown to some location . I want that to be true to the latter , that would mean that many of the passengers are still alive , and being held some place . The other is more likely that the airliner had a fuselage issue and exploded over the water in mid air like  ***TWA 800 of a decade ago. So far nothing pins out , for me I believe it may have been hijacked . I am sure that Home-Land security is trying to pin the airliner , and the American government's interest is  to find Malaysia 370. There have been many conspiracy theories surrounding the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 coming from all corners of the globe, but which one can accurately explain the planes disappearance?Speculation that the Malaysia Airlines plane disintegrated in mid-flight was one of the first to come on the scene after reports filtered in that the plane had mysteriously vanished. “The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet (10,600 metres),” said a source involved in the investigations in Malaysia, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. However, one aviation expert told the South China Morning Post that it was mysterious that even if the plane had disintegrated into thin air, there were still no signs of the derbies detected on radar. What we now know is that Boeing 777 jetliner headed to Beijing changed course and made it to the Malacca Strait, hundreds of miles away from the last location reported by civilian authorities. It seems almost unbelievable that in this day and age a large passenger jet can disappear without a trace. Surely the satellite systems have some information? Perhaps there is much more to this than the authorities (and governments?) are letting on. It was announced on Mar. 10 that five passengers checked in for Flight MH370 but did not get on the plane. Their luggage was removed just before the plane took off, according to Mail Online. As of now, it has not been revealed why the people decided not to get on the flight, it was reported that the 2 stolen passports were used with 2 tickets which were purchased by an Iranian man who: a) bought the tickets at the last-minute, b) paid cash, and c) only purchased one-way tickets. All three are signs of potential terrorism and therefore, although early, Low-flying planes can sometimes avoid radar detection. There is no set height they must be under, but the farther away they are from a radar station, the higher they can be because of the angle of the radar antenna and the curvature of the Earth. Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar, who has been ordered to look at possible criminal aspects in the disappearance of Flight MH370, said hijacking, sabotage and issues related to the pilots' psychological health were all being considered. Over the past few days, search teams have been scouring tens of thousands of square miles of ocean off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea.The search also encompasses the land in between the two areas of sea.But it could be days, weeks or even months before the searchers find anything that begins to explain what happened to the plane. Until then the "theory" stays till something turns up for the clueless.

Update:

There is NOW a new 'Theory" that Flight MH370 was flown to Pakistan , Lieutenant General Tom McInerney was among the very first to say ON FOX's HANNITY  that the Malaysian airliners jetliner could have been hijacked and it could have landed in Pakistan. If so is being retrofied to house a weapon of mass destruction? A nuke?  I can see the urgency and wake up call to find this aircraft before it flies into our skies.

Update 2.
It seems that "debris" was found In what officials called the "best lead" of the nearly two-week-old aviation mystery, a satellite detected two objects floating about 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia and halfway to the desolate islands of the Antarctic. One of the objects on the satellite image was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) long and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from southwestern Australia, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division.

Any how not  to be any disrespectful to all the families who have may have lost love ones , it is clear that something went wrong . The Malaysian government can't get a straight answer , because they don't exactly understand the seriousness of the tragedy .

If not . It's the BIGGEST JOKE EVER PULLED . 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

***NTSB revealed in a 400-page report that the crash was likely caused by a short circuit that ignited fuel vapors in the center wing tank, which delivers excess heat from air conditioning units out of the plane. The explosion, which occurred 11 minutes into the flight, separated the nose of the plane from the cabin, lifting it into the air before bursting into flames and nose-diving into the ocean.

Comcast & Time Warner deal . Opinion.

Between  Russia , and the deep blue sea . One BIG event in American capitalism is the merger of organizations and businesses that no longer leave any room to the little guy. Comcast’s deal to buy Time Warner Cable is not fantastic  . Its a matter of  fact frighting in this day and age of "free flowing internet " ( free was never free , but...)  . The flow of information is vary vital . We have heard that there was  issues with the control of bandwidth , and streaming . As a Comcast subscriber in the digital age I see that last remnants of the long failed  (1) "Deregulation" of Cable  is down the sewer. The proposed $45-billion transaction has sparked social media solidarity among those who hate Comcast, Time Warner Cable or both. Also *** AT&T Uverse is no better . Consumers are left with vary few choices , that are extremely expensive , and that steal your money. Sen. Al Franken, the MN Democratic who once toiled on behalf of Saturday Night Live, fears the plan will result in higher cable bills and worse service.

“There’s not enough competition in this space, and what we need is more competition, not less,” Franken said in a statement to The Hill.

Another problem resides with this deal.  3 million subscribes will soon be kicked out of bother services , just to barter a merger. Companies as large as Comcast & TWC should never been allowed to merge, both for anti-competitive reasons and jobs. Can anyone really argue that mega-mergers of the past have been good for consumers? The 10 largest cable operators serve about 85 percent of all cable subscribers. And the three largest cable operators - Comcast, Time Warner and Charter - together serve approximately 56 percent of all cable subscribers, up from 48 percent in 1996. Consolidation in the cable industry has been justified on the grounds that bigger companies would operate more efficiently and incur lower costs, which would translate into lower rates.Congress must empower state public utility commissions (PUC) to regulate all cable rates and charges for video services until meaningful competition emerges. Congress should grant state public utility commissions the authority to regulate all cable rates and charges and to combat anti-competitive predatory-pricing business practices. With the 1996 Act's deregulation, rates for the cable programming tier to which the vast majority of consumers subscribe have inflated without restraint. Consumer rate protections at the state level are needed, but state PUC rate regulation is only necessary and desirable until robust competition that actually disciplines cable prices emerges.Prohibit cable broadband content restrictions to allow consumers full use of the Internet. Cable operators have a long history of restricting consumer access to content that cable operators disfavor. With the cable industry's ongoing dominance of the broadband market, cable operators must be prohibited from restricting consumer access to Internet content based on the source or nature of the consumer's request. The Future depends on some great inventor who would make WI-FI free to the public in America , with all air-waves that are digital , and sold out to the giant monsters like Comcast and Warner . WI-FI is the only hope to cut the cable cord , the digital cord . It will also depend on the public out cry to reach Congress , set the air waves free again.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

***Nobody's safe anywhere anymore, but my choice on communications would always be ATT over charter, time warner and all the rest. Our building is monopolized by charter who holds an actual key to the room that ATT would like to enter to provide us with ATT service, and are not allowed. It's monopoly and we are not happy campers here. (1) .Certainly deregulation has been good to cable. Consumers Union, the nonprofit that puts out Consumer Reports magazine, took a look at the results. Their conclusion? It led to much, MUCH higher prices. "Until 1984, local governments kept cable prices in check," says CU. "Then deregulation resulted in a torrent of price hikes, interrupted only by a brief period, 1993-1996, when rates were regulated. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 opened the flood gates to deregulation and more price hikes. Since passage of the 1996 Act, cable rates have increased by 59 percent—almost three times the rate of inflation—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics." However, Comcast backlash is not new — websites have popped up over the last few years denouncing the company.  One such site, comcastsucks.org, has a simple message: “This site is dedicated to letting Comcast know what they need to do to (hopefully) become a responsible business entity.”

Kerry's and Yulia's dream.

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine ,

 Yulia 

 I am a bit worried about the " Ukrainian Crisis",  first there are a lot of  hot heads on either side.  I am also a bit curious how good American 'diplomacy' is at this point.  In my last blog about the Ukraine , I pointed out that although our nation acts as the 'leader of the free world',  it pokes it's nose into way too many international incidents that it has no control of , and ignores countless others  as ( in Africa ) . I don't want to be the 'devils advocate' , ## but I see that Russia has every right to invade Ukraine. Sure you think I am harsh , and pro- Russian but ***My arguments  to that are that the Ukrainian instability threatens the rest of the region . You would think otherwise , and Russia is the bad guy ? The new Ukrainian government seems too unstable as it is right now ,  it's likely to be over turned as well. The Ukrainian people as far as their country is concerned,  never had a 'stable democracy' it seems since the fragmentation of the Soviet Union . Let alone  acting as a independent state,  it was always under  - part of the former Soviet Union. I remember at one time that a  lovely woman who led Ukraine she was  Prime Minister Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko who was arrested and thrown into prison on corruption charges  by the current overthrown  Viktor Yanukovych. The Orange Revolution was squandered by infighting between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko they are just as responsible for what is now happening .  It becomes vary clear that the Ukrainian people may have loved Yulia over Viktor , with no sense of the word 'revolution' one too many . There is another prospect , that of John Kerry . I know that he is going to fly to Ukraine to show solidarity  . What bother's me is  that Kerry is not meeting directly with Vladimir Putin in order to defuse a situation . Secondly I find John Kerry a bit of a load mouth , Kerry boasted : “He's going to lose on the international stage," Kerry told David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Russia is going to lose, the Russian people are going to lose, and he's going to lose all of the glow that came out of the Olympics, his $60 billion extravaganza."  I just laugh what Kerry said , you know what a tough guy sounds like .  Also the recently  "leaked" transcript between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey  Pyatt gives a creepiness to this situation ,( Go here ) apparently bugged phone conversation in which a senior US diplomat disparages the EU over the Ukraine crisis has been posted online. The alleged conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared on YouTube on Thursday. It is not clearly when the alleged conversation took place. Supports Putin's claim that :  "I have a feeling that they sit somewhere in a lab in America over a big puddle and conduct experiments, as if with rats, without understanding the consequences of what they are doing," he said. It shows as well  that greed plays a part of everything, the DOW flopped because of the crisis , The world’s 300 wealthiest people lost a combined $44.4 billion yesterday as global stocks tumbled the most in a month and the ruble dropped to an all-time low amid Russia’s growing military presence in Ukraine. 

Kerry pledges 1 billion dollars in aid ,

 our money.

The day’s biggest losers were Gennady Timchenkoand Leonid Mikhelson, who fell a combined $3.2 billion after OAO Novatek slumped almost 18 percent, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the richest people on Earth. The two billionaires own almost half of Russia’s largest gas producer after Gazprom OAO. John Kerry arrives in the Ukraine with promises of 1 billion dollars in aid of our hard earned "tax money", Anyway, I can think of a lot of things that the money could be better spent on here in the US. It's funny how we have over 16 Trillion Dollars in debt yet we can pull money out of our ass to give to the Ukranians, and the Ukranians will use it pay the Russians, yet we are threatening economic sanctions. Meanwhile the hope that the Ukrainians have not have any  short of a civil war is having  Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko back in power,  Tymoshenko got as far as she did on her good looks, and that, unless she herself decides not to run, silly Ukrainians will return her to power, fooled by what the Economist calls her “terrifying … sexual magnetism.” “Don’t let her looks fool you,” writes the Daily Beast. Instead, pay attention to “Tymoshenko’s not-so-pretty past.” The Wire says that male pundits find Tymoshenko sexually threatening, but it isn’t just the men focused on her looks. The New Republic’s Julia Ioffe describes Tymoshenko’s national political emergence in 2004 as a “Ukrainian-speaking Joan of Arc, a newly dyed blonde with a peasant braid ringing her head like a halo.”

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** How would the United States react if the the government of Mexico were overthrown by a violent revolution ? , I pretty sure that we would see Yankee troops down south . ##"Comments from US and British officials on Ukraine are under particular scrutiny as both countries signed the Budapest Memorandum with Ukraine and Russia in 1994, affirming “their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of  Ukraine”. Is it possible to be so disgusted with your country's leaders and policies, that countering the absurdities becomes too onerous and painful, cause that is how I feel. Fate placed the US denouement in their five billion dollar coup scheme, in Russia's hands. There is a subliminal separatist movement smoldering between the Bandera nationalist memorialists and the Crimea, East and South. The nation state is stricken, the fault line exposed by the Nuland and Pyatt fracking of Ukrainian historic unconscious. Separatism is now on the table as a consequence. The US, in their usual imbecility in foreign menacing, brought about this exigency. Russia's actions are perfectly sane and moral in response to this coup and shattering of any unity left by  the Americans. Kerry's words are so absurd, we might as well open James Joyce and put a finger on a passage for guidance and truth; it might be more meaningful.