America - The Official Thread

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Eunos_Cosmo
I think this is why relatively few Americans are kidnapped south of the border. There is almost no incentive. Now, there might be. And that's dangerous.
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If the movie 'Man on Fire' is to be believed, most of the 'Catch and Release' kidnapping culture down there only target people because it is usually more profitable to rip off the insurance company providing kidnapping insurance for the eventual victim. Ransom is usually paid, no questions asked, and the insurance company eventually covers the ransom payment to the victim's family. All the while, the victim themselves are usually treated like they were guests at an aunt or uncle's house.

Now I do concede that most of what I said is based off one movie, so I can't prove the accuracy of any of the information.
 
Sanji Himura
If the movie 'Man on Fire' is to be believed, most of the 'Catch and Release' kidnapping culture down there only target people because it is usually more profitable to rip off the insurance company providing kidnapping insurance for the eventual victim. Ransom is usually paid, no questions asked, and the insurance company eventually covers the ransom payment to the victim's family. All the while, the victim themselves are usually treated like they were guests at an aunt or uncle's house.

Now I do concede that most of what I said is based off one movie, so I can't prove the accuracy of any of the information.
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Well as I said, it's a business in which people are the product. Both of the people I have first hand knowledge of were treated well enough, but they were still kidnapped. In the case of my gf, her father payed USD1 Million for her release, if she wasn't exaggerating. No insurance involved.

I find this policy shift extremely reactionary. Yes, there are 30 Americans currently being held hostage. But there are between 3 and 6 MILLION Americans in various places overseas. It just seems really stupid for the US State Department or the White House to actively and deliberately communicate with criminals. These people don't represent any sort of state. They are purely criminals, and now they will be in direct communication, if not outright negotiation, with the highest state office in the world. I just don't understand why this change is being enacted. The policy of negotiating keeps people from being kidnapped. The policy of negotiating only helps people that are already kidnapped. I feel like this endangers a great many more people than it helps.
 
There is a hit piece out in the Miami Herald that had my ire for the better part of a day. The article, "written by Leonard Pitts Jr.", was a character assassination on Glenn Beck for not recognizing racism as racism that has Beck's attorneys after the paper.

Here is the quote that the article was based off of:

Glenn Beck
“I don’t know why this shooter shot people. He might shoot people because he’s a racist. He might have shot people because he’s an anarchist. He might have shot people because he hates Christians."
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Here is a bit of fact checking for you people who had to read that dribble in the paper. Glenn said that less than 12 hours before the first shot took place at Charleston, and before any information about the shooter was released to the media, in other words, this was said at the opening segment of the show on June 18th, around 9:00 AM Eastern time, and the first thing that he lists as a possible motive is racism. Keep that in mind because it gets stern from here.

At next segment in that same show, the details of the shooter was released to the public, identifying him as Dylan Roof, Glenn said this:

Glenn Beck
Looks like we have a name now of the killer. And we have some Facebook posts. It looks like he is a straight-up racist.
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[Now remember the picture that I posted about a page and a half back? The flags on his jacket were there by no accident. South Africa and Rhodesia were segregated countries back in the 90s, and if that really didn't tip off someone of racial issues, then I don't know what will.]

Here is a quote from Glenn at the 10:00 hour, keep in mind that it is still June 18th, the day after the shooting:

Glenn Beck
We have a pretty good idea he was a radical racist.
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Besides the opening segment's quote, none of the other two quotes from June 18th have appeared in the Miami Herald article, nor was this one from the following day:

Glenn Beck
We have race problems all around the country. Was this guy a bad racist? You bet he was!
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The paper had roughly 5 or 6 days to get the facts straight from the source, show archives, transcripts, so on before publication, but instead it tried to Libel Glenn by twisting a pre-fab quote that was selected from the ilk of Media Matters or the DailyKOS [the reason for singling out those two is because when Keith Obermann was on MSNBC, those were his go to sources] and write a hit piece.

Now Glenn has his attorney's involved...

Watch the takedown of the Miami Herald article below:


 
Sanji Himura
Well, when you have a president who says "racism is in our DNA", (front page of my local paper today, if you care for a source) you always draw out lunatics like these who want to whitewash history. Take for example the first thanksgiving. It wasn't celebrated in the fall like most Americans, and the calendar, would like you to believe. It was really was observed in the Spring for the pilgrims to give thanks for surviving their first winter in North America. It was through the efforts of Sarah Josepha Hale during the Civil War (by constantly petitioning President Abraham Lincoln with letters) that got Thanksgiving declared as a national holiday on the fourth Thursday in November.

That aside, the statement that "Racism is in our DNA" is completely wrong. Historically speaking, slavery was one of our darker sides of us, but we knew that at the moment that the constitution was written to recognize blacks as 3/5ths of a person, slavery, as an issue, would have to be addressed sooner or later. It was just sad that it had to be settled with bloodshed.
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The cause isn't served by calling this an isolated incident by a deranged lunatic. Better to serve your political ends by turning it into more fodder for the race baiters and race hustlers to continue to turn isolated incidents into national causes, while ignoring the real issues of economics, education, family integrity etc. that continue to plague the black community in the U.S.
 
Johnnypenso
The cause isn't served by calling this an isolated incident by a deranged lunatic. Better to serve your political ends by turning it into more fodder for the race baiters and race hustlers to continue to turn isolated incidents into national causes, while ignoring the real issues of economics, education, family integrity etc. that continue to plague the black community in the U.S.
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In the larger scale of things, such as crime statistics, this one crime is indeed a isolated incident, especially compared to the more robust number of crimes committed by blacks (if the victim is white or black is irrelevant, though more crimes are black on black). So why is this one case being singled out by the media? Answer: It is a white on black crime. According the FBI, in 2013 (the latest publically available statistics), there were 8,178 arrests made for murder or manslaughter committed by whites and blacks. Of that number, 3,799 were of whites, and 4,379 were black.

Whites are usually perpetrators of non-violent crime, with, again quoting 2013 FBI statistics, 855,225 arrests made for all around theft and arson with 363,952 blacks arrested for the same type of crimes. Whites are arrested 42% more often for theft than blacks, whereas 54% of all blacks are charged with murder committed in 2013.

Now, am I saying that Whites, as a general rule, do not commit violent crimes? Of course not. 46% of murder charges in 2013 were indeed committed by whites, but the general media attention is on a white killers because of race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson are pushing for a pro-black agenda on whites in America. Michael Brown wouldn't have gotten half of the media attention that it did had the national media stayed out of it and allowed the local authorities dealt with the matter as an officer involved shooting. Freddy Grey, again, wouldn't have half of the media attention that it got had this been dealt with as a local matter, but instead you have a vindictive mayor and a state attorney who has more baggage of conflict of interest than most attorneys are allowed to carry.
 
Won't matter anyway. The Medicare cuts are killing the rural health and critical access hospitals. They take hits every time Medicare is messed with, but there have been more that have closed since 2013 than in the last 10 years. I'm sure the hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts in the ACA had something to do with that.

At least they have insurance!

We've also hit an issue in Kentucky with community clinics that use volunteer physicians. Those physicians don't have the same amount of time to volunteer outside their regular clinic. Kentucky legislature had to pass a law allowing community health workers (CHW) to bill Medicaid. The best medical care some people are getting now are people without medical degrees making phone calls to physicians 40 miles away on their behalf.

I sit here at work trying to get someone to listen to me about telemedicine, but it requires legislation before anyone will support it. If we can't control it we can't support it, it seems. Half the basic primary care testing that can be done is possible with mobile devices now. We could fix this and save money, but none of the retired doctors that run our Department for Public Health can see it.
 
@FoolKiller

I've recently ran into some medical issues that I am trying to get taken care of without insurance and it's been an extreme uphill battle. I have the money to pay but it seems no one is willing to treat me, it is very disappointing to say the least.

What is the deal with that? I've done a bit of research but I can't see a legal reason I am denied services ffs... figured you might have some insight.
 
It would probably mess with their insurance. That, and they can't charge you a reasonable rate because then they couldn't write off the bill like they do with their network contracts.
 
squadops
@FoolKiller

I've recently ran into some medical issues that I am trying to get taken care of without insurance and it's been an extreme uphill battle. I have the money to pay but it seems no one is willing to treat me, it is very disappointing to say the least.

What is the deal with that? I've done a bit of research but I can't see a legal reason I am denied services ffs... figured you might have some insight.
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Depends on the state and your local laws and the way things are setup. You could be a financial liability or there is some thing the providers' insurance companies are advising them against. It's hard to tell.
 
:lol:

And yeah fk, they do seem simply afraid, kinda like the day in my teen years when I busted my arm apart on a 1/2 pipe in some dudes yard and I had to see the look on his mom's face.

Oh well, there are still some of us here :D
 
My local hospital's ER is a contractor-based system. The doctors that specialize in emergency treatment do come from outside the hospital, and as a result, there is usually only one or two M.D.s on staff, but the rest are usually from an alphabet soup of initials that, to be honest here, I think couldn't legally practice medicine otherwise.

My latest stint in the hospital was for a deep nasty cut that was stitched up in less than 20 minutes once I got into a room, but the issue came 10 days later for stich removal. I waited so long that a major rainstorm went through the area (as a result of the rain, flooding out a section of the main road between my town and Decatur, 45 minutes away), and on top of that, a nurse had to take me into the Oncology department to expand the 7 bed ER and to remove the stiches.

If that was bad for me, this law will be the end of emergency care in America.
 
ERs will always have extremely busy times. If anything the ACA is supposed to relieve ER wait times, but in my experience it hasn't made a difference. A severe fever and vomiting at 8:00 at night is an ER trip whether you have insurance or not. Short of mandating primary care clinics stay open 24 hours (which would be impossible) there is no legal way to relieve ER usage after 6:00 PM during the week or weekends in general.

Until I was put on the transplant list I never had a quick ER experience.
 
The supreme court has really lost it. This has been a terrible week for liberty and America. They may as well replace the court with HuffPo and Kos writers.
 
Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey is planning on running for President.
 
Omnis
The supreme court has really lost it. This has been a terrible week for liberty and America. They may as well replace the court with HuffPo and Kos writers.
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I'm assuming that you are referring to the state sovereignty issue and not the homosexual marriage issue.
 
Everything. It's a wreck. How can they legislate from the bench that all 50 states must support gay marriage? The correct thing to do would have been to strike down marriage as a state function, or to treat marriage/partnership as subsets of a greater legal construct.
 
And i often wonder what happened to their pocket versions of the constitution they swore to uphold :lol:

The87Dodge
Christie has made the New Jersey government corrupt, so I definitely don't want him as our President.
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He's not so bad, just another non republican running on his own made up terms.
 

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