Marine amputee runs Boston Marathon carrying American flag

Photo credit: Runner's World

The Boston Marathon took place earlier today, and The Washington Examiner reported the following inspirational story:

Retired Texas Marine Staff Sgt. Jose Sanchez is a recovering amputee, but that didn't stop him from leaving an indelible mark on this year's Boston Marathon.

Sanchez was injured in 2011 while serving in Afghanistan and has been private about the incident until now.

For five years, a gift Sanchez received from his fellow Marines remained unopened. Yet, it was that gift that changed his perspective and spurred him from his antisocial state.

The gift was a large American flag signed by his fellow troops with notes of encouragement and inspiration.

Sanchez was determined to not merely put the flag away, but to display it in honor of the troops who motivated him to get past his anger and depression and find a positive outlet to give back. So he proudly displayed the flag as he ran the Boston Marathon.

Read the rest here.

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Easter Egg Rolling at the White House

“A color-tinted magazine illustration of children 

being watched by their caretakers 

at an 1880s White House Easter Egg Roll. 

Source: whitehousehistory.org”

It was probably First Lady Dolley Madison who introduced the egg roll to Washington, DC.  A White House “frozen in time” page provides the history of the White House egg roll here.

The countdown to the Trump Administration's first Easter Egg Roll is here. (And if you do an online search, you will find the usual media carping about the 2017 White House Easter Egg Roll, from Vanity Fair wailing over how disorganized the administration is, to the NY Times reporting in its "Politics" section how behind the staff is in its planning, to claims that the Egg Roll was cancelled for this year. Is there anything the MSM won't use to try to discredit the Trump Administration?

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Pentagon awards contract to United Airlines

Michael Yon's FB page linked to this gem:

Pentagon awards contract to United Airlines to forcibly remove Assad

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Coulter on free market healthcare

Image credit: North Country Public Radio

Sorry, I have been off the air for a couple of weeks, and when I got back online this weekend, I found a column by Ann Coulter on HER solution to the healthcare repeal-replace dilemma. Here’s are several extracts and the whole thing (from a little over a week ago) is here.

It’s always impossible to repeal laws that require Ann to pay for greedy people, because the greedy run out on the streets wailing that the Republicans are murdering them.

Obamacare is uniquely awful because the free stuff isn’t paid for through income taxes: It’s paid for through MY health insurance premiums. This is unfortunate because I wanted to buy health insurance.

Perhaps you’re not aware — SINCE YOU EXEMPTED YOURSELVES FROM OBAMACARE, CONGRESS — but buying or selling health insurance is illegal in America.

Right now, there’s no free market because insurance is insanely regulated not only by Obamacare, but also by the most corrupt organizations in America: state insurance commissions. (I’m talking to you, New York!)

Federal and state laws make it illegal to sell health insurance that doesn’t cover a laughable array of supposedly vital services based on bureaucrats’ medical opinions of which providers have the best lobbyists.

As a result, it’s illegal to sell health insurance that covers any of the medical problems I’d like to insure against. Why can’t the GOP keep Obamacare for the greedy — but make it legal for Ann to buy health insurance?

This is how it works today:

ME: I’m perfectly healthy, but I’d like to buy health insurance for heart disease, broken bones, cancer, and everything else that a normal person would ever need, but no more.

INSURANCE COMPANY: That will be $700 a month, the deductible is $35,000, no decent hospital will take it, and you have to pay for doctor’s visits yourself. But your plan covers shrinks, infertility treatments, sex change operations, autism spectrum disorder treatment, drug rehab and 67 other things you will never need.

INSURANCE COMPANY UNDER ANN’S PLAN: That will be $50 a month, the deductible is $1,000, you can see any doctor you’d like, and you have full coverage for any important medical problems you could conceivably have in a million years.

Mine is a two-step plan (and you don’t have to do the second step, so it’s really a one-step plan).

STEP 1: Congress doesn’t repeal Obamacare! Instead, Congress passes a law, pursuant to its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, that says: “In America, it shall be legal to sell health insurance on the free market. This law supersedes all other laws, taxes, mandates, coverage requirements, regulations or prohibitions, state or federal.”

The end. Love, Ann.

There will be no whining single mothers storming Congress with their pre-printed placards. People who want to stay on Obamacare can. No one is taking away anything. They can still have health insurance with free pony rides. It just won’t be paid for with Ann’s premiums anymore, because Ann will now be allowed to buy health insurance on the free market.

Americans will be free to choose among a variety of health insurance plans offered by willing sellers, competing with one another to provide the best plans at the lowest price. A nationwide market in health insurance will drive down costs and improve access — just like everything else we buy here in America!

Within a year, most Americans will be buying health insurance on the free market (and half of the rest will be illegal aliens). We’ll have TV ads with cute little geckos hawking amazing plans and young couples bragging about their broad coverage and great prices from this or that insurance company.

The Obamacare plans will still have the “essential benefits” (free pony rides) that are so important to NPR’s Mara Liasson, but the free market plans will have whatever plans consumers agree to buy and insurance companies agree to sell — again, just like every other product we buy here in America.

. . .

Until the welfare program is decoupled from the insurance market, nothing will work. Otherwise, it’s like forcing grocery stores to pay for everyone to have a house. A carton of milk would suddenly cost $10,000.

. . .

STEP 2: Next year, Congress formulates a better way of delivering health care to the welfare cases, which will be much easier since there will be a LOT fewer of them.

No actual money-making business is going to survive by taking the welfare cases — the ones that will cover illegal aliens and Mara Liasson’s talk therapy — so the greedy will get government plans.

But by then, only a minority of Americans will be on the “free” plans. (Incidentally, this will be a huge money-saver — if anyone cares about the federal budget.) Eighty percent of Americans will already have good health plans sold to them by insurance companies competing for their business.

With cheap plans available, a lot of the greedy will go ahead and buy a free market plan. Who wants to stand in line at the DMV to see a doctor when your neighbors have great health care plans for $50 a month?

. . .

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Action Alert: American Health Care Act

art credit: Click Americana

From Ralph King at the Main Street Patriots blog:

Action Alert: American Health Care Act

The GOP should be ashamed of themselves — Speaker Ryan for introducing such a bad bill, and the so-called conservatives for allowing him to take the lead on repealing Obamacare!  After seven years of campaigning to repeal Obamacare and Paul Ryan’s “American Health Care Act” is the best they can come up with?!?

While we applaud some members of the GOP fighting to make Speaker Ryan’s bill better – had some of them fought this hard against him becoming Speaker – we would not be in the position we are today.

Knowing the tentacles of Obamacare would run deep when the over 2,000-page Obamacare bill was passed in 2009, most of us knew it would not be easy to repeal, and there was no one magic bill that would undo it.  Speaker Ryan needs to understand that his American Health Care Act is a terrible starting point, and while no starting point will satisfy those of us who want Obamacare repealed in its entirety, it is a starting point if amendments are allowed.

In the Senate, Mitch McConnell has already said he is open for amendments. In addition, as proposed by Rep. Louie Gohmert, the “Byrd Rule” needs to be thrown out so that more amendments are allowed during the reconciliation process.

If amendments are allowed in both the House & the Senate, and if “We the People” remain engaged, then hopefully something acceptable can be cobbled together.  President Trump is a deal maker – and if we do not get a good deal, we can urge him to use his pen and veto the final version of the bill.

As the bill stands, without substantive amendments, it is a non-starter. The legislative process needs to be played out, and we need to remain engaged.

Call Speaker Paul Ryan (202) 225-3031 and tell him to allow Amendments to be made to the American Health Care Act.

Call your Congressman and tell them to push Speaker Ryan to allow amendments. To find your Congress members contact information click here.

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Happy St Patrick's Day

From the Townhall cartoon page, cartoon by Steve Kelley:

And here is the latest from Sundance on the run-up to President Trump's meeting with the Freedom Caucus on the Health Care bill. (Let's hope the take is not overly optimistic.)

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