Ho hum: another day, another toxic mine spill by the EPA

Hot Air

Is this something which is fairly new in the history of our government or was there just nobody paying attention up until now? This past week there was another spill of potentially dangerous waste water from a mine in Colorado. And once again it wasn’t miners or anyone in the private sector messing up the landscape… it was the increasingly inappropriately named Environmental Protection Agency. (Denver Post)

An EPA crew working at the Standard Mine above Crested Butte has triggered a spill of wastewater into a creek.

Crested Butte Mayor Aaron Huckstep and staffers for U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton said Thursday that about 2,000 gallons of wastewater spilled late Wednesday during work at the mine.

EPA officials could not confirm the incident, and National Response Center contractors in Washington D.C. did not yet have a report of the spill. An EPA congressional liaison officer could not be reached, and EPA public information officials said they were working on a statement.

 

Kentucky nonprofit health insurer to shut down

Free Republic

Kentucky’s nonprofit health insurer set up under ObamaCare is shutting down because of financial problems, the latest in a string of closures for the nonprofit plans around the country.

Kentucky Health Cooperative, a nonprofit insurer known as a co-op, explained that it could not stay financially afloat after learning of a low payment from an ObamaCare program called “risk corridors.” That program was intended to protect insurers from heavy losses in the early years of the health law by taking money from better-performing insurers and giving it to worse-performing ones.

However, the Obama administration announced on Oct. 1 that the program would pay out far less than requested, because the payments coming in were not enough to match what insurers requested to be paid. Therefore, insurers only will receive 12.6 percent of the $2.87 billion they requested.

“It is with sadness that we announce this decision,” the insurer’s CEO, Glenn Jennings, said in a statement. “This very difficult choice was made after much deliberation. If there were a way to avoid it and simultaneously do right by the members, providers and all others that we serve, we would do so.”

The Department of Health and Human Services says that it recognizes that the low payments to insurers could have raised financial concerns for some insurers, and that as start-ups, not all co-ops would succeed.

The Obama administration said when making the risk corridor announcement earlier this month that the low payments could cause “isolated solvency and liquidity challenges” for a small number of insurers.

(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com …

Bergdahl case: U.S. Army as Obama’s political lapdog?

Family Security Matters

LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD

 

On the night of June 30, 2009, then Army Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl went missing. On July 2, 2009, the Pentagon said that Bergdahl had walked off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. Bergdahl’s commanding officers said that a vigorous, but unsuccessful 45-day search for Bergdahl put soldiers in danger. During his nearly five years as a captive of the Taliban, the Army twice promoted Bergdahl, first to the rank of specialist in June 2010, then to the rank of sergeant in June 2011. On May 31, 2014, Bergdahl was released from captivity in exchange for five senior Taliban commanders held at Guantanamo Bay in a controversial deal negotiated by the Obama Administration.

In June 2014, Major General Kenneth Dahl was assigned to lead the Army’s investigation into the 2009 disappearance and capture of Bergdahl. In August 2014, Dahl interviewed Bergdahl. In December 2014, after a comprehensive legal review, the Dahl investigation was forwarded to a General Courts Martial Convening Authority, Gen. Mark Milley, commanding general of Forces Command.

On March 25, 2015, the Army announced, based on Gen. Milley’s recommendation, that it was charging Bergdahl with misbehavior before the enemy and desertion, carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

On May 13, 2015, Gen. Mark Milley was nominated to be the next Army chief of staff.

In April 2015, an Article 32 hearing of the Bergdahl evidence was scheduled for July 8. 2015. An Article 32 hearing is similar to the civilian evidentiary or probable cause hearing to determine, after a criminal complaint has been filed, whether there is enough evidence to require a trial. In June 2015, at the request of the defense, the Article 32 hearing was postponed until September 17, 2015.