Zorro
Zorro's JournalFloridians sign up for Obamacare unsure if program will survive under Trump
More than 12 million Americans got their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act in 2017 when a Republican bill to scrap the program fell two U.S. Senate votes short.
With more than 21.4 million Americans now insured through federal marketplace plans, the future of the program is again in doubt with the return of Donald Trump to the White House and a GOP majority in both the U.S. House and Senate.
Expanded federal subsidies put in place during the pandemic to make insurance premiums more affordable — and in some cases free — for millions of lower-income Americans expire at the end of 2025. If not extended by the new Congress, an estimated 4 million people could lose health insurance in 2026, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Also at risk is a rule change adopted in May that opened the Affordable Care Act in 2025 to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children but have been eligible for benefits like schooling since the creation in 2012 of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Significant changes to the program would have a big impact in Florida, where 4.2 million residents are enrolled this year — the most in the nation. With the 2025 enrollment period already underway, program administrators are fielding questions from Floridians fearful that their insurance will be canceled, said Xonjenese Jacobs, director of Florida Covering Kids & Families, a nonprofit based at the University of South Florida that coordinates enrollment across the state.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2024/11/13/floridians-sign-up-obamacare-unsure-if-program-will-survive-under-trump/
Florida to be threatened by likely hurricane next week, forecasters say
Source: Tampa Bay Times
The National Hurricane Center expects the season’s next tropical depression or storm to form in the Caribbean soon, and forecast models predict it will intensify into a hurricane and threaten Florida next week.
As of the hurricane center’s 7 a.m. tropical outlook, the broad area of low pressure over the central Caribbean Sea was producing a large area of showers and thunderstorms.
“Environmental conditions are conducive for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next couple of days while the system moves slowly westward into the western Caribbean Sea,” forecasters said. “Afterward, further development is likely while the disturbance meanders over the western Caribbean Sea through the weekend.”
The system, whether it develops or not, is expected to dump rain on Jamaica and then turn slowly to the northwest by early next week as it moves into the western Caribbean and approaches Central America. It’s then forecast to move toward Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula approaching the Gulf of Mexico.
Read more: https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/11/13/florida-be-threatened-by-likely-hurricane-next-week-forecasters-say/
America Defeats America
WASHINGTON—In a historic outcome that promised to halt the rising scourge of the United States in its tracks, America has defeated America at the ballot box, sources confirmed Wednesday.
“After 248 years of tense and often divisive conflict, we can finally say, as of this morning, that the nation turned out at the polls and delivered a decisive blow to the nation,” said electoral analyst Kurt Howitzer, describing the results as a remarkable triumph of the democratic experiment over democracy.
“It’s a stunning turn of events. But it really shows the power of one citizenry to come together and prevail over themselves. The message was loud and clear: We are sick and tired of our country, and we want it to end.”
At press time, millions of emotional Americans had reportedly gathered on the National Mall in an impromptu celebration of their resounding victory over the forces of liberty and equality.
https://theonion.com/america-defeats-america/
U.S. Releases Strategic Alcohol Reserve Before Election Night
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Responding to “a situation of utmost urgency,” President Biden released the nation’s Strategic Alcohol Reserve just hours before Election Night.
Immediately following the announcement, the price of vodka dipped below three dollars a gallon and Biden’s approval rating surged to 94 percent.
But even as Americans cheered, experts warned that excessive liquor consumption could cause severe mental impairment akin to that exhibited by undecided voters.
Statistics show that the nation’s alcohol supply has been under acute pressure since November of 2016.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/us-releases-strategic-alcohol-reserve
TV's Biggest Stars Smash Networks' Wall of Silence on Epstein-Trump Tapes
Two of television’s biggest names broke through days of silence from their networks about the bombshell tapes revealed by the Daily Beast in which Jeffrey Epstein speaks about his relationship with Donald Trump.
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC both spoke of their shock at the tapes, with the late-night host complaining that they had not been widely covered by other outlets.
A tiny snippet of the tapes were first disclosed last Thursday by the author Michael Wolff, and on Saturday the Daily Beast published recordings in which Epstein made extraordinary claims about his friend of a decade.
The convicted pedophile suggested intimate knowledge of the West Wing. He alleged that Trump liked to cuckold his best friends, that Trump first made love with Melania Trump on Epstein’s “Lolita Express plane,” called Trump a serial cheat who boasted about “f---ing Black girls,” and claimed without evidence that Trump had had an affair while in the White House. The tapes were made two years before Epstein’s death in a federal jail cell, when he spoke to Wolff as a source for his bombshell international bestseller, Fire and Fury. Wolff said Epstein showed him a cache of pictures of Trump with topless young women in his lap.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tvs-biggest-stars-smash-networks-wall-of-silence-on-epstein-trump-tapes/
Network execs are just as cowardly as other major news outlets. They fear TFA/MAGA retribution.
Trump Ends Campaign by Calling Female Leader the 'B-Word'
Donald Trump ended his 2024 campaign rallies with a bang early on Tuesday morning in Grand Rapids, Michigan, describing his not-so-subtle feelings about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The former president was speaking after a consecutive day of rallies on Monday; his appearance in Michigan—he spoke after midnight—was his last stop before voters take to the ballot box.
“She‘s a crooked person, she‘s a bad person. Evil! she’s an evil, sick, crazy...” the former president said, then breathed the words “bi...” before stopping himself.
“Oh no,” Trump said, before silently mouthing words in to microphone. “It starts with a ‘b’ but I won’t say it,” he added. “I wanna say it,” he interjected. “I wanna say it.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-ends-campaign-by-calling-nancy-pelosi-a-btch/
Classy to the end...
Interest rates are going down. But mortgage rates are going ... up?
Interest rates are going down — but aspiring homeowners waiting for lower mortgage rates aren’t feeling relief.
For years, wannabe buyers have waited for the Federal Reserve to lower rates after the central bank pushed them to the highest level in decades. People who bought houses at high rates are also eager for borrowing costs to simmer down so they can refinance and get lower payments.
Yet the Fed’s move to start cutting rates has not sent mortgage costs down. Instead, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has ticked up for the last five weeks, clocking in at 6.72 percent at the end of October, according to the mortgage-finance company Freddie Mac. That’s higher than when rates were slightly above 6 percent around the Fed’s last meeting in September.
“We’re waiting for the shoe to drop, and it’s just not dropping,” said Mike Kemp, who bought his roughly $700,000 home last November and is eager to refinance his 7.25 percent mortgage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/05/fed-mortgage-rates-housing/
Trump Enraged After RFK Jr's Worm Endorses Harris
NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump was reportedly furious on Monday after the worm who inhabited Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s brain endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
“I intended to remain impartial in this race, like my fellow worm Jeff Bezos,” the worm’s official statement read. “But threatening to put Kennedy in charge of the CDC was the last straw.”
“As someone who has lived in Bobby’s brain and eaten half of it, I am terrified of his remaining half-brain being given any responsibility,” the worm continued.
In a final appeal to undecided voters, the worm asserted, “As a parasite, I have always identified as a Republican, but I have decided to put country before party.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-enraged-after-rfk-jrs-worm
Scientists may have figured out why a potent greenhouse gas is rising. The answer is scary.
Almost two decades ago, the atmosphere’s levels of methane — a dangerous greenhouse gas that is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term — started to climb. And climb.
Methane concentrations, which had been stable for years, soared by 5 or 6 parts per billion every year from 2007 onward. Then, in 2020, the growth rate nearly doubled.
Scientists were baffled — and concerned. Methane is the big question mark hanging over the world’s climate estimates; although it breaks down in the atmosphere much faster than carbon dioxide, it is so powerful that higher than expected methane levels could shift the world toward much higher temperatures.
But now, a study sheds light on what’s driving record methane emissions. The culprits, scientists believe, are microbes — the tiny organisms that live in cows’ stomachs, agricultural fields and wetlands. And that could mean a dangerous feedback loop — in which these emissions cause warming that releases even more greenhouse gases — is already underway.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/11/04/methane-emissions-microbes-climate-change/
My ISP has been kinda flaky the past two days
Up until now it's been relatively stable, and wonder if the recent flakiness may somehow be related to the upcoming election.
Perhaps I'm being a bit too paranoid, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some serious network outages over the next few days. The DU attack from a couple of elections ago is still fresh on my mind.
Anyone else having a similar experience?
Now the provider at my second home is conking out. I would think ISPs would design their systems for peak traffic, but we're still a day out from the election. Hmmm....
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