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dkf's JournalH-1B workers in line for Obamacare work
Illinois said that Cognizant has assigned 13 workers, all U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents with Medicaid experience and expertise, to work on the project. Seven of the staff members are former state of Illinois employees with extensive knowledge of the state's Medicaid system, according to spokeswoman Kelly Jakubek, communication manager for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
Cognizant has submitted paperwork to hire 60 or more visa holders to work on the project -- a proposal that the state wasn't aware of, Jakubek said.
Computerworld sent Illinois officials emails with copies of the paperwork that Cognizant filed with the U.S. Department of Labor to hire 60 senior system analysts at a pay rate of $76,814. The documents, known as Labor Condition Applications (LCA), are part of the H-1B approval process and are used in salary determinations. As a general rule, though, the filing of an LCA doesn't mean that a visa worker in on the way.
The state controls the hiring process for the project, said Jakubek, though she could not say whether it will require the contractor to exclude temporary visa workers from the effort.
Asked about the paperwork filed with the Labor Department, Cognizant said it would take on visa workers if needed.
http://m.computerworld.com/s/article/9242648/H_1B_workers_in_line_for_Obamacare_work?mm_ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drudgereport.com%2F
Here is every previous government shutdown, why they happened and how they ended
Since the modern congressional budgeting process took effect in 1976, there have been a total of seventeen separate government shutdowns (or "spending gaps" in Hill jargon). Given that we appear to be headed for another one imminently, let's look back at those experiences, the political circumstances around them and what happened as a consequence. Most of the specifics were drawn from The Washington Post print archives, which you can access for a modest sum here.
It's also important to note that not all shutdowns are created equal. Before some 1980 and 1981 opinions issued by then-Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, a failure to fund some part of the government didn't necessarily mean that that part of government would stop functioning. Civiletti's opinions interpreted the Antideficiency Act, a law passed in 1884, as meaning that a failure to pass new spending bills required government functioning to shut down in whole or in part. So the "shutdowns" listed below that happened between 1976 tand 1979 did not always entail an actual stop to government functioning; they were often simply funding gaps that didn't have any real-world effect.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/25/here-is-every-previous-government-shutdown-why-they-happened-and-how-they-ended/
MARISSA ALEXANDER WILL GET A NEW TRIAL
Marissa Alexander, the African-American woman who was sentenced to 20 years for discharging a firearm in Florida despite pleading Stand Your Ground against her husband, will get a new trial. Alexander, 32, said she fired a bullet at the ceiling because she was afraid of her husband. No one was injured. It took 12 minutes for the jury to convict her.
“We reject her contention that the trial court erred in declining to grant her immunity from prosecution under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law,” wrote Judge James H. Daniel, “but we remand for a new trial because the jury instructions on self-defense were erroneous.”
The appeals court judge ruled that the lower court judge improperly put a burden on Alexander to prove that the firing was in self-defense. “The defendant’s burden is only to raise a reasonable doubt concerning self-defense,” Daniel wrote. “The defendant does not have the burden to prove the victim guilty of the aggression defended against beyond a reasonable doubt.” He ordered a retrial. A separate proceeding would determine whether Alexander could be released on bail pending that trial.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/09/26/marissa-alexander-will-get-a-new-trial/
Wes Clark says we didn't build our military for continuous war.
It's not meant to be able to fight for 11 years straight (plus Syria and Iran).
Google Must Face Most Claims in Gmail Wiretap Lawsuit
Google Inc. (GOOG) must face most claims in a lawsuit alleging it illegally reads and mines the content of private messages sent through its Gmail e-mail service in violation of federal wiretap laws.
U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, today granted Google’s request to throw out state claims, while allowing the plaintiffs to refile. She refused to dismiss federal claims, rejecting the company’s argument that the plaintiffs agreed to let Google intercept and read their e-mails by accepting its service terms and privacy policies.
“The court finds that it cannot conclude that any party -- Gmail users or non-Gmail users -- has consented to Google’s reading of e-mail for the purposes of creating user profiles or providing targeted advertising,” Koh said in the ruling.
Users of Gmail and other e-mail services from states including Texas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida contend that Google “does not disclose the extent of its processing,” according to a May 16 court filing. The case consolidates seven individual and group lawsuits.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/google-must-face-most-claims-in-gmail-wiretap-lawsuit.html
Democrat Manchin Breaks Ranks to Back Mandate Delay
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke ranks with fellow Democrats and said he’d support a stopgap spending plan that delays the individual mandate in President Barack Obama’s health-care law.
“There’s no way I could not vote for it,” Manchin said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast today. “It’s very reasonable and sensible.”
The individual mandate is the linchpin of the law that requires most Americans to purchase health care through government-run insurance exchanges. Republicans, led by a group of newcomers in the House, are pushing to dismantle the health-care law and are using a ticking clock on a possible Oct. 1 government shutdown as leverage.
The Democratic-led Senate will vote in coming days on the stopgap spending plan and before sending it back to the House will remove language that defunds Obamacare. Obama and House Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, have said they won’t support using the budget to change the health law.
Manchin, 66, said he’d be willing to delay the individual mandate as part of the budget negotiations because the Obama administration in July gave businesses an extra year to provide their workers with health insurance.
“Don’t put the mandate on the American public right now,” Manchin said. “Give them at least a year. If you know you couldn’t bring the corporate sector, you gave them a year, don’t you think it’d be fair?”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/democrat-manchin-breaks-ranks-to-back-mandate-delay.html
The Fed's 'hidden agenda' behind money-printing
Do the math: If we were to pay an average interest rate on our debt of 5.7 percent, rather than the 2.4 percent we pay today, in 2020 our debt service cost will be about $930 billion.
Now compare that to the amount the Internal Revenue Service collects from us in personal income taxes.
In 2012, that amount was $1.1 trillion, meaning that if interest rates went back to a more normal level of, say, 5.7 percent, 85 percent of all personal income taxes collected would go to servicing the debt. No wonder the Fed is worried.
Some economists will also suggest that interest rates may go much higher than 5.7 percent largely as a result of the massive QE exercise of printing money at an unprecedented rate. We just don't know what the effect of all this will be but many economists warn that it can only result in inflation down the road.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101062461
Millionaire wealth in Asia may top North America by 2014
Wealth among the richest in the Asia-Pacific region could surpass that of North America as soon as next year, a joint report by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management showed on Wednesday.
The total wealth of high net-worth individuals in the region – defined as those with investable assets of $1 million and above – is expected to rise to $15.9 trillion by 2015, compared with $12 trillion in 2012. Wealth of the equivalent group of individuals in North America stood at $12.7 trillion last year.
"The Asia-Pacific market is clearly one to watch. Its leadership in global high net-worth wealth growth positions it to become the largest wealth market by population as early as 2014," M. George Lewis, Group Head of RBC Wealth Management & RBC Insurance said in the report.
The number of high net-worth individuals in Asia-Pacific rose 9.4 percent to 3.68 million last year. Hong Kong and India experienced the biggest percentage gains, with the population of this group rising 35 percent to 114,000 and 22 percent to 153,000, respectively.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101061049
All this bombing and killing and enforcement of norms is only creating more people who hate us.
How many innocent Muslims do we kill before we start to look at what we are inviting upon ourselves?
The US as iron fist isn't winning us the love of the world. To the contrary. It's pure arrogance as we refuse to be a participant in the ICC.
Yes we can blow up any country on this planet. But we can't hide every citizen from the hatred we engender.
Shame on any politician who brings this wrath down upon us.
Is the ACA going to stratify the population into highly educated/skilled full-timers...
And everyone else part-time 29 hour workers?
The more I think about it the more obvious it seems.
Highly trained people may have to work even more than 40 hours as a standard and that is who the employer needs all the time. Workers with more interchangeable skills get 29 hours and they offload the benefit costs.
Yikes.
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