The Siren Song of White Trash

Sooo.... I was listening to Ron Reagan here on AM1090, and someone compared Sarah Palin to his dad.

Ooops. Ron no likey.

So I AM embarrassed by the fact that I voted for RR twice, but on an empirical level I have to agree with Ron that the two are nothing alike. Besides the rack, gender, m_lfishness ( No.... I wouldn't like to)... Intellectually there is no comparison. Yeah, Reagan had that "folksy" persona that the refucks have tried to make their brand, and butchered it in the process, but I don't remember Reagan ever showing pride in his ignorance. But I digress....

One point Ron made while objecting to the caller was that his dad wrote his own speeches, and expressed some serious doubt in Palin's ability to do so. I listened to that and thought, "Whoa! You just insulted the fuck out of every speechwriter past, present and future. Who the fuck would ever admit to writing that unintelligible mish-mash of gibberish and buffooonery?" That shit made her answers to Katie Couric look like they belong in "Great Moments of Genius."

BTW... Hannity owes me dinner. Yes I tuned in to his show the other night. He still lives in his own little country: Hannity's America." It sure ain't mine. I was amazed as he sat there looking so.... dumbfounded I suppose as he defended Palin. He actually tried to say she made sense. On the other hand he couldn't say how. Then he went after Obama, real surprise there, trying to say there was no difference between Palin's quitting and Obama's run for president. (of course there was no mention of McCain's run) And then he went on to wonder why no one critized Jante Napolitano or Kathleen Sabelius, or Tammy Duckworth or... who quit to take OTHER JOBS. Serving the country.

Clearly "Hannity's America" is a figment of someone's imagination. Just as Palin's notion of her being a fighter and a champion and a leader and... anything but a quitter and a fraud. What the hell are the 70% of refuckyoucans who say they would vote for her for president thinking? ??? What's Hannity thinking when he puts on his most sincere expresson and says that he would feel more confident with Palin sitting across from Putin than Obama? ???

Mind boggling, all. And her point guard analogy? Passing the ball?

Because you can't make the outside shot? Because you can't drive for the lay up? Because if you draw the foul, you can't make the free throws?

Winners want the ball. End of story.

WTF? ???

I have never in my life heard such an incoherent crock of shit as Sarah Palin's reason(s?) (was there more than one? Was there even one? ???) for quitting as governor.

And people... the refuckyoucan party, and that party's choice for president... thought this... this... whatever she is, was qualified to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office...? ???

Once again, The Saturday Night Live skit writes itself. No retirement for Tina Fey.

Walmart's Change of Heart

So WallyWorld suddenly becomes concerned about their employees' well being? After years of keeping workers just shy of full time to avoid benefits? After years of forcing workers into flex time arrangements rather than pay them overtime? Now they back a federal mandate requiring that they (among others) carry employee health insurance...? ???

Will that same mandate end their practice of denying workers' full time status?

Ohhhh.... Monica Crowley: The republican party has free market principles to reform health care. Fuck me up the ass with a tazer. Again. More fucktardulous asswipery from the douchenozzulous conservadips.

Anyway... Walmart, those free market grand champeeens, who want you to save money so you can live better... by buying Chinese made SHIT... that poisons your kids and your pets and is made by slaves, prisoners and children... at the expense of lakes, rivers, the sky and all things that live... I assure you, are NOT going to do anything that benefits their employees without it benefiting their corporate balance sheet MORE. and here's how it'll be done:

They will continue to escape whatever mandate there may be -- since their lobbyists will help write it, including the required loopholes -- by whatever means neccesary: Denial of hours, lay offs... While other businesses ie "small," 'family," that cannot absorb the legal costs from being sued, will fold under the crushing insurance costs that will continue to skyrocket.

Walmart's saying the right words. They sound nice and warm and fuzzy, like they're going to give the poor and downtrodden -- that they've helped create and maintain -- this wonderful gift all from the goodness of the heart they've finally grown. Riiiight.

It's called delayed gratification. Investing. The magic of it all is that they're convincing people that they're investing in workers. Fat chance. This is ALL for their own gratification.

No More Excuses? ???

Norm Coleman finally grows a conscience. Al Franken's in. Sixty votes.

Let's get some shit done that benefits the country, eh?

1. End the War to Enrich Halliburton
2. Close Guantanimo
3. Reform healthcare... and that means reFORM, not... reword, review, rearrange, recapitulate...
4. Reform the Bankster Industry
5. Investigate/Prosecute Bush's war crimes
6. Bring back the Fourth Amendment by repealing/reworking FISA
   
7. Repeal the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act and bring back the rest of the Bill of Rights
   
8. Un-Fuck our election processes
9. End "Don't Ask Don't Tell"
   

for starters.

And if Holy Joe and Arlen try to fuck up the works, then cut them loose and do everything by reconciliation or put an end to filibusters. Do what has to be done to put an end to this tyranny of the minority. Replace Harry Reid with a real leader maybe; like Bernie Sanders.

Hopefully I can retire this tag: And now for another spineless moment from Congress

My Maria

And no, I don't mean the Sanford Maria. Although, who knows?

Senator Maria Cantwell (Dumbocrat, Corporatia) once again totally misses the point. As the following, from her website, shows:

Senator Cantwell Proposes Common Sense Health Care Legislation

I have always felt that Washington state can provide a blueprint for nationwide improvements in health care. For years, we have been at the forefront of innovation, and developing practices to improve the quality of care and make it more affordable. Over the past few months, I have heard from thousands of Washingtonians and met with groups of health care experts across our state to ensure that national reform legislation offers practical solutions to the problems in our current health care model.

Over the next few weeks, Congress is going to start debate in earnest over possible health care proposals. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which will play an integral role in reforming our country’s health care system, I am working to ensure that any proposal increases access to quality care for patients while reducing costs.

Earlier this month, I introduced the Medical Efficiency and Delivery Improvement of Care (MEDIC) Act, a bill which provides common-sense solutions to many of the most critical problems besetting our health care system. While every piece of the health care puzzle requires individual attention, one common thread connects them all: the need to improve the quality of care patients receive, while bringing down costs.

The MEDIC Act aims to accomplish this goal through the following means:

Medicare Payment Improvement -- For years, Washington state has been penalized under the Medicare program for providing efficient, high quality care. My proposal is designed to address this longstanding problem by providing incentives for providers to ensure the care they are giving to patients is high quality and low cost. It would create a new physician payment component that rewards the quality, and not quantity, of services.

Our state already ranks 16^th out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in keeping costs per Medicare beneficiary under control, with an average of $5,280 statewide. If we could achieve this nationwide, the country could save close to $55 billion a year.

Physician Workforce Enhancement -- The MEDIC Act will improve access to health care by increasing the number of physicians trained in high-need specialties. And it will expand the nation’s graduate medical education training capacity to a larger number of suburban and rural hospitals.

Preserving Patient Access to Primary Care -- In our current health care system, there is a critical shortage of primary care physicians and an inefficient system of Medicare reimbursements that do not reward a coordinated approach of patients’ health care needs. My proposal specifically addresses those problems, and will also help provide cost effective, prevention oriented care throughout the country, especially in underserved and rural communities.

Washington can take pride in having two great examples of integrated care systems which would qualify as patient-centered medical homes. Group Health and Providence Health and Services provide excellent care coordination, and thus are able to offer better and higher-quality care. Despite these successes, the current Medicare reimbursement structure doesn’t reward integrated providers like Group Health and Providence. I will work to change that reimbursement structure so that we no longer penalize preventive and quality care.

Project 2020: Building on the Promise of Home and Community-Based Services -- My proposal is also designed to fix a deficiency in current law that prevents people from accessing long-term care information or services until they have spent their entire life savings, and become poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. By this time, it is often too late to provide cost-effective home care, and people end up in nursing homes, where all too often they spend the rest of their lives.

I want to ensure that people have the resources they need to pay for the services and support they need to stay in their own homes and communities, without being forced to spend down their life savings. This investment will save money over the long term and significantly improve access to care.

Home and Community Balancing Incentives -- The final piece of my MEDIC Act reforms state long-term care systems. By offering an enhanced federal Medicaid matching rate to states that are willing to implement programs geared at promoting home and community based services, we can help seniors stay out of nursing homes and enable them to access quality, individualized home- and community-based care.

As you can see, I am focused on three key aspects of reform: updating Medicare’s pay structure so that it rewards quality of care, not quantity of care, as in the current structure; expanding and improving long-term care services and programs to provide patients with options and alternatives to nursing homes; and, increasing the number of practicing primary care physicians to ensure coordinated care for patients.

Our state has been at the forefront of efforts to lower health care cost and improve care. Over the next few weeks, I will work to share our successes and include our innovative ideas in upcoming health care reform legislation so that we can develop similar models nationwide to ensure that every American is eligible for high-quality, affordable health care.

I've made several calls to her offices during the past weeks, and I've yet to get a straight answer as to where she stands on the issue of a public option for healthcare. She can't seem to screw up the courage to back Bernie Sanders on single payer, and she can't seem to admit to backing Kent Conrad's sham of an option either. However, she can come up with a bill that has nothing to do with the real problem: Making healthcare affordable and available for all.

I say, "Once again," because back when Jim Webb introduced his bill to restore the benfits to veterans that were taken away by Reagan, Bush and Bush, I called Cantwell's offices and was asked if I'd heard of her bill. Not an amendment to Webb's bill, but a stand alone bill that took away all sunset provisions on GI Bill benefits. Of course it would have been nice if there were beefits to use, but... She restored nothing, granted nothing new, just gave them their remaining lifetime to use what they didn't have.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is her way of hiding: Create a smoke screen and hope that when her bill dies, she can vote against the public good and no one will notice..? ??? There's nothing "wrong" with her MEDIC Bill; it would go nicely as an amendment to a single payer bill. There was nothing "wrong" with her GI Bill; it would have made a nice amendment to Webb's Bill (which if you remember, could only get passed as a rider to a War to Enrich Halliburton funding bill). They just miss the true mark by a mile. They both totally fail to address the true problem.

Add these to her vote to invade Iraq, sending soldiers to die for nothing, and her continued failure to admit to the fact of and magnitude of her fuck up... Why do we keep electing her? Who does she represent? I think we need to ask ourselves:

What's Darcy Burner doing in 2012? ???

Feyyyyyyyyenally...

A mainstream-medianite states the obvious:

The opposition's (refuckyoucan's) position says, "We can't have government bureaucrats getting in between you and your doctor," when right now we have insurance agents in between you and your doctor. When do you go to a doctor and not hear what your insurance company will or won't allow?
Cokie Roberts on Stuffalupugus

What the fuck took so long...? ???

and Robert Reich

There is no money in the hands of consumers, so there will be no business investment because there are no customers. (DUHHH!!!! People need jobs) So without that flow of money, money must come from the government which creates deficits. Keynesian Economics 101.

Read up on 1931,32 and Hoover's attempt to follow the present refuckyoucan/conservatard notion of balancing the budget.

Is this Obvious Day, not Father's Day? or are the concepts synonymous? or did someone come out with a memo to counter the "No Facts Allowed" rule on network news. I had to leave the tube for a moment; I couldn't handle the bombardment of truth. TWO facts in ONE show? ???

don't pinch and wake me.

Greetings from Vacationland w/ Good Morning Update:

A Junky is a junky, vacationing or not. So... A couple of quick Qs:

For all these DC dumbasses bitching and whining about how the poor insurance syndicates can't survive against a government option or single payer care, this would be because of the inherent efficiency of private enterprise? ???

And for all the DC dumbasses bitching and whining about how innefficient and poorly run a government program would be, Please name for us the private insurance carrier you use. Since after all you would want your health in the hands of the BEST care system the world has ever seen. right? ???

Speaking of which...

For all you DC dumbasses bitching and whining about the imminent destruction of the finest healthcare system the world has ever seen, Why is it that no other industrialized/civilized nation in the world is trying to emmulate us? Am I missing one? What nation out there is fighting the good fight to provide privatized care because of the demands of a grass roots movement? Finally...

For all you DC dumbasses bitching and whining about tax dollars actually going places and doing things that will actually provide real services to real people, little people, people who actually pay taxes... Why don't you just shut the fuck up and let some adults with progressive ie useful ideas take over for a while. Dumbasses.

UPDATE: And see that banner right over there? (till the next post pushes this out of the way) Here's another reason why it's still there.