Robo Call for Insurance

Last night I got a robocall. A forceful man told me that insurance companies make too much profit. Yeah! I said. They pay their executives too much money, and deny people benefits, and deny coverage to those who need it, and co-payments are too high. Yeah, yeah, yeah and yeah!

Then he tells me to call my Congressman to support the Health Insurance Subsidy Act.

WTF?

This roboman (and Obama) think I'm an idiot. If health insurance companies are so bad, why are 43,000,000 more people going to be forced to pay them premiums?

War is Peace. Black is White. If you are against insurance profiteering on the sick, support the bill to funnel billions more dollars to them.

The truly pathetic thing is that so many Democrats fall for this doublespeak. Sad.

Right Wing Consistency

Many progressives are baffled by the apparent inconsistency of right wingers who insist that every fertilized egg be carried to term, but then support killing actual living human beings, whether in war or with the death penalty.

But if you talk to them, it is all very consistent.

It's all about punishment. Women who don't "keep their legs closed", (which is the most common saying among "pro-lifers"), must have the baby. Don't bother pointing out that a child should not be a punishment, or that someone too irresponsible to use birth control is certainly too irresponsible to raise a child, or even that you can get pregnant with your legs closed.

Common sense is simply ignored, and they continue to repeat that if a woman is irresponsible, she can't have an abortion.

But when they talk about crime; (and it's rather creepy how they fantasize about their own children being raped, tortured and murdered); they are all about killing the imaginary murderer of their child.

Wouldn't it be better to make sure that every child born is wanted, and therefore has less chance of being abused and neglected, which is usually the background of actual real life murderers? No, right wingers seem to prefer salivating over fantasies of revenge, more than actually preventing harm to their children.

The same with supporting bombings, invasions, occupations and torture. Nothing is too violent to inflict upon other peoples, as long as right wingers are convinced that it is punishment for some dirty deed. Or maybe they were thinking about dirty deeds against Americans. Thought crimes are enough to make them guilty and deserving of mass punishment.

Right wingers are all about revenge and punishment. Ironically, the government that they hate is the one that they trust to mete out the punishments. So I suppose they aren't too consistent there. But in matters of life and death, it's all about innocent life (which can only be pre-birth) and accused guilty, worthy of death.

Cop on the Beat

More and more people are expressing amazement that the US hasn't yet collapsed.

What on earth could be keeping it going?

We are trillions of dollars in debt, but no one calls it in, the US is allowed to swagger around the world killing people, the President says outlandish things and everyone nods as if it is wisdom.

Then I thought of the old movies, where the cop on the beat takes apples from the merchant, and he doesn't say anything, because, well, he would get arrested on a trumped up charge, or beaten, or killed.

Is it that simple? Will we be allowed to keep stealing and killing indefinitely, because no one is strong enough to stand up to us?

Who's going to demand that the mafia godfather pay his debts?

No wonder the war budget is off limits.

Rep Massa Makes a Joke

I can see that a Congressman should resign when a dead body is found in his office. (Or preceding it). Although why he then gets a TV show is beyond me.

To be bi-partisan about it, Barney Frank's gay lover ran a prostitution racket out of his home, and Barney is still in Congress. So anything less than murder should be OK, right?

But a joke? Someone makes a joke and someone else complains and a week later he's out?

There is something really, really fishy here. Rep. Massa says that the Obamabots wanted him out because he voted against the health insurance company enrichment bill that the Wall Street bosses want passed so badly. Massa is for single payer.

I believe that more than I believe that someone was devastated by a joke.

Obama's bosses aren't content with the bank bailouts, the nuclear power handouts and the expanding wars.

They want people like me, people who can't afford to pay for health insurance, to be forced to buy a defective product under threat of fines or jailtime.

And they will screw anyone who stands against them.

Look out, Dennis Kucinich!

Interesting News from Feb 18th

Yesterday, a plane crashed into a 7 story building, causing a horrible fire.

Interestingly enough, the building did not collapse into its own footprint at the speed of gravity.

Actually, it didn't collapse at all.

Obama is appointing a commission to balance the budget. EVERYTHING is on the table. Everything.

Except, of course, not military spending. But this most interesting omission was not mentioned in the news reports. They breathlessly announced that EVERYTHING was on the table, but somehow didn't think that the most logical item, the thing that the US spends over half its budget on, was even worth bringing up.

Just like the 9-11 Commission didn't consider explosives when investigating the collapse of the WTCs 1,2 and 7. The most obvious item never gets explored.

The talking heads did talk about Social Security a lot. It seems that the billions of dollars that US workers who make less than $75,000/year have been putting away for their old age is not off the table. That money, supposedly locked away in a trust fund, is now said to be gone.

And, apparently, there is no feeling among the ruling class that this particular debt must be paid.

Social Security is a flat tax on lower paid workers. We have been paying extra since 1986. There is no mention of this in the corporate media.

401 Ks lost $5 trillions in worker's retirement funds last year, an average of 25% from each 401K. There is no mention of this in the corporate media. Even more amazing, private funds are held up as an alternative to public funds for our retirements. But public funds are being used to repay lost investments for the rich.

Obama was chosen to do what Bush could not - refuse to repay the Social Security Trust Fund to the workers who have contributed all these years.

They call it "entitlements", as if being entitled to being paid back is something wrong.

Amazing.

And the most amazing thing is that they will probably get away with it.

Because the liberals who would fight Bush just want to "give Obama a chance".

Anyone Who Loves Dogs and Kids

Americans frequently congratulate themselves on their loving, kind inner beings, most recently with the Haiti earthquake, where they brag about how much money the Red Cross collected in the name of the victims.

Never mind that the Red Cross has weathered major scandals about what they did with the millions they collected for 9-11 and Katrina victims. That, of course, is down the memory hole, so that the gullible can feel self-righteous when they pony up for Haiti.

Nothing touches hearts like a cute little face of a starving child. But if you ask why the child is starving? If you point out that the elected leader of Haiti was TWICE overthrown by US backed coups because he threatened to raise the minimum wage which would make it possible for the child's parents to buy food?

Then you're a communist, of course.

A frequent assertion is that animals in the US are treated better than people in other countries. This is usually referring to the pampered animals of the rich, and the fact that you don't see starving dogs picking through garbage in the US.

You don't see a lot of starving dogs picking through garbage in the US because we have a government program called Animal Control that picks the dogs up and kills them, along with millions of other unwanted dogs and cats.

And the lives of the millions of animals that we eat for food, of course, is pretty much unmitigated hell.

What of our kids? We love kids, just ask us. Especially the right wing Christians, who love kids so much they want to force women to take every fertilized egg to term.

Right-to-lifers love fetuses so much they're willing to kill for them.

But once they're born? Not so much. Then they're welfare cheats, free-loaders on hard-working Americans, potential threats who must be beaten into submission and jailed for life if necessary.

Other countries give paid maternity leave for years to new mothers. Those socialists!

American women, especially Republicans, brag about how they work until they go into labor, and then drop that infant off in day care mere weeks after they were cut out of their bodies. (C-sections are big money!)

A good mother is defined as one who can afford to have someone else raise her child. And buy matching furniture for the nursery, of course.

Yep, anyone who loves kids and dogs can't be all bad.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Americans are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore!

By golly, when Tweedlebush made enough people mad, they went out and voted for Tweedlebama. The Tweedledummers were furious and a great uproar went up on Faux News.

Then, it turned out that Tweelebama was also a corporate stooge. So in a great show of defiance, Tweedledeers voted for Tweedlebrown. Then a great uproar went up on Huffington Post. What could be wrong with Tweedledeers, that they betray their party so?

Americans, proud of themselves as independent and open minded, restrict their rebellions to the impotent. No mass strikes or storming the barricades for them. No turning to the non-corporate Green Party. No, when they've been screwed, lost their jobs, been bled dry by corporate greed and see no future for themselves or their children, they voice their anger in the way they've been taught. They vote for the other party!

That'll teach our ruling corporate overlords. I'll bet they're quaking in their Gucci boots now.