Let Them Be Stupid

At 64 I have gained the wisdom to know that people are often foolish, more often lazy and very often have exactly what they deserve. Put another way, you can't stop people from being stupid, as my husband says. Ergo, if people want to carry substandard insurance, let them as long as it doesn't mean a penny of increase in insured people's premiums. If they want to eat transfats let them. Hell, insert an IV and let them mainline the stuff. The world is over populated and with any luck they will die of their stupidity before they can procreate. After all, Christians keep telling us that it is a far, far better place they go. Well, let the stupid prepare to get on the bus.

Purely a Matter of Commerce

 

The other night Bill Maher interviewed Ann Coulter – can’t imagine why he bothers with the creature.  In my opinion to say that she is a liar is to do grievous injury to liars all over the world.  The woman is nothing more or less than an assassin whose preferred weapons are tongue and pen. 

Maher kept asking if she truly believes the things she says.  He misses the point.  Of course she believes what she says; she believes it will make money and that is the only point on her moral compass.  Coulter demonstrated as much when she made reference to her huge audience and the enormous earnings gleaned from her books as proof of her moral commitment to her version of Conservatism and, may Goddess help the Christians, Christianity.

She confirmed her biased view of the Constitution – the woman is supposedly a Constitutional lawyer – when she asserted that there are no grounds in the Constitution for the right to a safe, legal abortion.  This is utter flummery.  The right of choice is grounded in the implied right to privacy of the 14^th Amendment.  Maher did not counter with the obvious comeback that if Roe can be viewed as tenuous with regard to Constitutional authority it is no more so than assuming that every gun owner qualifies as “well armed militia” under the 2^nd Amendment.  

I have long held that Coulter, Limbaugh, Alex Jones and all the other bile spewing maggots on the Right given an extra $10,000,000 a year without a penny on their income tax would cross dress, run around the Hill singing the national anthem in Farsi and end their performance by taking a leak in unison in Sarah Palin’s mobile makeup kit. 

They are dangerous.  They are cruel.  They are provocateurs and parasites praying on the paranoid, the weak-minded and the gullible like fly larvae on a rotted corpse.  What they are not are true believers.  Anymore than the gun lobby and manufactures can be seen as true believers in the rights of gun owners.  It is purely a matter of commerce.  It is the very definition of cynicism.    

Musings of an Angry Feminist

 

 

The Constitutional test known as the “undue burden” standard dates back to the 19th Century.  In one of its most recent iteration Sandra Day O’Connor gave voice to the standard - City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 US 416 (1983) - when she wrote: "If the particular regulation does not 'unduly burden' the fundamental right, then our evaluation of that regulation is limited to our determination that the regulation rationally relates to a legitimate state purpose." 

In plain English, when the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans upheld Texas’ monstrous abortion law they may have upheld Texas’ unconstitutional and accordingly unlawful overreach in placing an undue burden upon Texas women with regard to exercising their reproductive freedom under Roe v. Wade.  While this bloody tyranny is hashed out over the coming months by people safely removed from reality in their long black robes, flesh and blood women may well die. They will not die easy.  I have seen death by back alley butcher and death by coat hanger.

I am of the opinion that we should begin to keep morbidity and mortality statistics starting as of this date to record those deaths.  We should think about the legislators who crafted and passed the legislation, not to mention that pathetic excuse for a governor who signed it into law, as legally and morally responsible for those deaths resulting from their premeditated, unconstitutional and illegal abuse of power.  To wit: when someone dies in the commission of a crime that death can be viewed as murder.  Now I realize that these sidewinders enjoy some measure of immunity while holding office.  However, I doubt that it extends to homicide.  Let us redefine the argument women.

Dodging the Question

 

 

I am growing increasingly sick of vote whoring, influence peddling politicians lecturing the American people on morality and decency.  Our system of politics is riddled with corruption; indeed, legalized corruption is the favorite occupation of politicians from Washington, D.C. to Puget Sound and from the Great Lakes to the Texas-Mexican border.  Since Antonin Scalia and his band of Rightwing clowns on the Supreme Court, that would be Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy, decided that corporations are people and have the First Amendment Right to express political opinions with money, the Founders’ idea of a government of the people, by the people and for the people has been eroded to the point of near meaninglessness.  Thus we have a veritable hothouse of money eating plants serving in the United States Congress.

By way of example, I give you Marsha Blackburn of the Tennessee 7^th.  In hearing her incessant chatter – as one often does on cable news programs – I am continually struck by her limited brainpower and her apparent dependence upon repeating Republican talking points in a chant like fashion to forestall any objection to her prefabricated ideas.  To wit:  Ms. Blackburn appeared on CNN with Carol Costello and insisted that one impetus for Darryl Issa’s trumpeted up and expensive hearings on the Affordable Care Act rollout is based upon a suspected violation of HIPAA.  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 or HIPAA is designed to protect patient medical information under a guarantee of privacy or confidentiality.  Ethical medical practitioners have always respected confidentiality in dealing with patient information; not so some insurance companies, unethical doctors and nurses and some hospitals.  The only question, only I say, on the ACA application that can be considered medical or medically related is, “Do you smoke?”  That question will be found on any insurance application no matter who is offering the insurance or what is being insured.

To spite Ms. Costello’s repeated attempts to get Blackburn to specify what medical information is at risk and where the ACA computer signup can be seen to be violating HIPAA, the Congresswoman just kept repeating her talking points.  Once in a while she would throw in a pseudo professional sounding computer term by way of making herself appear knowledgeable only to prove that she was simply coached by a moderately skilled techie. 

Ms. Blackburn’s concern for privacy is belied by her rabid prolife stance.  She appears to be unaware of or insensate to the fact that her sisters’ right to reproductive freedom under Roe v. Wade is grounded in the implied right to privacy inherent in the 14^th and in part the 9^th Amendments. She also is willing to set privacy aside, indeed HIPAA regulations, while advocating that employers should have the right to deny female employees access to birth control.  Marsha Blackburn appears to be in lockstep with her Republican and Tea Party colleagues in picking and choosing the parts of the law and the Constitution they will honor.  Much the same way as they select the parts of the Bible that will work best for their political advancement.  Thus, as they scream about being Christians they ignore Christ’s central tenets of love, peace and charity so they might wallowing in the fear, threat and retribution of the Old Testament.

Marsha Blackburn is but one rightwing hypocrite and misogynist who women must put on their “Time to Go” list in ’14.  This amounts to a crusade for all forward thinking people who would have their children, male and female, live healthy and free.

Buffoons and the People Who Control Them

 

 

Yesterday, I saw a video of some pompous ass calling a group of people employed by the federal government parasites.  I saw the same thing in videos from Wisconsin when angry citizens stood and called teachers parasites.  It breaks my heart now, as it did then.  My husband spent forty odd years working for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service.  Neither he nor his friends and colleagues, Debby, Paula or Michelle to name a few, were or are parasites. 

Anyone of them could have gone out into the private sector and earned a hell of lot more money than ever they did working for the Feds or this ungrateful nation.  However, they all shared the idea that their work was valuable and that in this most Christian of countries feeding those in need was a trust which they were proud to accept.  So while the hawks in the Pentagon and in Congress went screech along starting wars to shove our moral vision of human dignity down the world’s throat and chiseling politicians on both sides of the aisle wrote promissory notes in their campaigns to honor and protect the social contract with the most vulnerable, my husband and his colleagues did the work that brought the vision to life and made good on the promise.  

I looked at the buffoon yesterday disrespecting the government employees in front of him as if he had a right to and thought, what do you do for a living?  Can it be that you are so stupid that you don’t realize that once the public sector workers have been discredited and invalidated by that cabal of the superior rich, the Heritage Foundation, Jim DeMint, their stooges in the Tea Party and whores in Congress that they will need someone else to use as a foil in their war against anyone who isn’t one of them.  Will it be construction workers, cab drivers, food service workers, nurses; how many people before they get to you?  If you are one of those small business owners who think that you will get a seat at the table when labor is finally put in its place – do the world a favor and evolve.  You too will be swallowed up by big money, forced to go along to get along or be kicked to the curb just like your employees.

This is not about Capitalism or the Free Market.  This isn’t about freedom of any kind.  There never was a tyrant who rose to power threatening to enslave people.  They all promise freedom to the one group they have selected to play against the others. 

This is about destroying the Middle Class, breaking the back of the Working Class.  This is about a society where the rich rule and the poor serve.  So go ahead, bend your knee and kiss the master’s ring.  Follow the God of the ruling class, believe and say what you are told to, have more children than you can afford to feed and don’t expect them to have a better world than the one you have created.  Know most of all that eventually you will take your place in front of some other buffoon who will call you a parasite.  That is how it works, man.  Karma is a bitch.

When I was Young

It was 1966, and Dr. King and Bobby were still alive. My generation was becoming prematurely and politically astute. Our beloved President Kennedy was dead three years and innocence died with him. I look around me today at the filth that passes for leadership, at clowns who think public service ends at the tip of their dicks and buffoons who think a Free Press means they are free to sell their services to the highest bidder and piss the public trust down the shitter and I grow nostalgic - not for my youth but for my nation's lost soul. I wouldn't have been young at any other time.

When the Loons Run the Assylum

 

In the past government shutdowns, seventeen in all, have been done as a matter of fiscal policy.  That is to say, the two parties in the Legislative Branch would argue over proposed spending.  Obamacare, as it is ridiculously called, is not a proposition.  It is bloody black and white, settled law.

The Affordable Care Act was voted on and passed by both Houses of Congress.  The Republicans are doing a good deal of whining about the Act being passed in a partisan way.  Anyone who is tempted to consider this relevant might want to go back through the last four years and see how many GOP partisan votes have been taken in the House and the Senate to obstruct this president.  The Republicans would assert that this is the right of the opposition party.  Fair enough.  However, it is also their responsibility.  They have obstructed the creation of the very jobs they were sent to Washington to facilitate because of a need to paralysis President Obama’s agenda at every turn on ideological grounds.  It is rank hypocrisy for them accuse the other party of doing exactly what they have done to protect themselves from primary challenges on the Right; not to mention to the detriment of the Working Class in this country.

Following passage of the Affordable Care Act it was signed by President Obama.  I don’t always agree with the man, but he is President of these United States just as sure as Bush, Clinton or Reagan was president.  When the president signs a bill it is no longer a bill, but the law. 

The Affordable Care Act was then challenged in the Supreme Court; yes we still have one – sort of.  It was upheld on a straight party line vote save one.  The Chief Justice, John Roberts a Conservative and a Bush appointee, voted to uphold the law.

The law was ratified in effect by the American people in a general election.  Mr. Obama ran on his signature law.  Mr. Romney ran against it.  Mr. Obama won that contest, and not by a small majority.  What is going on today is not a legitimate debate over fiscal policy; it is legislative blackmail and should be viewed as felonious like any other form of extortion.

This foolishness about demanding that the President or members of his staff or Democrats in general give up their healthcare and sign on to the Affordable Care Act is moronic on its face.  The Affordable Care Act was designed and implemented to offer coverage to the uninsured.  People with insurance do not – I repeat do not – need to sign up for coverage under the Act.  That would be like establishing affordable, low-income housing for every homeless person in this country, then demanding that Steven Spielberg move out of his palatial home in L.A. and into that housing.  The effect of this healthcare act on the insured will be to help stop the cost shifting that often results in higher premiums when the uninsured use the Emergency Room for primary care and can’t afford to pay. Hence, the name “The Affordable Care Act.”  I realize that the Tea Party and the Republicans who are terrified of and enslaved to them aren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree, but how goddamned difficult can it be?

Finally, the polls that show most Americans disapprove of the Affordable Care Act are in the words of the legal profession, incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial in the presence of the propaganda and lies perpetrated by the Right and passively disseminated by the media.  Ask Mr. Chuck Todd about the lack of responsibility his profession has with regard to informing the American people of the truth.