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Health Care Hysterics!

Oh God… This is SOOOO fun!!!

Conservatives are PISSED.

They lost!

Before I get into the juicy bits, let me clarify where I stand on all this. To be honest, I lost too, because I didn’t think the mandate… er… tax, was going to be rule constitutional. I was wrong. But I don’t mind being wrong. It happens.

Now.

For the juicy bits!

Here is the new united Conservative position as it is emerging.

Obama LIED!!!!! It IS a tax! Not a mandate! He lied to get what he wanted!!!!

OK.

His predecessors administration used false intel to justify invading Iraq.

Funny how lying and deceiving to get what you want only matters when the other side does it!

Note that I didn’t say “Bush lied” or call Bush a liar. It’s always been my contention that he truly believed Iraq did indeed have WMD’s, and that led him to believe without question evidence that should have been questioned. But that is another topic for another day.

Here’s the bottom line – politicians lie to get what they want.

DUH!

Which one of these two will have cost more lives and national treasure after a ten year period?

Despite the silly “death panel” charges, the ACA, despite it’s still remaining flaws, will no doubt save more than a few lives, and, unlike the Iraq occupation, lead to few if any being lost. And remember, the money redistribution as a result of the healthcare bill, unlike so much of the funds that disappeared in Iraq, will stay at home and recirculate in our economy.

PS.  This is some great meta-analysis form David Bernstein.

Drugs Are Bad… M’Kay!

All drugs are the same. Every drug is as addictive as the others. There is NO DIFFERENCE between marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or meth. That’s like saying getting stung by a bee is the same as getting bit by a black widow, or getting bit by one of those deadly Australian sea snakes! This stupidity is rampant in drug enforcement circles. Kudo to Democrat Senator Jerod Polis for not letting this go.

Here is more info on this Congressional interview.

Hat Tip – Sully.

Go Slinky Go!

Awe inspiring and inspirational! It just won’t quit! Has truly changed my life!!!!!

In The Face Of Death – Pt 1

There is a new documentary about HIV and the AIDS epidemic that surfaced in the 1980’s called “How To Survive A Plague“. Andrew Sullivan contracted the virus in the mid 80, and writes of some of his experiences; the fear of dying, watching your friends die, and getting up, protesting, and actually making a difference. The demonstrations led by gay activists, many of whom were fighting for their lives, eventually led to changes in FDA policies which allowed some drugs to be brought to market in a more timely fashion than was permitted at the time. Here is Andrew’s post. It’s a great read, and a reminder of what the gay population faced in the not too distant past, and why some are fighting so diligently to achieve marriage equality.

Being that I came to terms with being gay in the AIDS era, I too have a story to tell. It’s not as compelling as Mr Sullivans, but it is none-the-less a perspective of someone who had contact with that point in time. Being gay during this almost 15 year period was equated by many as being an AIDS faggot! And because you were gay, and had sex, you deserved to die! (even if you didn’t have sex… well… you deserved to die anyway). That wasn’t just what people thought behind closed doors, some openly said it, and still do. I’ll see if I can crank out my perspective today or tomorrow if time permits.

More Journalism FAIL – Taking Quotes WAY Out Of Context.

This is stunning! If you follow my blog, you will know that I can’t stand it when an interview of a news-maker or candidate is edited to make the person look dumb or out of touch. Conservative radio talk hosts do it all the time. I called foul when Breitbart did it with Sherry Sharrod. I’m no Palin fan, but never-the-less I called foul when the Katy Couric / Sarah Palin interview was chopped to make Palin look as ridiculous as possible.

I can’t stand when quotes are taken out of context, no matter which side of the fence does it.

Well, MSNBC has, it seems, taken the art to a new level! Here is the MSNBC video, making Romney look completely out of touch:

Here is the side by side video of both the MSNBC edited version and the full speech:

As Andrea Mitchell says… It’s Amazing!

I am stunned. This is as bad… No…. Much worse than the Breitbart / Sherrod case. At least with that, even though I never bought it, there was a tiny bit of deniability – that Breitbart may not have had access to the full video when he posted his edited version. MSNBC can make no claims in that regard. And thankfully, the regular press is having none of this either.

On “Amazing”… What should be amazing is that anyone involved with this keeps their jobs. But seing that MSNBC is the mirror image of FOX, I suspect those involved will likely get a raise.

Yeah, MSNBC really screwed up this time.

Meanwhile, execs at CNN are going “Shit, we don’t do anything nearly as horrible… How can we have lower ratings than these guys?”.

And somewhere, out in the wilderness, Keith Olbermann is laughing his head off, going “Jeez, is Andrea Mitchell just stupid? I wouldn’t even have gone there! So glad I don’t work for these buffoons anymore!!!”.

Crony Journalism At It’s Best… Er Worst.

Funny, on the same day Barrack Obama, the guy who deported more aliens of illegal entry (is that PC enough) per month than his EVIL predecessor ever did, suddenly and suspiciously changes this policy right in the grips of a very tight general election contest… Huf-Po blogger Geoffrey Dunn – on that very day, long after all this other news had been circulating in the headlines – courageously exposes the already known fact that an ex politician who is currently not a candidate for the Presidency or anything else for that matter, while governor, made backroom deals to secure legislation….

WOW!

I mean, really. I’m bowled over!

I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin by any stretch of the imagination, but really? How significant is she any more, versus the wheeling and dealing of a sitting President? If governance is like making sausage, then Palin’s meats have long become rotted and worm food. Ew. Some of the President’s meaty concoctions are still quite fresh. Why not write about that? Would Geoffrey Dunn have written the same article with the same derogatory slant if were about President Obama’s back room deals on the ACA or other legislation he’s signed in his 3 1/2 years in office? Saving General Motors then implementing the clumbsy Cash for Clunkers program? Solyndra? Would love to see some of the notes and visitors to the White House who had anything to do with the various high speed rail projects the Federal Government under Democrat rule were so eager to pressure the states to build.

Oh…. And the author, trying to defend against the charges of “crony capitalism on steroids” against Obama, shows that Sarah Palin is herself a serial crony capitalist, gives us how many examples of Sarah Palin’s crony capitalism???

Yep. One. That spells journalism FAIL in my book.

PS. One more thing. I wonder why Dunn didn’t go after Mit Romney for also making the “crony capitalism on steroids” remark. After all, he echo’s it in several speeches, and, unlike Palin, he IS running for the Presidency. Could it be that Romney’s biggest accomplishment while Governor of Massachusetts was, as luck would have it, healthcare reform, and to point to any crony capitalism involved with that deal might just look a little too uncomfortably familiar????

Citizens United…. Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! (or, to put it bluntly… put up, or shut up) With UPDATE.

Venting Alert!

Sorry if the following will piss people off, but this is something that has bothered me for the last four years. It’s the phony outrage concerning the Citizen United case. It came up last week when Wisconsin Governor pretty much crushed the opposition that tried to recall him. Because Walker was able to raise much more money than his opponent, naturally the union defeat was blamed on Citizen United. Of course, as it turns out, Citizens United seems not to have helped Scott Walker much at all. Walker got most of his money from private citizens, which is not even an aspect of campaign finance law that is covered under CU. It was his opponent that benefited from the changes in campaign finance law from that court decision.

Now, on the eve of the court possibly making the new worstest decision ever by repealing the mandate in the ACA (Obamacare), there is a petition circulating on Facebook telling the court that Citizens United is the worst Supreme Court decision EVER and that they must repeal it! NOW!!!!!

“Worse… Court… Decision… Ever”?????

Um… I guess this person never heard of Dred Scott, Plessy v Ferguson… Gonzalez v Raich, where the Supreme Court said the act of growing pot, not selling but growing, falls under the commerce clause because the product MIGHT be sold to someone else across state lines in the future! That is a much worse decision than CU.

Oh… and I left this one out – Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad – the decision that cart blanc gave corporations “personhood” in the first place! If that one thing were amended in the Constitution, CU, and a whole bunch of money / politics issues in US politics goes away. Yet, not one Democrat has stepped up and even proposed to start this process AND they are actively using the process allowed under the CU ruling to raise money for their own campaigns. I’m sorry, but the outrage over CU is phony!

I’m pretty sure, as in 99.99999%, the SCOTUS had no Constitutional power to repeal a decision on it’s own. Plessy v Ferguson was known to be a God Awful decision for a very long time, yet it wasn’t until a new case reached the court some 70 years later, in the form of Brown v Board Of Education, that gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to reverse the previous decision. And then you have the pressure of “Stare Decisis” a legal principle that makes it difficult to change or reverse prior rulings unless there is very clear legal justification to do so. And no, “I don’t like that decision” is not enough of a reason to do so.

Now, you could wait around for decades for a court case to come up through the system which might maybe lead to reversal… Think Conservatives and abortion. Hell, they’ve been TRYING for nearly 40 years to get an abortion case to the Supreme Court in hopes of overturning Roe v Wade, yet they’ve failed spectacularly despite all their efforts! Either your side is serious about getting corporate money out of politics, or it’s not. Stupid petitions like this are absolutely not effective and only show that your side is not serious about changing the law. You just like having it as a wedge issue to rally the troops. Propose and build support for a Constitutional Amendment, or stop wasting everyone’s time.

——————————

UPDATE: My Facebook friend who posted the original petition responded: Well, at least it’s doing something instead of sitting around bitching about it….”

No… It’s pretending to do something.

I’ve been writing about this for four years, ever since the President made this an issue in embarrassing fashion during the SOTUA. He did absolutely nothing after that, because he knew it would be a new way to raise more money for himself and Democrat colleagues in the future. It was a new source of money. That’s the same reason the Repubs never went after Clinton / Gore for their shady foreign money raising efforts… They also saw a new source of revenue and didn’t want to mess that up. Instead, they had to wait another year before they found out about Lewinski.

Sorry I’m being harsh, but part of the reason nothing changes is because people get lulled into thinking they are making a difference with stuff like this… And they are not! And too often, that is by design. Unless you want to wait around for some 70 years for another court challenge that might, might lead to the reversal of CU, or better yet, the reversal of Santa Clara v Railroad, take the steps to start the process that will actually change the ruling instead of just yelling about it and carrying placards. If nothing else, that should be the lesson taken from the Walker recall. In the end, it was all noise.

PS. No, I’m not a Conservative. I’m libertarianish… with a little “L” and I fully support and advocate for the repeal of personhood status for corporations. Been doing so for years.

Sour Grapes, Grown From Your Own Vineyard!

So, the unions failed miserably, spectacularly  to get Governor Scott Walker thrown from office. Along with the gloating the GOP’ers have earned, there is much hand wringing going on today on the Democrat side of the isle. Except for my favorite political video of the evening, where the challenger gets slapped in the face for conceding the race, which he did lose, this is probably my favorite video from last night.

The fall-back position is that Walker’s win is not legitimate because he was able to out raise and send Barret something like 4 to 1.  Of course, what the Progressives and Liberals don’t tell you, and themselves ignore, is that the reason that happened was in part due to rules put in place when Democrats ruled the roost as a sure fire way to protect the governor, who was also a Democrat. And the law that created the loophole, which was passed in 1987, was supported by…  Drumroll Please…  State Representative Tom Barrett!  Yes, THAT Tom Barrett!!!!

the loophole allowing unlimited donations benefits only candidates facing possible recall efforts, in this case, Walker. The law was passed in 1987 (and supported by then-state representative Barrett) to level the playing field for incumbents facing recall challenges, who would be otherwise handicapped by Wisconsin’s strict campaign-finance laws. Walker took this small loophole, designed to even the odds when state and local candidates faced an unexpected election, and used it to rake in tens of millions of dollars. Yet this loophole hasn’t necessarily increased the amount of money Walker has received to beat back the recall effort; rather it seems that large donations from millionaires and billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friess, which normally would have been directed to super PACs and third-party groups, have instead gone directly into the campaign’s coffers.

Ah, the irony.

I know they are going to bring up their favorite whipping boy Citizen United. But that is disingenuous to say the least. Before Citizen United, Corporations and other large entities, donating to either party, had plenty of ways to funnel plenty of money into the political system. But here’s the thing that really bugs me. If Citizen United was SOOOO horrible, where was the effort to propose a Constitutional Amendment stripping corporations of their right to donate to political causes???? There wasn’t one. Why? Because Democrats also rely on that same “evil” funding to get elected and re-elected. Citizen United gives the Dems a hammer to pound on the GOP, but they have no problem using the results of that ruling to bolster their own campaign slush funds.

BTW, I would fully support such an amendment, and believe that only flesh and blood people should be allowed to donate to political candidates and causes.