Jan
13
2012
Or, to steal a phrase from Admiral Ackbar… “It’s a TRAP!!!”
But, as far as traps go, this one may be a good one.
President Obama is going to ask Congress to give him more power to be able to merge competing Federal agencies, thus getting rid of competing agencies, easing the conflict of overlapping bureaucratic regulations, and trimming a little bit of Government to boot.
To voters sick of dysfunction, Obama wants to show some action on making Washington work better. Politically, his plan would allow him to do so by putting the onus on Congress and in particular his Republican critics in the House and Senate, to show why they would be against the pursuit of a leaner government.
Sounds like a good idea to me…. With a caveat. If the merged departments are going to be an excuse to create yet another over-arching management agency that will eat up even more resources, a-la Homeland Security, then, sorry, this is a no-go….
But hey – If this would give the President the authority to unwind the Department of Homeland Security, a money sucking bureaucratic duplicate if there ever was one, then I am DEFINITELY all for this!!!! đ
My misgivings aside, this is a pretty screwed play by the President. It will be argued that this is just an election year ploy to set up the Republicans.
Duh!
But, unlike some of the other ridiculous things pull by both side in the last few months, this one is a smart one. Lets see how the supposed Government-cutting Republicans respond to this.
Jan
12
2012
There are times when I wonder if anyone is paying attention to anything anymore. A few days ago, a domestic terrorist group committed arson against Harris Ranch, one of the prominent local beef producers here in California. This is not one of those huge industrial farms run by AMD, mind you, but a truly local company, a family farm. Somehow, this story has been ignored in the press, who are reporting more important things like “More see class conflict between rich and poor“, “Corey Feldman Is Going To Name Names Of Hollywood Pedophiles“, or “Rick Santorum’s Italian Based Relatives Are Communists!“. I guess it’s news when domestic terrorism happens in somewhere important, like LA, but not so much when it happens here in the lowly hicksville that is the San Joaquin Valley.
Here is the story:
Animal-rights activists are taking responsibility for an arson fire that destroyed 14 cattle trucks at the sprawling Harris Ranch in the San Joaquin Valley off Interstate 5.
The fire broke out at the feed lot truck-storage facility at the ranch about 3:45 a.m. Sunday, said Fresno County sheriff’s Deputy Chris Curtice. Firefighters found 14 trucks fully engulfed and extinguished the blaze within 45 minutes, he said.
In an e-mail sent to the media Monday, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office said it had received an anonymous message from someone with specific details about the fire at the Coalinga ranch, one of the largest farming operations in the San Joaquin Valley.
“Containers of accelerant were placed beneath a row of 14 trucks with four digital timers used to light four of the containers and kerosene soaked rope carrying the fire to the other 10,” the e-mail said.
“We were extremely pleased to see all 14 trucks ‘were a total loss,’ “ the message said.
“We’re not delusional enough to believe that this action will shut down the Harris feeding company, let alone have any effect on factory farming as a whole,” the e-mail said. “But we maintain that this type of action still has worth, if not solely for the participant’s peace of mind, then to show that despite guards, a constant worker presence and razor wire fence, the enemy is still vulnerable.”
The e-mail ended with, “Until next time.”
Um… The enemy???????
On the local Inga Barks radio show, one of the spokesmen called in to the show to brag about the success of the terrorist act. In the process, he also said that the killing of livestock is much worse than what happened on 9/11. The audio is not up yet, but when it comes on line, I’ll post it ASAP.
UPDATE: The audio is here! The link didn’t work. I’ve got the audio. Will post it when I get a chance to package it and edit it down to length.
Meanwhile, these guys have been busy:
The North American Animal Liberation Press Office highlights “revolutionary environmentalism,” including these recent examples:
A Dec. 1 statement that an anarchist group was responsible for sabotaging a rail line in southern Oregon to stop the transport of “resources from the earth without consequence.”
A Nov. 22 claim by the Animal Rights Militia that the group “liberated animals from a Vermont farm for the second year in a row.”
A Nov. 18 communiqué from activists taking credit for a break-in and mink release at an Oregon fur farm in late September.
Now, this group is an admitted terrorist group. I wonder if President Obama will use his new powers to scoop them up and hold them without trial? They are terrorists after all!
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On a related note, a friend of mine who is an avowed Socialist (the real kind) and very very sympathetic to the OWS movement, said something the other day that stuck in my craw. I had been meaning to write about it and chew on it, but I put it aside. But this attack makes our conversation all the more relevant.
He was complaining about the lack of real news coverage of the OWS movement when compared to how the press covered the happenings of the Arab Spring uprisings. He said this:
“The OWS movement is going to start up very soon, and this time people are going to die just like in Syria and Egypt, and only with that blood will the people of this country rise up and take action”
Now, he’s not going to take that action, but, it sounded very much like he is hoping for, maybe even advocating violence and death, for the purpose of inciting the new American Revolution! Now, every one is entitled to their opinion, and I don’t like the condition of our political class or the systematic corruption either… But Jeez! Is the OWS cause really the equivalent of the Arab Spring????
PS. If you happen to find yourself on the I-5 in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, and have a hankering for a fantastic steak, you won’t find a better steak than can be had at the Harris Ranch Restaurant off the 5 and 198! The food there is legendary, and the cows are grown locally… At the ranch the terrorists want to destroy!
Jan
11
2012
Mitt Romney is a good guy. A stand up family man. A guy who knows business and a guy who will likely lose the Presidential election if he is the GOP nominee.
Why won’t they like him?
Ruben Navarette Jr has his reasons for the persistent “Anyone-But-Romney” faction that resides not only within the GOP, but across the voting public as a rule. Though he does have some points, I think he missed something.
But first, let examine the reality of this upcoming election. Even though things do not look great right now for President Obama, they are slowly but surely improving. I just saw a report that medical inflation has slowed down a bit. Not, there was no indication that ObamaCare, as it’s called, had anything to do with that as most of the changes from that don’t go into effect until 2014 or so. Never-the-less, the President will be able to take credit for it.
The unemployment numbers have been trending consistently down, albeit slowly. I’m not sure if there is a definite number value to set your sites on, but if that number continues to trend down this year, Obama will have his “Stay The Course” message. Now, a 7.5 percent unemployment number is bad, but, it’s better than an 8 percent, and he’ll have that momentum on his side. If this is the case come November, Obama take this election, especially if Mitt wins the GOP nomination.
I single out Romney because, at this point and time, I don’t see anyone else getting the nod from the GOP, and oh what a reluctant nod that will be. The base of the Republican party, they don’t dislike him, but he doesn’t satisfy their needs for a meat thrower, a male version of an Ann Coulter (although maybe that isn’t the best example right now as she is on the outs with hard-core Conservatives because she’s backing Romney). But Romney isn’t the only one that Conservatives just won’t take a shining to. I know It won’t happen, but I think the one guy who would give Obama a real run for his money, even if the trends are looking up is Jon Huntsman. He’s to my mind the most sensible and experienced guy in the GOP field. Plus… well… he’s sane. I mean, really, Newt “I did not lobby for Freddie Mac” Gingrich can be a total basket case. Ron Paul, though I support him, can be a bit looney (but in a fun way)… And how crazy does Rick Santorum or Michell Bachmann have to be to even THINK they could attract a sliver of the independent vote during the general election!
Not to imply Mitt Romney’s not sane. He is very well centered in that regard. When compared to Bachmann or Cain or “business” (con artist) rival Donald Trump, he’s uber-sane! It’s just that, he’s just… so… canned. He’s the “perfect” candidate… Too perfect! He comes across as someone who was born and bred to be a candidate. In many ways, he’s the GOP’s version of Al Gore, who also came off as a pure-bred and changed positions on almost everything under the sun to try and be all things to all voters when he made the switch from local and state elections to the national one.
Romney and Al Gore are defective chameleons who, no matter how hard they try and change their colors to match the conditions of their current environment, they are never quite that convincing. This is the thing that ultimately made Al Gore such a weak candidate in 2000. He couldn’t even win his own home state of Tennessee (which would have made Florida moot, BTW). Just as Gore had magically forgotten about all those positions he has changed to get the high office he had obtained, eight years later he campaigned as if Bill Clinton had never existed, wiped from his memory. And yes, he did have plenty of reasons to distance himself from his boss. Lets not forget the fund raising scandals. Now, all candidates have something to run from, some skeleton in the closet as it were. It’s the way that you distance yourself that makes a difference. RomneyCare and ObamaCare do sound the same, in both name and substance, and I’m not sure that Romney will be able to get away from this one. But its all the other changes, from abortion to immigration, and everything in between. It just doesn’t sit well with the core of the GOP, and me neither. The conversions just look too convenient, insincere. I’m certain that any day now, Romney will come up with a single term equivalent of Al Gore’s “Lock Box”!
Now, granted, I think Gore was more successful with his base than Romney has been with the GOP, but only because the Democratic base thinks that any conversion to their side “must” be sincere for “obvious reasons”, because, you know, that is what you do when you become intellectually enlightened and have feelings for your fellow man! The GOP, on the other hand, approaches things from a “core beliefs” angle, and core beliefs just are not susceptible to change, because if they change, then how can they be core beliefs?
Jan
10
2012
I’ve been really busy lately.
Been working and playing lots of music.
Plus, since Kevin’s death, I frankly haven’t been in the mood to do much writing. I even neglected to post for my seven year blogiversary here at Sonicfrog Dot Net. I’m not going to produce one of those comprehensive “look at all the stuff I did this year” or a “Best Of” thing… That takes too much time, and frankly, I’m not in the mood to do that. And it’s pointless, because of all the “brilliant” things I’ve written, of all the times I’ve been linked at Gay Patriot or Instapundit, my writing serve a much greater purpose this year. The post I wrote concerning the death of my friend Kevin Kirby was the inspiration for his obituary and eulogy.
The day I wrote it, I simply needed to scribble something down, if for no other reason than to deal with the pain of losing my friend. Though I was not done with it, I went ahead and posted it on line. Since no one has been visiting my blog lately, I figured it wouldn’t get read and I could fix the rawness of it later. That night, Kevin’s brothers John and Jim came over to my house for a get-together, and the first thing they said was that they loved what I wrote and that it was going to be used in the eulogy…
“What? It’s not done! How the heck did they even find it?” I exclaimed, a bit stunned by the news.
I guess I had also linked the post to Facebook and Jims wife, who was in charge of writing the eulogy, had writers block and was looking on-line for inspiration, and stumbled upon my little good-bye note.
Oh, they did have to clean up the language a bit, but there it is. Of all the success I’ve had writing on this blog, limited though it is, I am more honored by that than anything I’ve accomplished here is the entire seven year span.
I do hope I won’t be repeating that accomplishment anytime in the near future. Please.
Jan
10
2012
Well, we did it again!. We were on the Tee Vee! OK, the show we were on may be a stones throw away from Wayne’s Worlds… But it’s still Tee Vee!
I left the intro by Pieter because… well… He’s a nut! Actually, he’s a great performer! Funnier than hell!
Here is another vid. This is fun because I had planned to play the guitar on this song, but right before we went to the studio, Jims said he thought a mandolin would sound good on the song, so I came up with the mando part right before we went to the station. And, not to be outstaged, here’s Piet, trying his best to gently critique David Crosby of CSN fame on a recent performance, tyring his best not to flat out say they sucked!!!
Wait! Did Piet just call us old??????
Jan
10
2012
Salt Lake City is the gayest city in America (with a caveat).
There are, of course other things that are most unexpected….
PS. You only have to watch the first 4 seconds. The rest is just filler.
Jan
5
2012
That’s what the story says. Here is the MSNBC take on this episode:
Loving your fellow man…the golden rule…all concepts apparently lost on a radical, hate-propagating Christian group known as Christians for a Moral America.
Back in November, when George Michael went through a lengthy hospitalization after a life-threatening bout of pneumonia, fans and friends were sending thoughts his way. But the CFAMA was sending something else entirely â a call for its followers to pray for his death.
Here is what that Christian group wrote:
George Michael is reportedly close to death after being struck down with pneumonia (a symptom of AIDS). The popstar, who was outed as a homosexual back in the 90’s after being caught having sex with another man in a public bathroom (a common homosexual behavior) is notorious for having lived the “fast life” and plaguing his body with drugs and no doubt sexual diseases. It’s almost symbolic that just after the 20th anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death from AIDS that another famous homosexual would succumb to this disease.
We pray that George Michael has found salvation through Christ in his last days otherwise he will pay for his unrepentant lifestyle in hell. And for all those involved in this deviant lifestyle and want to change before it’s too late, please head over to narth.org where they can help you.
Now, what they wrote was the type of unfeeling, inaccurate and tasteless knee-jerk reaction we’ve come to expect of the typical gay-fearing rabid Christian sect, and I’m not defending them for their blind intolerance in any way. However, they did not encourage their flock to “pray for his death“, but to pray for his salvation if he dies! There is a HUGE difference there.
We expect this kind of idiotic blurbs to come from Christian organizations of this nature. But the MSNBC story is simply inane and inaccurate. Even though it is a entertainment fluff piece and not relevant to anyone’s life, other than George Michael and the members of the Christian group, we never the less should expect better journalism from those who call themselves journalists, even the entertainment ones.
UPDATE: I stand corrected – Michael James has provided info that confirms the MSNBC assertion!
Actually, the man behind CFAMA, who tweets under the name â@godswordislawâ DID call for a prayer for George Michaelâs death! Itâs just not in the article, and thatâs where MSNBC gets it wrong.
Mind you, this is all nit-picking in comparison to MSNBCâs real clanger of calling CFAMA a âChristian groupâ with âfollowersâ. In reality, itâs just one attention-seeking individual who tweets inflammatory nonsense, and is in all probability a hoax.
Now that’s the kind of journalism I like to see – Complete with links. Thanks Mr James.
Jan
4
2012
Republican House Leader John Boehner is complaining that the Obama administration is committing an âextraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab,â for making a recess appointment. “The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our constitution,” Boehner said.
Checks and Balances.
Hmmm.
The Legislative branch IS in recess… Well, except for the ploy by Republicans to try and keep the Senate and House from being “officially” on recess for more than three days, a trick used during the past Memorial Day non-recess recess with the explicit intent to prevent the President from making a recess appointment to the same position being filled today.
Somehow, that isn’t a bit of an abuse of power?
But the irony is the fact that this latest complaint of a “power grab” is coming from a man who just voted to give the executive branch the unbridled and unchecked power to detain any American citizen he or she chooses, simply by accusing that person of being involve in terrorist activities, without trial, without the protection of Constitutional rights.
Disgusting.
All these people need to go!
UPDATE: Well, how the worm turns! The liberal press is leaving out a specific detail that make this even worse for Democrats! Turns out the “Pro Forma” strategy was pioneered by Senate Democrats to try and block Bush appointees!
UPDATE 2: Oh look…. When the Democrats did this to Bush, his White House team of lawyers recommended that he ignore the Senate / Harry Reid ploy, and make the appointments anyway! Bush declined to do so (but he’s stupid, don’t you know). Haven’t found a link to confirm it yet, but my bet is, that the Republicans at the time thought this was, to steal a line from ex-Senator Tom Daschle, “OUTRAGEOUS!”
Let it be noted too that the 10 day standard is nowhere to be found in the Constitution; that Theodore Roosevelt President Theodore Roosevelt once made recess appointments during an intra-session recess of less than one day, and that the 10 day standard has been a courtesy of restraint employed by the Presidency for only the last twenty years or so.
Here is the Bush White House lawyer’s take on the use of this tactic.
Democrats are as big a bunch of liars as Republicans! There. I said it! I am SOOOOO sick of this crap!!!! God I really despise these people!
Jan
4
2012
A friend who is an ardent Ron Paul supporter, upon reading that I’m not a fan of Paul’s desire to retreat back to the gold standard, suggested that I watch this video.
(here is the transcript)
Sorry, but it’s just not as simple as a six minute interview. There is a lot of history being left out. For instance, Paul says this:
“I would like to have a transition period. Just legalize gold money, and allow us to use gold and silver as legal tender. And we can work our way back.”
Um… Andrew Jackson did that very thing at the end of his administration with the Specie Circular Act. The net effect was two-fold. First, it accelerated the devaluation rate of paper currency, and, because gold and silver are considered rare commodities, both of these created a tremendous rise in inflation. The depression that followed lasted for two years, one of the longest economic downturn in the history of the United States at that time. Remember that at this time, very very few of this countries citizens speculated in the market; most were country farmers and not a robust part of the economic system. When you take that into account, that today’s economy covers a much broader scope of industries AND of people directly inserted into the economy, the same depression that Jackson triggered would be as horrific as the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
Speaking of, some blame our removal from the gold standard as the reason for the Great Depression. That is nonsense. Though financial reforms of 1913 put us on track to become independent of gold (see the near financial collapse of 1907 to understand why) we did not actually remove ourselves from that monetary system until 1932. In the 1920’s, England, which had gone off the gold standard right after WW 1, went back on the gold standard in 1925. That soon led England into economic depression. Winston Churchill, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time and who made the decision, considered it one of his great mistakes in hindsight.
Switching back to gold as a currency anchor has a number of fundamental problems.
* The value of the commodity at the current time, if adopted, would cause massive inflation as the paper currency would have to be adjusted to the current value of gold.
* Because gold is a commodity, uncertainty in the commodities market can cause its value to fluxuate and can be easily affected by speculators.
* There is not nearly enough gold that has been mined that could cover the currency (another problem encountered by Europe in the 1920’s)
* A return to the gold standard would cause a massive rush to increase the mining of gold. We know where more gold is, but right now it is exhaustively expensive to get at (there are several potential spots up in the Sierra Nevada mountain range near where I live). A return to gold would create a temporary gold rush, as companies would be willing to expend those resources to get that gold. But soon enough you would reach equilibrium, and gold production would taper off. The very same thing caused yet another depression in 1851, after the flow of gold from the California Gold Rush of 1849 ran out.
* Finally, countries that are on the gold standard jump off at the drop of a proverbial hat. All of Europe was on the gold standard pre-World War 1. As soon as the war broke out, they all ditched it and started printing money to pay for the war. And that is not a one-time thing, nor is it done only for wars. All countries have through history behaved in the same fashion. If we decided that going to Mars was a good and proper thing for the US to do, we would print money in a heartbeat to finance it!
I’m sorry, but returning to the gold standard would probably end up being worse than staying on the crappy system we have now.
There is more to say on this, but I have other things I have to get done.
————————————————————-
One more thing. Paul also says this:
I wish we could do this overnight and we could do a few things like repealing the executive order of Nixon but that in and of itself wouldn’t be enough.
We know what to do. We did it once after the Civil War. We went from a paper standard back to a gold standard, and the event was not that dramatic. Today the big problem is both the conservatives and the liberals have a big appetite for big government for different reasons. Therefore they need the Fed to tide them over and monetize the debt.
So if you do not get rid of that appetite, it’s going to be more difficult. But the transition is not that difficult. You have to get your house in order, you have to balance the budget, you have to not run up debt, and you have to promise to not print any more money.
That’s what they did after the Civil War and it was accepted and we went right back to the gold standard.
He has things backwards. The nation only went back to the gold standard AFTER we had gotten most of the war debt paid off, and Congress returned to the now long jettisoned notion of balancing the budget and living within our means. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Remember, Andrew Jackson left office with not only a balanced government budget, but also had retired national debt to boot. Yet his adherence to gold policy helped lead to one of the worst economic crashes in our history. Plus, with the completion of the intercontinental railroad and the continued expansion into western territories, the United States economy was primed for growth. Keep in mind we are living in a very very different time than that of the Civil War period. Maybe my myopic condition has gotten worse (I am in may later 40’s and that’s not improbable I must admit!) and maybe I need to have my glasses checked, but the last time I looked at things, I see nothing on the economic horizon that will prime this nations economy in any similar fashion, do you?
More info on the economics of the Civil War here.
Jan
3
2012
In a recent e-mail, my Mom wanted to pick my brain concerning Ron Paul. I had been meaning to visit that subject anyway, so I’m posting my reply to her here as well.
I happen to respect Ron Paul a great deal. I do think some of his ideas on fiscal policy are goofy (going back to the gold standard will do nothing to help the current economic problems), but he is absolutely the only one who is running who has consistently vetoed excessive spending, even against his party’s wishes, and think he is right on with regard to some of our foreign policy missteps. Unlike everyone else in the race, Ronmey, Newt, Santorum, Bachmann, etc, Paul has not changed his beliefs to match what he thinks the special interest groups want him to say or do this time around. Just as was the case in 2008, he is not pandering to this group or that. He stands by what he believes… Period.
He has a couple of problems.
(A) The Ron Paul Newsletters. Some of the language in them is inflammatory, if not flat out racist. It is pretty clear that Ron Paul did not write the stuff. Ron Paul has a 30 year history of being in politics and giving speeches AND doing interviews on the various networks, including CSPAN. No one has yet been able to produce a video, or even a sound byte of Paul saying anything even remotely racist. As a congressman, no one has as of yet produced a piece of legislation authored by Paul that can be considered racist. He has had his own medical practice for the last 40 something years. And that is not a string of clinics in his name – when he is not serving in Congress, he actually works there and cares for the patients himself. For all those years, there does not seem to be a single complaint again Paul or his practice for turning away a person of color or giving them sub-par treatment when compared to white clientele. If Ron Paul secretly IS a racist, he certainly does not let that prejudice influence either his work ethic OR his legislative judgement. In 2008, I withdrew my support because of this issue – not because the letters were written, but because Paul did not reveal the person who did write them and slander his name. Now, things are so bad, and the field of candidates is so horrible from both parties, I just don’t care about this. It’s minutia compared to the crap we’re facing.
(B) Ron Paul thinks the 9/11 commission was a white wash. Because he thinks that, people assume / paint him as a closet “truther”, i.e. someone who thinks the US government was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. That of course is NOT what Paul thinks. He is of the opinion that various facts were purposefully omitted from the report in order to protect the reputations of certain government and allies who were part of the “coalition of the willing”, that lots of information was left out to protect them, along with politicians who made horrible decisions on both sides of the isle, especially Republicans, who were in charge of the Congress at the time when the report was done. He’s almost certainly right in that regard. But, he will be painted as a 9/11 Truther anyway. It’s already happened in a correspondence with a Conservative (“True Conservative”) friend of mine.
That said. Even though I have some real disagreements on some of Paul’s economic ideas, he is by far the ONLY candidate out there who has shown real commitment to underlying principles of the Constitution. All the others in the race, including the guy who is currently sitting in the oval office, care about the Constitution when it comes to the fortification and expansion of the powers of the Executive branch. Ron Paul is THE ONLY ONE who advocates for the reduction of that office, and restoration of powers that were originally given to Congress, but has either been taken by the strong Executive branch, FDR and the New Deal for instance, or has literally been GIVEN to the Presidency by a weak Congress who doesn’t want to take responsibility for anything if it will hinder their re-election chances, such as the the responsibility to declare war, which was last used at the entrance of the US into World War Two.
Going back to the “Truther” thing for a moment. I don’t believe any of that “Truther” clap-trap, and have railed against it many times on my blog. But, if a new investigation revealed that the Saudi government was much more involved in the plot than the first report revealed, wouldn’t that be of some interest, seeing that we are even now in the process of selling them multibillions of dollars worth of military aircraft? Just for the heck of it, lets say Paul is a “Truther”. Hell, the Reagans believed in astrology, and Obama went to a church that preached black liberation theology. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. It’s how they represent us that does. And Ron Paul seems to have represented his constituents in a very honest manner. That matters more than anything else.
Oh, BTW, Ron Paul is no friend to the military industrial complex. Ike would approve of his candidacy.
Yes, I plan to vote for Ron Paul. If I have to, I will change my voter registration back to Republican just to vote for him. As I expect him not to be the Republican nominee, I will therefore write him in on the general election ballot come November. If you really want thing to change, to at least start to get the blatant corruption we see every day out of politics, Ron Paul is one of the very few in our political system who is not bought off by this special interest group or that. He is his own guy.
That used to count for something.
And Here Is The More!!!!!
I am going even further than just voting for Ron Paul. I am going to vote for only Libertarian or Independent candidates for office, at least on the state and national level, and I am going to encourage my friends and relatives to do the same. Our political system is entirely corrupted by moneyed special interests and their lobbyists. Much of the time, when a politician takes the floor to promote bill X, his speech was written by the lobbying entity who will make a profit of the bills passage. Watch CPSAN and laugh at how many times a Congressman has absolutely no idea what he or she is reading. It’s a joke! The healthcare bill did not pass because it was going to “fix” the health care system. It passed because HUGE donors to BOTH parties, the pharmaceutics companies and insurance companies and lawyers who represent medical malpractice cases, know they are going to make a shitload of money due to this legislation, and they made sure that nothing went through that would seriously hurt their income base! Doctors, those on the front line, have said over and over again, that one sure-fire way to bring their costs down was to get rid of some of the unnecessary administrative rules that force them to do more paperwork, which means they will have less time to treat and care for patients. So, what did they get? Ta-Da! Even MORE paperwork!!! There is little in that bill that stops or slows down the rampant inflation of the price of medical treatment in this country. So we argue over the semantics of such bills yet never get around to figuring out why the mess passed in the first place. It’s the system. The hope of both parties and big money donors, is that, if we don’t vote for one party, we’ll vote for the other. Though they don’t get the vote, it’s not that bad for them because if we vote for the other party, we stay inside their system, their construct. They know the political pendulum swings back and forth, and will soon enough swing back their way. The big money donors know that too, which is why they donate to both sides to hedge their bets. In the meantime, we, the people, get screwed! Only when the Parties start losing vote to candidates not within their spheres of influence will real change to the current political system ever happen.