A Chicken Is Not Pillage

The Tears of the Clowns

It's been nearly 2 days now since Chief Justice Roberts, in a moment of epilepsy drug fueled psychosis, betrayed the will of TEA Party Jesus and handed the country over to the Kenyon Devil body and soul.  That's BODY AND SOUL I tell you!  In that time, the wretched Michelle Malkin (the original anchor baby) has continued her whine about the KD's lack of spending precious precious middle class dollars to help her specifically with a little fire problem she's having.  Speaker 'Darrelle'  Boehner and the contemptible other brother Darrelle Issa got a 'Dear John' letter from the Justice department saying 'Kindly fuck yourself. Signed: All my Love,  the Ghost of Ronald Reagan'.  The EPA has been Constitutionally cleared to actually do their job.  Students will not have to serve longer in their financial indenture for learning that Maiasaurs were not the babysitters of Babylonian young un's. Candidate Mittens has vowed to repeal National Romneycare, though he has not, nor ever will, any power or authority to do so.

It has not been a nice couple of days to be a wingnut clown, and everyone is around to see those tears.

Still, celebration is premature and there's a buttload of work left to do.  This is what I'm getting at.  In business, regardless of a plan or proposition, there will always be someone of some authority who says 'let's take a step back and look at other options'.  And there will always be that one who says that after the plan is inevitable or has been implemented.  Stepping back on Health Care reform is not an option.  The ACA is the law, and it will not be repealed.  I do not credit Obama for this, though I could, but the American people have learned more actual facts about the ACA in two days then they have since it's passage.  Outrage is a great megaphone.  It may not be what 'we' want, but it is a step in the right direction.  There is no reason to step backwards.

Yet strangely, there are those not of the wingnut variety who wish we had.  Every single historical indicator points to how that would be a terrible thing for the progress towards 'Medicare for all', commonly called 'single-payer'.  Before Justice Roberts' brain-dysfunction upholding the ACA, almost every single lefty in the land was prepared to either crow about the failure of corporate will or lament the idea that the goal was that much farther away.  Hmm.  We don't have to do either.  There doesn't need to be any stepping back.  There won't be any stepping back.  Yet still some wail that there should be.

Read that first paragraph again.  The right has been rope-a-doped to the point that Malkin is screaming for socialist help, and Romney is clearly arguing against himself.  Even CJ Roberts is joking about hiding in a bunker against the wailing of wingnuttia.  This is the time to strike.  In a metaphor my brother will appreciate, the American metal is the right kind of hot.  Use the hammer now, before it becomes brittle.  This is the time to take back this country from the rightward shift.  That's all there is to it.

I fully accept that others may not accept my plea here.  Okay.  John Cole said it better than I could have anyway.

Just keep Pushing My Love Over The Border Line

'He Made Sure We're Screwed'

Forrest Gump:  "Stupid is as stupid does."

Forrest Gimp: 

I don’t care about the outcome of the Obamacare bill. Without it we’re screwed, but he (Obama) made sure that with it we’re screwed as well.

~sigh~  Obama didn't put Scalia or Thomas on the SCOTUS.  He didn't even have a chance to vote for or against them.  But it's somehow his fault that these two ethically challenged assholes are on the court ruling against the people.

Yes, stupid is as stupid does.  Blaming a person in whatever position for screwing you over when they had no say in the screwing is doing the stupid.  Thanks, Mark.

Good? Bad? I'm The Guy With The Gun.

It seems there's a lot of folks who want to argue that the Health Care Reform bill was bad, 0r maybe it was good.  What's truly intriguing to me is the idea that things have to get worse before they can get better.  In truth, I tend to agree with the latter.  But the funny part is this.  Not everything has to get worse for health reform to get better.  Yet it appears that many think it does.

Insurance companies are profit taking.  Health care reform appears to be more of a dismal failure than before the HCR act.  McDonalds isn't even going to be able to offer their crap coverage any more because of OBAMACARE!  EVERYBODY PANIC!  My point?  That's a good thing.  But there are many still obsessed that we didn't get single payer/public option out of the box.

So, those folk are talking letting the Republicants take the reigns again.  How bad can it be, right?  Well, how 'bout this bad.  Teapublicants take the Congress in November.  Forget a repeal of DADT.  Expect a further expansion of state Amendments that ban gay marriage.  The culture wars heat up with further erosion of Roe v. Wade.  The mandates for Health Insurance get repealed (the only thing that actually saves money according to the CBO), and we move back to the status quo of 2004.   Congress overrules any CiC mandate for withdrawal of troops because we are at war.  Bush's tax cuts are extended in their entirety.  And there is no faint hope of getting a public option for insurance.  The retirement age for SS is raised to 70, and more jobs continue to be lost.  I'm leaving a lot of stuff out, but it doesn't matter because progressives won't focus.

I agree that pain is a necessary part of progress.  If one is concerned about health care reform, then those sympathetic to those concerns should be protected.  It's only coincidence that most of those folk are Democrats, I suppose. The dealio is this;  concern for one issue is not justification for abandoning all others, unless pain is precisely the desire.  I've lived as an adult through the Reagan years, and the Bush years.  I'm fricking tired of watching people abandon any real progress because it hurts ... so they call for more hurt.

If you want real health care reform, watch things play out with the actors who might actually do something.  We can get rid of Baucus in 2014.  We can get rid of a lot of Congress between now and then.  But getting rid of the people who might actually help because of issues that have nothing to do with *your* issue?   Seriously?  Be careful of the trades you're making.

Mostly For Moorcat

Since this story has apparently slipped under the radar of our so-called journalists, I thought this diary from Daily Kos would be instructive to read.

I can't remember seeing any kind of federal response to health premium increases, so a letter Thursday from Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius (thanks to Igor Volsky at Wonkroom for the tip) is unusual not just for its tough language, but because it exists at all. In a letter to Karen Ignani, president of the insurance industry lobbying and trade association, Sebelius warns insurers to cut it out with blaming their double-digit price hikes on federal health reform:

 

It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrolees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act. I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases.

 

The Stupid, It Burns

Often those in the reality-based community will use the title phrase when the stupidity coming from pundits and politicians gets so overwhelming it causes mental pain.  Imagine my surprise to find something so stupid that it really does hurt.  It doesn't hurt bad enough for me to see a doctor about it, though.  After all, I have no chickens with which to pay ...

I had hope that Harry Ried might actually face a significant challenger in Sue Lowden.  That got crushed, utterly and thoroughly when I read a week or two ago that she suggests  lowering Health Care costs through barter.  I've read that before from Big Swede and some others at ECW but I didn't seriously think that a favored politician  could be stupid enough to believe it would work.  Apparently Lowden does, and went so far as to verbally honor a classic trope, paying your doctor with a chicken.

So far, the left wing blogs are having a field day with the comedic material available here.  Atrios writes:

Just how many chickens should I stockpile in my medical savings account? Since I can't keep them in the backyard, I'll need to have the poultry store act as my bank.

Lowden's bundle of bluster has been dubbed "Chickens for Checkups".  I'm trying to find the humor in that, but failing.  Health care is a helluva lot more than checkups, and barter doesn't cut it in a world where actionable value is in the hands of those who may lord it over those that need their service.  In the discussions at right-wing websites I've seen time and again the claim that doctors should be able to demand what they wish for their service, sans any interference from the stupid government.  So tongue to cheeky seriously, for technical guys over 50, what will you barter for for checkups you need?  Computers for colonoscopies?  You senior fellows.  Vacations for Viagra?  Broken bones.  Comics for casts and god knows what for the X-rays?  Pregnant gals.  Blowjobs for Babies, maybe?

Simply put, there is no way that barter can control costs in health care because the costs are and cannot be established.

Unless we go to the Chicken standard ...

Don' Ya Throw Me In Dat Der Briar Patch ...

Now we've done it.  We've pissed off President McCain and BOY IS HE PISSED!

Democrats shouldn't expect much cooperation from Republicans the rest of this year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned Monday.

...

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

You know what, you old fart?  Fuck you.  All Republicans have done for over a year now is blockade, nay-say, whine, piss and moan.  They've fostered the teabaggers in threatening our government, while pitching a fit that nobody wants to play nice with them in actually governing.  The Republicants prove themselves more useless by the day.  One can count how many votes important government initiatives have garnered from Republicants in the last year on one hand.  They can't govern, they have no ideas and they generally want the American people to know that they are grumpy old white men who should be listened to, because they are grumpy old white men.  Even the teabaggers are tired of their shit, and McCain himself faces an uphill battle for reelection.  So the Democrats better be afraid, or they'll get dick-slapped by the flaccid wieners of a bunch of dried up useless old white guys.  'Hold still Democrats!  I'll dick-slap you yet, if I can just stretch this nub beyond my fly ...  Crap, where's Dole and his Viagra?'  Let McCain continue to go on the Sunday Talkies and tell everybody how picked on the poor old GOP is.  They wanted obstruction, they got it, and now they are reaping the benefits of being the party of impotent bastards with attitude.

Personally, I love the response from Reid's office:

For someone who campaigned on ‘Country First’ and claims to take great pride in bipartisanship, it’s absolutely bizarre for Senator McCain to tell the American people he is going to take his ball and go home until the next election.  He must be living in some parallel universe because the fact is, with very few exceptions, we’ve gotten very little cooperation from Senate Republicans in recent years.
 
At a time when our economy is suffering and we’re fighting two wars, the American people need Senator McCain and his fellow Republicans to start working with us to confront the challenges facing our country—not reiterating their constant opposition to helping working families when they need it most.

That's the polite way to put it.  I'm not polite.  Fuck you and your dentures too, McCain.  You're useless.

Done

This isn't over, not by a long shot.

But for now, it's done.

Inhuman

I think I need to make a new tag for this post.  "The incomprehensibly, unbelievably, overwhelmingly and undeniably fucking stupid".

Dan Riehl, who will never get a link from me, opines that "we" ought to euthanize Harry Ried's wife.

If Democrats want so badly to abort babies because of it (health care spending), why are we bothering with someone who has a broken neck and back at 69?

Because these two things have jack-all to do with each other, jackass.

It sounds to me like she's pretty well used up and has probably been living off the taxpayers for plenty of years to begin with. Aren't we at least going to get a vote on it?

If they really think we're the devil, then let's send them to hell.  Let's have a national referendum on whether or not Dan Reihl should be put to death.  Funny thing, that, most people would vote no.  That's because we have a sense of decency that Reihl apparently lacks.  That right there is why I would vote "yes".

I realize her crook of a husband and his pals in Congress have excluded themselves from the mess they're going to compel everyone else to join,

Would HCR compel Reihl to join?  No, it wouldn't.  He's lying his pathetic ass off.

but we're still paying the bills, are we not? I don't see that she's worth it at this point, frankly. I can't recall her ever doing anything for me.

Nothing is more frightening than a Republicant telling the truth.  All of their bombast about wanting 'bi-partisanship' and all their bluster about Obama's death panels amounts to this:  they want death panels.  They want people who haven't helped them directly to be expendable.  Reihl and his ilk are vermin, a stain on the human condition.

Come on, Harry - do your civic duty. The nation's broke and counting on you guy. Pull the plug and get back to work. And don't bill us for a full day today, either. This is no time to be sloughing off. Air freight her home, you can bury her during recess on your own time and dime. Or are you going to bill us for that, too?

Reid has stayed at his wife’s bedside throughout the day Friday and returned to the Capitol in the late afternoon.

Yes, motherfucker.  And I, for one, will laugh my ass off knowing that you paid for a woman's health care, a woman who did nothing to you except marry someone you don't like.

There are those out there who desperately want us to see 'politics' for what it 'really is'.  Idiots that they are, they actually expect opposition that is rational, well-reasoned, intellectual.  Tut tut, the Democrats are the enemy, corporate controlled as they are.  They chide those who fight in the gutters, only because they don't understand that much of the opposition just crawled out of the sewers.  Fuck 'em all.

Inclusion And Time

I've been having a *great* time reading the diaries over at Daily Kos and at FireDog Lake.  The diaries at FDL mostly follow lockstep with Jane Hamsher's position that the Senate HCR Bill must die, and now, that Raum Emmanual must suffer.  Notice:  I don't consider that a bad thing.  Readers and diarists should reflect the interest of the lead bloggers if community is to be maintained.  If there is a common element of loyalty among tho0se diaries, it is that the Kos mantra of "more and better Democrats" is deeply flawed.

The diaries at the Great Orange Satan, on the other hand, are all over the map.  There are the Hamsher attacks, the Christmas well wishes, the attacks on Obama, the defenses of Obama ... seriously, it's hard to keep up.  But I did find 2 that made an interesting juxtaposition, at least to me.

First, this recommended diary from clammyc, extols the virtues of what efforts have been made by Hamsher and the FDL crowd.  She's right, as far as it goes.  The Left Flank has been very instrumental in moving the debate to the left.  I remember George McGovern talking 20 (?) years ago about the possibility of a national health insurance offering and thinking that was a helluva great idea.  Now we have a term for that, the Public Option, and I've wasted many hours debating with the right about what it could be and what it can do for us.  What the Left Flank has done is steer away from the wingnut talking point of 'Gubmint takeovers' and 'socialism' to the idea that the Public Option is a necessary component of requiring people to purchase insurance from  'somebody'.  It's an idea that people felt excluded from in the beginning, and as the debate evolved, became more palatable.  Some people began to see that that wasn't a fringe idea, but rather something that might be "uniquely American" in that it fostered competition and kept costs down.  That that effort was unsuccessful (for now) is beside the point.  The Left Flank helped to mainstream a fringe idea, one that will likely serve as a target for goal in the future.

This diary, by Nashville Fan, clearly documents how the Left Flank served to be self-defeating.  It's no mystery to any who read what I write here that this drama has been played out in micro-scale right here in the Montana blogotubes.  Those who feel inclusion in clammyc's "Left Flank" clearly wanted to protect their purity of essence from the fluoride of Democrats.  So, they made assumptions of that purity, and armed with a suspicion that every action would be "triangulation", they immediately began to alienate those who could have been their biggest allies in this fight.  Rather than invite inclusion, they immediately demanded service to 'principle' with little or no regard for who they damaged along the way.  Progressives were split into camps, and the usual liberal circular firing squad was formed before any movement took place.  The comments to that diary are fascinating because they play out the same rules set at the beginning.  Capitulate to the purists or you have  capitulated to the corporations and are an enemy to be insulted with claims of childishness for recognizing what actually took place.

What actually took place is that we have a really crappy Senate bill that could have been worse except for the left flank, and could have been better if they hadn't tried so hard to scare people and piss them off.  Now, we have the left flank joining the teabaggers in calling for the firing of administration officials and even as far as the impeachment of the back-stabbing President.  If you are rational, you have to ask yourself the question:  When I agree that my enemy is insane, and I hope for the same outcomes of my enemy, am I all that mentally put together?

Of course, the handy way around that obvious flaw is to ignore time.  Take a slice here or there, and one can justify anything to be rational.  Obama set us up the bomb because he said he liked the public option and then claimed he didn't.  Contradictory slices in time with no sense of what has actually happened.  Time X - Time Y = anyone who disagrees with me is a moral failure!?!  Does this make sense to anybody?  Should it?

Here's a better equation.  My actions, feelings and thoughts at time X - my actions feelings and thoughts at time Y equal jack shit in expectation of another.

Obama did campaign on the public option and yet he didn't.  That doesn't mean he's nefariously plotting against you.  He's plotting to get re-elected, which is exactly what politicians have done since Jefferson and Adams went head to head, and probably before that.  Glossing this shit over with a sense of universal purpose (triangulation!) doesn't make any of this so complex that only the gifted can understand it, and it certainly doesn't mean that disagreement makes one a lesser human.  It's a helluva lot more simple than that.  Obama was smart enough to keep his rhetorical options open.  Most successful politicians are.  That's why the 'Left Flank' actually hurts any progress.  They make the same mistake that GW made.  You are with us or against us.  That's not principle; that's ego.  And most to the point it's demanding that others give up any sense of the passage of time and the actions undertaken therein.  It's demanding that others give up the right to choose.

My belief is that both Nashville Fan and clammyc are correct.  We should hail the efforts of the Left Flank, and we should understand where they screwed the pooch royally, because they demanded 'join us now, or be the enemy'.  That's self-directed bullshit.

I'll leave you with this:  Democrats and Republicans are objectively the same.  Except they aren't because it's possible to work for progress within the Democratic party.  Over time, we can work to include our ideals, or form something new if we are committed to the idea that nothing new forms in what is *at this time*.   But the real point is this.  You have to work to do something, and tearing down those that can work with you from delusions of your own moral splendor will not avail you in the least.  Change is inevitable.  To struggle is an option.

What's To Do

emptywheel has a rather disturbing and depressing post up calling the LIEberman reform bill a "road to neo-feudalism".

Consider, first of all, this fact. The bill, if it became law, would legally require a portion of Americans to pay more than 20% of the fruits of their labor to a private corporation in exchange for 70% of their health care costs.

...

not only will citizens be required to pay private corporations. But middle class citizens may be required to pay more to these private corporations than they pay in federal and state taxes. Using these numbers, this middle class family of four will pay roughly 15% in federal, state, and social security taxes. This family will pay around $10,015 for their share of the commons–paying for defense, roads, some policing, and their social safety net share. That’s 15% of their income. They will, at a minimum, be asked to pay 9.8% of their income to the insurance company. And if they have a significant medical event, they’ll pay 22%–far, far more than they’ll pay into the commons. So it’s bad enough that this bill would require citizens to pay a tithe to a corporation. It’s far worse when you consider that some citizens would pay more in their corporate tithe than they would to the commons.

...

When this passes, it will become clear that Congress is no longer the sovereign of this nation. Rather, the corporations dictating the laws will be.

I've never been more serious when I ask you to read the whole thing.  I am terribly impressed that she does what so few do, and puts significant numbers to the issue.  It is hard to disagree with the bulk of her commenters who claim that she hit the point straight on ... and yet I do have problems with her thesis.

The first problem is her obvious historical contradiction.  She claims that LIEberCare would be the first instance of corporations taking control of our governance in writing our laws.  This is simply not true, and she has already offered examples that I have little interest in belaboring here.  I doubt that emptywheel meant so harshly that this is a singularity in governance, but that seems to be the import.  This is not a change we haven't seen before.  Medicare D, the entirety of laws concerning funding and protection of corporate sponsors of IraqAtaq and TARP bailouts are the most obvious examples. We even have a cliche for it:  whoever has the cash makes the rules.  I'm certain that EW would argue that it's the tithe that makes the difference, but that's hard to swallow as unique given the dire warnings left to us by Eisenhower concerning the "military industrial complex".  Taxation for military appropriation is itself a tithe for the benefit of corporate sponsorship of our legislation.

My second difficulty in accepting EW's post as spot on is the underlying assumption that it is 'game over' once LIEberCare passes.  It isn't, not by a long shot.  This too is internally contradictory to her thesis.  If this is not something new under the sun, and it's not, then we have had the ability to fight this kind of corporate totalitarianism before, and we remain with the freedom to fight again.  Corporations may have control of our legal statutes at this point in time on this issue, but EW herself points to the idea of process.  The game isn't over as long as we have the Constitution which remains, for now, beyond corporate reach.  (Any wonder why I'm so against offering corporations 'personhood' status?)  I believe that the mandate for coverage will be fought against as a perversion of interstate commerce law, being outside federal control to structure, and that that fight will be won.  Sadly enough, I agree with Professor Rob Natelson on this point.  I guess politics does make strange bedfellows.  The establishment of health care as a universal right would be open to a much weaker challenge.  The establishment of mandated insurance coverage outside state control certainly will be challenged from the right and the left.  That alone shows that this fight will continue.  Furthermore, the people will still have the vote for or against those who serve corporate masters.  That is a double edged sword.

Which brings me to the third point, which is the heart of it all.  emptywheel calls for defeat of the bill and starting the process over at a different time.  Simply put, that won't work.  That is, quite simply, closing the barn door after the horse has fled.  Electorally for Democrats, the damage is already done.  LIEberman has already smeared the party with his slime, and capitulation is seen as the only path Democrats are capable of following.  Killing the bill right now won't change that one iota.  Lieberman, Nelson and any petulant twit that wishes to own Congress already has proof of their power, and so do voters.  Whether this bill passes in current form or not, expect Congressional approval to continue to plummet.  And anybody who expects that a "progressive party" will rise from these ashes is truly delusional.  The people will be given two choices as always, and this nightmare will likely hand power back to the party of NO.  Anyone who thinks that Republicans will do anything for support of health care, raise your hand.  Nope, didn't think so either.  The damage is already done.

Defeating what is on the table now, takes it off the table.  That should be obvious, but so many seem so confused about it.  We want health care to be on the table.  The way to do that is to keep it at the forefront of debate.  Defeating this effort removes it, period.  We've been having this same argument for over 60 years, and every time we let it slip, it disappears for another decade or two.  This Senate effort, crap as it is, will keep the issue on the burner; in the courts, in public opinion and in the media it will continue to be debated, poorly, wisely and heatedly.  Throw away the effort, and all you have is failure, utter and complete.  The debate will die.

Now, Howard Dean wants a reboot, and it looks like many Democrats and progressives do as well.  Scrap the current bill they say, and start over.  Good luck with that.  On this I agree most completely with John Cole.

Anyone who thinks the House and the Senate are going to just say “to hell with it” and start over from scratch is just smoking rock. How many months did it take for a bill to get out of Baucus’s committee alone. On top of that, we would be treated to another six-eight months of teabaggers throwing things at congressmen, wildly inflated claims on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page and the op-ed pages of the Washington Post (although, in reality, those two things are pretty much one and the same these days), and so on. And then, you have to filter in that all of this would be happening in an election year, and with the notoriously timid Democrats, you have to be sniffing glue to think that the bill is going to be easier pass and more progressive. And then, assuming the House does manage to get it passed, does anyone think Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are going to suddenly decide the public option is a good idea? If so, why? Does anyone think that the blue dogs and “moderates” are going to become less of a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries?

This isn't going backwards, whatever may come.  The political damage is already done and it appears that at least some of our vaunted representatives realize that.  There are still options left.  Reconciliation, an end run of public option amendments, denying the mandate and making this purely a bill of 'insurance reform', court action.  All these things are still possible and some are rather likely.  This game isn't over yet.  I for one would rather not call it until it is.