Tag: Republicanism

Post partisan my ass! That MIGHT be a good theme as a campaign strategy. It MIGHT appeal to an electorate tired of the incompetent,  ineffectual and just plain stupid brand of government they have been getting for the last ten years….you know, since the incredibly partisan impeachment of Bill Clinton by the Republican Congress….

It might sound … nice …and evenhanded and reasonable and mature and responsible and all that. But it ignores the simple and undeniable fact that since the Republicans lied, cheated and smeared (including smearing their current champion when he was running against Bush) their way into having full unfettered dominance of the government…..just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and the country is in sad, sorry shape.

Because of the Republicans.

Everything the Republicans has touched in the last decade has turned to crap. From the micro (life saving stem cell research) to the macro (Climate Crisis) the Republicans have had full power to implement their vision, programs and policies….and have gotten it disastrously wrong every single time.

The Republicans have backed themselves into a corner, ideologically. So far no one in the Merde Stream Media seems to have noticed.

They are reduced to two themes, which are blatantly paradoxical, in the world of logic. Too bad that that world has so few inhabitants these days. And yet they cannot back away from either of them without losing their base(s) and without repudiating their own ideological philosophy. Which as any thinking person can see after 8 years of unopposed (unless you count Congress, hahaha) rule by the War party, is a complete and utter failure on all levels.

The first theme is of course,  War. The second hearkens back to Bush Sr’s “read my lying lips” moment that cost him a second term….thank the Goddess. McCain cannot in any way shape or form even suggest increases. Even as the national debt soars towards ten trillion dollars

and the budget deficit FOR JULY tops $100 billion as the administration bails out failed (due to Republican policies) banks and mortgage lenders, which have caused an international credit crisis that is devaluing the dollar and making it much, much harder to pay off the money that we are borrowing from China, the Arab states, and Russia …..the current target of McCain’s macho posturing. The Pentagon is requesting a record budget of over $600 billion, in addition to the supplementals for Iraq….which are now up to what the entire Vietnam War cost. But we cannot raise taxes to actually PAY for the Republican policy of endless war…so we just print more money, which devalues the dollar, making it harder and harder to pay off the money ….that we are borrowing hand over fist from our ostensible global enemies, so we can wage war against them! What a scam!

Let’s get one thing straight, now.  There are no liberal Republican Senators.  But the GOP’s got a secret-play in its handbook: the media carte-blanche from being an “independent”-minded poseur.  And 2006 showed us it works for Republicans..

Once again, privatization of what should be government’s responsibility proves that privatization is really about avoiding any responsibility.

The New York Times reports:

Tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system’s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration, a review of scores of federal audits has found.

Shocking, yes. Private insurers play parlor games with people’s lives, because their only concern is profit. This is about so much more than the mere outrage of these specific vultures preying on the vulnerable. This is, once again, the Conservative ideology revealed for what it is: greed, cruelty, and social blight.

The problems, described in 91 audit reports reviewed by The New York Times, include the improper termination of coverage for people with H.I.V. and AIDS, huge backlogs of claims and complaints, and a failure to answer telephone calls from consumers, doctors and drugstores.

Nothing to add, there. Except maybe a question: is improperly denying coverage to people with H.I.V and AIDS a crime against humanity? Are war crimes, alone, deserving of that appelation?

Since March, 11 companies have been fined by Medicare. Among them are three of the largest Medicare insurers- UnitedHealth, Humana and WellPoint.