GOP-The Definition of Crazy

The standard definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Health care reform is now law and some of the mandates kick in as soon as Obama sets his signature on the document. The very first mandate out of the box is cash money to senior citizens. A rebate from medicare. $250 in spendable greenbacks to all old people regardless of their tea party affiliations or not.

Obama is cutting a check to the elderly. Now how many of those old geezers do you think are going to refuse that snail mail from their socialist government, hmmmmmmmmmm?

They're gonna treat it just like they treat their social security, their medicare, and all that other socialistic crap they get from the government all the time.

Next thing the butterscotch colored Marxist has done is made it illegal for insurance companies to cancel out the claims of really sick people. Think people are going to pull the plug on themselves. Not!

Oh, and those kids born into the world with serious illnesses, well now the insurance companies can not refuse to grant their parents coverage. Think parents are going to opt out and watch their kids die?

Sounds pretty pro life to me.

Republicans have gone lawsuit crazy all over the country claiming that health care reform is not constitutional. They are staking their claim on what's called the individual mandate. What this is, is the requirement contained in the bill that makes everyone buy health insurance. The goobers of the GOP say there is no precedent and therefore it is illegal. The government can't force us to do anything like that.

Well, not exactly. Once again the GOP has staked its claim on a foundation built on quicksand. The Constitution of the United States is a very broad document and very little of it is absolute. In addition to Article 6, which is the big one...there are other little phrases and mandates built in...

Ya gotta read the whole thing...not just the parts you like....kind of like interpreting the Bible. Here is a very good explanation for those of you inclined to read further.

Besides, the individual mandate is a tax provision and governed by more powerful laws than just the tiny phrase cherry picked by the GOP. Boehner and company have also been lying about people being thrown in jail if they refuse to buy health care. That is simply not true. They may be hit with a tax, but won't get jail time.

No precedent? Think again...Think cigarette tax...It costs you a lot to kill your lungs and those of the people around you. A tax of this kind is called promoting the general welfare of the public. Since the tax and making everyone buy insurance, lowers the cost for all and reduces the wear and tear on hospital emergency rooms it too falls under the panoply for the good of the general public.

And what about the argument that the government can't penalize you for doing nothing ...Try not paying your taxes come April 15^th...I dare you..

Historically speaking, government individual mandates date all the way back to 1792. Look up the history about State Militias and who was required to buy a gun.

What will play a big part, in these GOP lawsuits is judicial activism. Want examples of judicial activism that sets precedent, if only temporarily, then check out the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scott decision and Brown v Board of Education.

Don't want to go back that far, then confine your search to the currently sitting Roberts Supreme Court and the various rulings that have come to date on campaign financing, abortion rights, and affirmative action to name a few subjects.

Even conservative law professors say the GOP really has no leg to stand on when it comes to states rights and health care reform. But stranger, crazier things have happened.

So don't hold your breath.

Friday Rap

The Cincinnati Enquirer Sucks-My editorial about the Local Newspaper

With all due respect and apology to the NYTimes, here are two editorials about health care reform. Even when I disagree, the Op Ed board in the big apple presents its reasoning and arguments in a classy, professional and elegant way. You can read it here.

The second piece is from my hometown paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer. I stopped reading this rag a long time ago because it's blatant right wing lean has offended me for much of my newspaper reading life, which began sometime around my third birthday, and I am now 59.

This paper has never risen to more than fourth grade reading and writing level. So I outgrew it a long time ago. I read daily, 7 newspapers. I skim 5 or 6 others along with a host of news gathering websites. All in all, I spend about 3 hours of my day reading news and Op-ed pieces worldwide. But since I'm no longer a working reporter in Cincinnati, the Enquirer is not one of them.

Fact is, I am only reacting to this pseudo-op ed because a person posted it on my Facebook page, venting about the bigotry contained in the piece. His anger peaked my curiosity. So I looked. You can read it here.

The paper has always been biased against Blacks. It has always favored the GOP view, no matter what. It hasn't changed in my lifetime except to get more blatant about displaying its bias. However, it used to at least make an attempt at objectivity. It used to at least try to look at the facts as presented by both sides. It used to be less obvious about the racism that it harbors for 40% of the local population.

Now, it is simply an embarrassment. No tact, no objectivity, no class, no professionalism of any kind.

No Black people in editorial. No local Black journalists. No other perspectives allowed except Price Hill and Indian Hill, with nothing in between.

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Bellicose Old Men

This is why senile old men should be made to retire from Congress. Two of the worst-John McCain and Joe Liebermann have introduced a bill called the "Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010"

This act, god forbid that it ever make it into law, allows the government to detain, arrest and torture, hold indefinitely without counsel and trial, until it sees fit to let them go or kill them, possibly, anybody who comes in contact with “terrorism.”

This is not about a conviction....this is about a suspicion...probable cause not mandatory....If this bill becomes law, then someone...anyone can turn you in...or any cop can see you do something and not like it...or they might not like your looks because they profiled you for some reason...whatever...this measure would allow them to lock you up and throw away the key.....no due process....the infraction...can happen anywhere in the world...including on American soil...

The hold is called “detention without trial of unprivileged enemy belligerents.” Enemy belligerents is now the new “it” word replacing “enemy combatants” in government-speak.

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Wanna Read the Health Care Bill, well, here it is-in it's entirety....

Wanna read the Congressional Budget Office summary...check this out...

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Some Wild Alaskan Dingbat News...

Dear Sarah has been shopping around a reality TV show about her life in the wild. Well, apparently she has found some interested producer.............problem is she is asking a million to a million and a half per episode...

Do they think we really care that much? Really?

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World Sleep Day

Today is world sleep day. Great day to find a hammock and take a nap...better yet...sleep in all day..

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Fess Parker...RIP

Davey Crockett has gone on the the big Alamo in the sky.

Parker was the first actor that I followed religiously when I was a kid. He is the first person I really remember on TV. There was one episode of Davey Crockett that I still think about...

It was about a grizzly bear that killed people by beating and chewing them to death....never left any paw marks because the claws had been burned off in a forest fire....The wild bear would freak out and kill anyone unlucky enough to be in the forest sitting around a camp fire... and for a long time in the story.....no one knew the killer was a bear...

Scared me to death...it was a two parter..and I had nightmares for days....I was five or six at the time..

Yep, this storyline ranks just below the Psycho shower scene, for messing with my mind...Psycho came out when I was 10 and I wasn't allowed to go see it until I was 17 or 18 years old...had no idea what it was until I finally saw it...

Watched Parker in Daniel Boone, too, with Ed Ames....loved it...RIP Fess..

Obama's Rope-a-Dope

A closer look at the Stupak Amendment

What the first part of the legal mandate that the Stupak Amendment would impose is not new. It echoes the law laid down back in 1976 by the Hyde Amendment, which already forbids the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions. The exceptions are for rape and incest or when the woman's life is threatened if the pregnancy proceeds.

It's the second part of the amendment that really ticks me off. The second graf of this travesty severely limits the availability of private insurance that does cover the procedure. In other words, the Stupak Amendment doesn't just apply to the public option, which is the low cost government plan. It affects the proposed health care exchange plans as well, by forcing insurers to drop abortion coverage that they already offer, right now, to any new customers who may want to sign up with them through the proposed exchanges.

This means that if you have a health plan and want to switch to another plan under the proposed health exchange... that may provide better coverage at a lower price, and your old policy has abortion coverage and you're okay with that...then you will lose that option under the law...when you switch.

The reach of the Stupak Amendment goes well beyond the law in violating the rights of choice for women.

A little known fact is that nearly 90% of all insurance plans offered in America, cover abortion. The problem is that employers and corporations opt out of that part of the policy for their female employees. In case you didn't know, your employer chooses what coverage you get on plans as they are written now.

The way it is structured, thanks to Stupak is that even if a woman wants to take her own money and purchase a plan with an option for abortion, in the private sector, she will not be able to do so.

If the goal is to put everyone in a lower priced exchange of more affordable coverage..this is a back assward way to do it. It won't happen...The insurance companies win again..

According to Stupak, women will always be free to buy an optional rider out of their own pocket if they want the coverage. But once again there is that catch 22..

Most people don't think about medical procedures until they need to undergo them...Who plans for an unplanned pregnancy?

But I guess if you're used to thinking of all pregnancies as pre-existing conditions...then the Stupak Amendment makes perfect sense.

Those who favored the Stupak Amendment like my ex Congressman Driehaus say they are merely upholding the noxious Hyde Amendment...when actually they are expanding exponentially to the detriment of women.

Let's be real about the situation. Laws of this type hurt poor women...those living in poverty...

The women who live, love and screw Congressman...will never have to worry about the Hyde Amendment or Stupak Amendment.... since their powerful men are paid their salaries with taxpayer money...to protect them and to give them the best coverage that taxpayer money can buy..

Well, that sounds like a government subsidized abortion to me...using government money to end a pregnancy....But blocked for those who can't fight back..

Rich white women have never had to worry about ending a pregnancy or anything else....racist? maybe....but did I lie?

64 Democrats voted in support of the Stupak Amendment....23 of them voted against the health care bill.

The good news is that this bill now goes to the Senate for more work and compromise amid my hopes that the Stupak Amendment will not make it into the bill that lands on Obama's desk..

I am not at ease with this, because while I know that Obama says he supports a woman's right to choose..... he elected to fund the Hyde Amendment in the budget...when he could have effectively killed it like Clinton did, and maybe circumvented this Stupak Amendment stupidity.

Obama's handling of the health care debate puts me in mind of Muhammed Ali's famous rope a dope technique.

Everyone including me, thought Ali was crazy to lay on the ropes and let big George Foreman rain punches on him for round after round after round...Ali just duckin' and weavin'...resting on the ropes...

Along comes the 9^th round, I think..and George's arms are tired...His muscles are at fail...he can't throw a punch...and Ali comes off the ropes and whups his ass....Knock Out!

Ali wins again...

I hated the rope a dope because I wanted Ali to just go in there blastin and kickin ass...I wanted him to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee and go home til the next fight..

I would like for my President to do the same thing...float in...get it done and float on to the next crisis...

However...he seems to like the rope a dope...I had to learn to trust Ali's instincts...

I am still learning to trust Obama's...

Hope he's resting readying the knockout punch when it's time...

Until it comes...I am not resting easy...

Steve Driehaus, You Just Lost My Vote!

Ohio Congressman Steve Driehaus is one of several democrats threatening to torpedo health care reform, unless the measure blocks the rights of women to get an abortion. Specifically, he says he will vote against the house health care bill, which is set for a vote tomorrow, if there are no provisions barring the use of federal funds for a woman to exercise her rights to an abortion.

You can read more here...

Healthcare in this country is not equal when it comes to women. We cannot exercise our rights to choose what happens to our body. We get knocked up legitimately, illegitimately or raped and it is termed a pre-existing condition and not subject to coverage.

It is time to get real...blocking funds for abortions is not going to put an end to them....Jailing women for terminating a pregnancy is not going to stop abortions...killing doctors for doing their job is not going to stop abortions..

What is going to happen is the re emergence of the black market done by hacks and anyone pretending to be a doctor...which killed or maimed women thousands of women on a yearly basis before Roe v Wade became law.

Rich women will still get their pregnancies terminated when they choose. Rich men will still be able to buy their way out of an unwanted kid with their disposable income.

The only ones who will suffer and who suffer now are women in poverty...and the babies they are forced to bring into this world....unloved..unwanted...left to fend for themselves...

while falsely pious and pompous politicians play god with the lives of the helpless and disadvantaged.

Moreover, these same pseudo christian congressman, who make the rules that govern my body and the bodies of all other women...also refuse to support birth control programs, child care programs, contraceptive programs, neonatal programs, day care and flextime programs...denying federal funds to these programs as well

Can't have it both ways Congressman Driehaus....

If you want my support banning abortion...then I need something in return...full and comprehensive contraceptive programs..real sex education in all schools for young people...included in my health care package.

Funding these programs would go a long way in preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Then maybe the right to choose would no longer be needed except in cases of rape or incest...

Women need health care as much as men need their Viagra....You hearing me Mr. Congressman?

So go ahead and exercise your right to vote as you choose Mr. Driehaus, because I guarantee you that I will exercise mine at the next opportunity to reel you back in to Ohio...