New Vocabulary

Here's my new term - this is what I'll be calling members of the GOP for a while at least:

Renege-licans

• If you voted for a shitload of spending under last year's budget (or actually Continuing Resolution, since we don't really do budgets anymore) - but anyway; if you voted to spend the money last year and now you're talkin' about voting against the Debt Ceiling which allows us to pay for the shit you voted to spend all that money on, well, you might be a Renege-lican.
• If you intend to vote to cut Social Security benefits or Medicare for people who've been paying into the system for 50 years, you might be a Renege-lican.
• If you jumped up and down thumping your chest chanting "USA USA" sending a million Americans to fight and to bleed and to die in various desert shit-holes, but now you're having second thoughts on paying for VA Benefits or Survivors' Benefits or or or - then you're a fuckin' Renege-lican all the way.

Renege-licans:  buncha whiny-butt pussies who want all their relatives and especially all those best-buddy beltway thieves to get a good long slurp at the federal trough, but when it comes time to pay the check, these pricks are absolutely nowhere to be found.

Today's Toon

John Fugelsang

It Ain't Healthy

From NYT:

The 378-page study by a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council is the first to systematically compare death rates and health measures for people of all ages, including American youths. It went further than other studies in documenting the full range of causes of death, from diseases to accidents to violence. It was based on a broad review of mortality and health studies and statistics.

The panel called the pattern of higher rates of disease and shorter lives “the U.S. health disadvantage,” and said it was responsible for dragging the country to the bottom in terms of life expectancy over the past 30 years. American men ranked last in life expectancy among the 17 countries in the study, and American women ranked second to last.

“Something fundamental is going wrong,” said Dr. Steven Woolf, chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who led the panel. “This is not the product of a particular administration or political party. Something at the core is causing the U.S. to slip behind these other high-income countries. And it’s getting worse.”

Coupla things: "This is not the product of a particular administration or political party."

WTF?  Even if I'm willing to say it's not so much a particular party but a particular outlook, that statement is borderline criminally stoopid.  Which side in any debate over any health-related issue has been funding the kind of quack science that said cigarettes aren't that bad?  that said Love Canal wasn't making the whole neighborhood sick?  that AGW and Climate Change are parts of an elaborate hoax?  that Obamacare is a federal takeover?  that artificial food additives are a good source of nutrition?  that Fracking isn't contaminating our drinking water?  that even the study of gun violence wasn't something we should spend tax dollars on? and and and.

So OK - let's focus on fixing the problem instead of the blame - but if we're gonna have any real shot at getting it right, we hafta identify the full scope of the problem.  And a big part of the problem is that "one side" keeps lying us into making bad decisions or actively seeks to keep us from making good decisions.

It's good to get this info out into the light of day, but let's remember to have the balls it takes to see the whole problem - and to call the problem by its full name.

Today's Toon

The Party Of Dementia

From Charlie Pierce:

Look at all the state representatives and senators proposing these bills and voting for them. That's your next generation of national Republican politicians. That's your Triple-A ballclub. For all the phony introspection that followed Romney's defeat, the internal processes by which the Republican party is shaping itself into a regional white-people's party that for an ideology has substituted only its various fears and hatred continue apace. The sudden media superstardom of a one-term governor of New Jersey isn't going to obviate the fact that, out there, more people take Glenn Beck seriously than take Chris Christie.

We can't make the mistake of 2008, and kinda sit back after the election thinking good ol' Barack'll take it from here.

Constant, steady pressure.  Call your reps and senators, and tell 'em what you expect.

Today's Toon

From Clay Bennett:

The Krugman Speaks

..for a good long time, and says a lot of great stuff.



I guess a coupla main points for me are these:

• We have to stop allowing ourselves to be made to believe that Democracy and Capitalism are interchangeable terms.
• We have to understand just how close we're coming to letting the Bain-type Vultures pull off a corporate takeover of our government. (Don't think so?  Think about the assets owned by the USA, and then try not to think about that fat and juicy Pension Fund we've got, just layin' there ready for some smart buzzards to swoop in and pick it clean.  What's happening now - what's been happening for 25 years - is classic Bain Capital / Henry Kravitz leveraged buyout bullshit.)

Today's Pix

Heard Today

When the facts are with you, argue the facts.
When the facts are against you, argue the law.
When the facts and the law are against you, pound the table.

The Professional Left Podcast.