Nov 18, 2013

One From The Rude Pundit

Hard to say it better'n this:

11/14/2013 Obama to Nation: Keep Your Fuckin' Plans, You Stupid Cowards:
In a sane era, not an ideal one, but a sane one, the President would have gone to congressional leaders and said, "Hey, what are some things we can do to make the Affordable Care Act work better?" Now, in the fantasy sane era - and, again, we're not saying it's some fuckin' "Kumbaya" era of holding hands, but just a time when people in the government actually want the government to, you know, function like a government - members of both parties would offer things that they would like to see in the law. Democrats might have said something about outreach. Republicans might have said something like "Why don't we let people keep their heath care plans?" Things would have been negotiated and the law would have been strengthened or, at least, smoothed up a bit.
Alas, we do not live in such an era. Instead, we must deal with the constant buzzing of our water boatman politicians. The water boatman is an insect that, relative to its size, gives off a mighty sound. It makes this annoying chirp/buzz by constantly rubbing its dick on its belly. There's your picture for the day: Ted Cruz grabbing his tumescent cock and scraping it back and forth across his hairy stomach as it emits a call for perverse teabaggers to mate with his narrow, self-serving ideology.
Instead of Barack Obama and the House GOP agreeing that the law is the law and making it function for Americans, we get the sight of Obama appearing before the press corps and saying, more or less, "Goddamn, I'm sick of you motherfuckers whining about your shitty ass health insurance getting canceled because your provider is just a bunch of sick, greedy dickheads who would murder you where you sit if it would squeeze one more cent of profit out of your useless bodies. You wanna cling to your high deductible, low benefit policy for another year because you're scared that the black man president might be right and all that Fox 'news' noise might be wrong? Fine. Fuck it. Kiss my ass and keep your shit plan. Don't come whining to me when it turns out that your insurer drops your sorry ass when you get too sick for it. You asked to be grandfathered in, so lick grandpa's balls and tell me how tasty they are now. Now, can we please talk about the fact that Republicans want to kick over 100,000 people who just got insurance off it?"
Imagine for a moment, just one clear moment, what would have happened if, after the law passed, Republicans hadn't been such total pricks about the ACA, if just a quarter of the votes to repeal Obamacare had been on things that make the law stronger (or even more Republican). No, they couldn't. That would legitimize the law and Barack Obama as president. They have to keep hitting at the ACA as if it's the last windmill in Spain. Just think, though, what would have happened if all states had set up their own exchanges, if they had accepted the Medicaid expansion, if, if, if. It wouldn't have been perfect, but at least it would have worked as it was created to work instead of the horrific Frankenstein monster of a thing it was forced to become. The only way not having a public option for insurance works is if the states acted responsibly. They did not, in a way calculated to undermine the President and a Congress from just a few years ago. Democrats got suckered, again, into thinking that Republicans would behave honorably.
If President Obama seems frustrated, it's because he should be. Used to be people gave a damn when a law was passed. They shifted their perspective and acted in concert with the law. If they disagreed with it, they elected new people who overturned it (if the courts wouldn't). The tactics used by the right on Obamacare would have made Abbie Hoffman at his most radical say, "Goddamn, that'll lead to anarchy." On January 1, there's probably gonna be hospital sit-ins or some such shit. And it's hilarious that the GOP is acting as if, pre-ACA, it was all free gold and pussy for people with health insurance, not that it was (and is) a cruel, callous, capitalist system that saw people routinely kicked off their policies for taking one too many pills or being a little late with a payment.
So can we move forward now? Is it possible to get to that place where we simply try to, for fuck's sake, get people some health care and not act like it's a privilege for the few?

Nov 17, 2013

When The Law Is An Ass

From The New Statesman:
The second kind of civil disobedience, which is the one that I wish to consider, is its employment with a view to causing a change in the law or in public policy. In this aspect, it is a means of propaganda, and there are those who consider that it is an undesirable kind. Many, however, of whom I am one, think it to be now necessary.
Many people hold that law-breaking can never be justified in a democracy, though they concede that under any other form of government it may be a duty. The victorious governments, after the Second World War, reprobated, and even punished, Germans for not breaking the law when the law commanded atrocious actions. I do not see any logic which will prove either that a democratic government cannot command atrocious actions or that, if it does, it is wrong to disobey its commands.
It's a bit dense and wordy and even a little passive, but the guy makes a point worth remembering.

Perception Drives Outcome



Above all - never admit you were wrong.

Nov 15, 2013

Ain't It Kinda Funny

The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a "story" today telling us we've spent almost 600,000 Virginia Taxpayer Dollars on lawyers' fees in the littlest big-ass scandal we've seen in a while involving Governor Bob McDonnell - ol' Vaginal Bob his-own-bad-self.
Virginia taxpayers are on the hook for more than $570,000 in legal bills in connection to a criminal case involving a former Executive Mansion chef and related gifts investigation of Gov. Bob McDonnell.
The story dutifully reports the doin's and goin's-on at the AG's office - mentioning the Virginia Attorney General's Office a good half-dozen times in a 300 word story without once actually using the name of Ken Cuccinelli, so I'm just saying it strikes me as being a little peculiar since The Kooch happens to be the current AG for The Commonwealth of Virginia; and he happens to have crapped out in his campaign to be Governor, partly because of his connection to Vaginal Bob; and he happens to be actively fund-raising for a Republican candidate who's locked in a recount battle to settle last week's election, and seems to be a totally ethics-averse coin-operated politician who makes a habit out of wearing his ass for a hat.

Well, OK - and plus also too, I'm saying: Librul bias in the mainstream media my dyin' ass.  How could one "newspaper" make it any more obvious that it's in the pocket of one particular political party?

Is it really just too much to ask that you guys do your fuckin' jobs?

Today's Question

Why is it called stealing when your WiFi is trespassing in my fucking house?

Today's Toon

Told Ya

About a month ago, when ObamaCare was launched, and it was becoming clear the software was malfunctioning, I posted this:
But after a coupla weeks (of oops; and uh-oh; and fuck - again!?!) isn't it time for somebody to suggest that the wingnuts are jamming and/or hacking the site just to make it all look worse than it actually is?
And now this:
Roberta Stempfley highlighted one successful attack that is designed to deny access to the website called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS attack is designed to make a network unavailable to intended users, generally through a concerted effort to disrupt service such as repeatedly accessing the servers, saturating them with more traffic than the website is designed to handle.
I'm a prescient little fuck, ain't I?

No. I'm not.
(Altho' you could make a pretty good case that I'm the typically self-absorbed self-referencing blogger puke, and all I'm trying to do here is get a little attention, but nobody doesn't know that about bloggers; and if you know me at all, then you sure as fuck know that about me when I'm wearing my blogger suit)

Anyway, it just always follows - "the blame game" is an important step in this process.  And I'm not making the same old point about "everybody does it".  Look, guys - there are forces at work in the universe (strong force, weak force, electromagnetism and gravity) that govern our physical existence. Well, there are forces at work in politics too, and Cover Your Ass is the big one; big enough in most cases to be the only one that matters to Congress Critters, especially when it comes to the absolute necessity of raising enough money to get your sorry ass re-elected in spite of your obvious and numerous shortcomings.

So here we are again, at a Fail Point, and it seems like we're less concerned about unfucking the fuckup than we are about nailing the fuckup to somebody's forehead.

Of course, the story about the fuckup is what gets the eyeballs for The Bloglodytes and The Press Poodles.  And beyond the story about the fuckup is the story about the fight over the fuckup.  And the fight is what Corporate Media sells us.  Never mind what they're fighting about (that's just a buncha boring policy wonk shit), the fight itself is what delivers the viewers to the advertisers.

Nov 14, 2013

Virginia Voting

Here's what The Virginia Board of Elections posted on their website as of yesterday(?)


With all 2,558 precincts reported, Herring has the lead by .00741% (164 votes).

If your girlfriend could shave it this close, you'd be in jail right now.

Official Certification doesn't get here until Nov 25th, but this is a crucial step.  The "margin of victory" is small enough to trigger an automatic recount if the loser wants it, but generally, whoever's in the lead at this point has the edge.

I just worry because The Kooch hasn't said officially much of anything about a recount, but he is actively helping Obenshain raise money for the coming fight.  If they follow the pattern, the Repubs will be looking for ways (whatever they can pretend the law allows for) to nullify the Provisionals and as many Absentees as possible - especially in Fairfax and Richmond precincts.  And Cuccinelli has a great deal of influence and insider advantage as the sitting AG.

This has great potential to be some even-uglier-than-usual politics, but as bloody and gruesome as it gets, it's important not to turn away.  We need to see this.

That Warren Woman

Not long ago, Scott Brown was busy losing his Senate seat and decided his best course of action was to say stupidly offensive things about Elizabeth Warren as he tried to turn Adolescent Mocking into a viable campaign strategy.

Any time one side decides to concentrate on their opponent's status or comportment or  "tone" - you know their policy argument's a total loser.

From Pam Martens at Wall Street On Parade:
Senator Warren said to the audience: “Who would have thought five years ago, after we witnessed firsthand the dangers of an overly concentrated financial system, that the Too Big to Fail problem would only have gotten worse? There are many who say, ‘Sure, Too Big to Fail isn’t over yet, but Congress should wait to act further because the agencies still have to issue a bunch of Dodd-Frank’s required rules.’ True, there are rules left to be written, but that’s because the agencies have missed more than 60 percent of Dodd-Frank’s rulemaking deadlines. I don’t understand the logic. Since when does Congress set deadlines, watch regulators miss most of them, and then take that failure as a reason not to act? I thought that if the regulators failed, it was time for Congress to step in. That’s what oversight means. And that’s certainly a principle that would have served our country well prior to the crisis.”
Warren makes way too much sense - she must be destroyed.

Nov 13, 2013

Virginia Voting (one more)

2 questions:

1) Is Kenny the Kooch ever gonna make the phone call to Terry McAuliffe?  Or is it something he can't do if he expects the sweet Wingnut Welfare gig that high-profile Repub losers get?

2) How long before somebody breaks up the circle jerk the Press Poodles are enjoying so much regarding Chris Christie?

Just wonderin'.