The View From Mudville

(Our precious Duck football team got their collective butts kicked yesterday afternoon by a highly motivated Arizona team in Tucson.  And along with that loss went our chances for a BCS championship game, PAC-12 Championship game, and our chance to put our thumb on our nose and wiggle our fingers at every football team on the East Coast.  It wasn't even close.  The Wildcats plowed through us like snakes through a blackberry patch.  Final score: 42-16.  Ouch.  But as we sit here licking our wounds and preparing chips and dip for the Pity Party sure to come, we Duck Fans remain loyal to the team.  The Ducks gave us a very exciting year, and we're still going to finished the season with a 9-2 record, assuming we beat the OSU Beavers next Friday night.  But I digress ...)

• Have you heard, or even actually used, the cute little app called SnapChat?  Apparently it's a little app that lets users send photos of gawdknowswhat to other people and then within minutes the sent picture just disappears forever.  Pretty handy for those of us who post drunken half-naked pictures of our latest post-football parties on Facebook. The app was invented by a 23-year-old Stanford student named Eric Spiegel.  Well it turns out that this little app is so cool that some really rich dude named Zuckerburg offered Eric 3 Billion Dollars for it.  That's Billion, with a "B."  $3,000,000,000.  But Eric turned the offer down flat.  Nope.  Not gonna sell it.  Mark Morford explores the reason behind Eric's refusal in "13 Reasons To Turn Down $3 Billion"
•  The United States government has issued a warning to all Americans who wish to travel to North Korea for vacation:  "Don't."  Well that certainly makes a lot of sense to me, and in spite of all those plans I made to travel to Pyongyang next Spring, I will heed the warning.  At first I reasoned that the US government was merely trying to keep Dennis Rodman home where we can keep an eye on him, but then I found out that an 85-year-old Korean War veteran named Merrill Newman had been "detained" by North Korean authorities while he and his wife were on vacation in Pyongyang.  Will someone tell me what the hell was he doing there?  What, Club Med in Siberia was all booked up?  Good grief.
•  As I said before, I hate George Zimmerman.
• Who says big, huge, enormous, corporations don't have heart?  Take McDonalds, for example.  McDonalds understands it's $7 per hour employees might be a bit money stressed this holiday season, so they've offered advice on the corporate website to help their people save money.  They advise, for example, that employees sell their Christmas presents for cash.  And what do employees do if their company doesn't do much for their employees?  Help themselves, bygawd. A Walmart store in Canton, Ohio is holding a food drive to help out employees whose wages might not be enough to pay for food.  Don't that just make you feel warm all over?
  
• Back in 2005, Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker, wrote of filibusters:  Absent Senate filibusters, the anti-lynching bills of 1922, 1935, and 1938 would have become law, bringing federal force to bear against racist violence and possibly allowing the civil-rights movement to achieve its victories decades earlier; direct election of the President would have replaced the electoral college in time for the 1972 election; and nearly all Americans would now be covered by a program of national health insurance.  Now shift to 2013 and the Democrats have pulled what someone named "the nuclear option," and filibustering is now practically a thing of the past.  This is good, right?  Right.  As long as Democrats hold the majority.  (Click Here)
• California now has the largest number of people without health insurance in the nation, according to the California Healthcare Foundation.  More than 20% of Californians are uninsured. Paul Krassner writes "Healthcare Is So Horrible Here That Thousands Rely On Free Clinics - And You're Fined If You Don't Use Prescription Drugs."  Long title, but an interesting article.

  

  Happy Thanksgiving

• I never have liked John Stossel.  Uppity in-your-face pretend know-it-all, Stossel is consistently not only wrong, but irritatingly so.  He's a perfect fit for Fox News.  Thursday morning on something called "Fox and Friends" Stossel shared a clip of him sitting on a New York City sidewalk with a fake beard and a cardboard sign asking people for help.  He said he just begged for an hour, but added "If I did this for an eight-hour day I would've made 90 bucks.  Twenty-three thou for a year.  Tax free."  Elizabeth Hasselbeck, who just recently bought a $4 million home in Greenwich, "gasped in horror at the prospect of poor people earning $23,000 a year."  Their conclusion?  Don't give homeless people money, it only encourages them. To do what?  Eat?

Organized Treason

When you watch the news over this next year, here is a lot of what you are likely to hear from Republican
Congressmen, and probably to a lesser extent from Republican Senators, who tend to think and speak more individually.

But the GOP Congress Members?  Umm, not so individual.  They seem better at memorization, and appear more wedded to the idea of marching in lock-step...  rather than doing anything heretical like independent thinking.  If they were working to unite our people, to encourage the American people to work together to solve an issue that threatened our Country, I'd be far more sympathetic to such behavior.  For example, in a time of war, there would be social value in uniting behind a single point of view.

But when the issue is to try to hamstring the effort to reform America's staggeringly costly and not notably effective healthcare system, I think it is fair to say that this sort of "party line" attack is as tawdry as the mindless slogan pandering of those who waved Mao's "Red Book", and through their efforts cost the lives of something in the range of 100 million Chinese people, before the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" were over.  How many Americans will needlessly die as a consequence of this partisan hogwash?  10,000?  100,000?  What could one call the actions that cripple and kill our fellow Americans?  Traitors, perhaps?  Think about it.  These cheese heads are using a well-meaning effort to reform, expand, improve and rein in the costs of America's healthcare "system" as leverage for their efforts to grab political capital.

If this were happening in Italy, we'd all shake our heads and ask, "What can you expect from such a corrupt system"?   During this year, the rest of the world is going to be asking the same question about us.  The effort will fail, healthcare will improve in this country, preventive care will save enormous personal and social costs for the indigent and impoverished, but the pace of positive change will be slowed by these well-dressed weasels, busy banking donations from parts of our massive Medical/Industrial Complex.  17.8% of GDP.  Gosh, it sounds "too big to fail", right?  We HAVE to let it keep preying on the public, or else...  I mean, or else we might have a recession or something, right?

Uh, no, the money not wasted on our current healthcare system could be spent and invested in things which improve the lives of individuals and are of enormous value to our economy.

It will all work out, but how many will have to needlessly die because of these troglodytes?  Who will hold them responsible?  I suspect the voters will, in spades, but what a terrible cost will have been paid, in the process.

It's like watching a slow-motion train wreck. 

It's ironic.  When a Congressman gets caught scoring "coke" he gets a $250 fine and a year of probation, while an African-American kid might do some jail time.  When a bank embezzles a Billion or so, they get a fine, which doesn't seem to be used to compensate the homeowners who have lost money.

If your actions lead to the death of one individual, the penalties are serious.  But when thousands are killed, by misguided partisan boneheadedness, who pays the penalty for that?  You guessed it.  No one.  Instead they get a very cushy healthcare plan and a generous pension.  Even if they might have failed a drug test or two along the way.

But the wind is being sucked out of the current Republican Party.  One might even say that "the party is over".  Those who blindly believe their slogans are sharply divided between a smaller group of reasonable conservatives and a steadily growing group of those who are misogynist, racist and hate "big government".  The battle between the old-school GOP and the whatever we're supposed to call it camp is going to be as passionate as their disjointed attack on the Democratic Party in this mid-term election.  And a house divided can rarely stand.

Are we on the way to becoming a three-party nation?  You know, kind of like Italy?  (no offense to Italians, but really, a Prime Minister who has "bunga-bunga parties"?)

But as we get started on this, these will be the sounds of the Republican echo-chamber; and this is the "playbook" that these overage elementary school students will be working to learn to recite, in lockstep, ad nauseum; (click here)

Arthur

"I'm Afraid I've Got Some Terrible News"

Fifty years ago I was an eighteen-year-old high school student, a Senior, at South Eugene High School.  On

November 22 of that year I was sitting in "study hall," an assigned class where students actually had to sit at desks and quietly study, something which is not a big part of our school systems' curriculum these days, or so I've been told.  These "study halls"  were each assigned a teacher, this one was watched over with stern kindness by Alyce Sheetz, also my journalism instructor, and who ranks somewhere in the top 2 of my all-time best teachers' list.  I'm not sure of the exact time of the following event, it was somewhere near noon, but suddenly the studious quiet was broken by the P.A. system's speaker suddenly coming to life with the squeaky sound of someones hand picking up the microphone.  It was the school Principal, Clifford Moffitt.  "I'm afraid I've got some terrible news," he began, "President Kennedy has been shot during a motorcade in Dallas, Texas."

I had been glancing up at the P.A. speaker over the blackboard during the start of the announcement, but at the end of it I remember staring straight into Alyce Sheetz's eyes.  For some reason, out of all the 20-some kids in the room, she was looking directly at me.  For just a second, she and I shared the most devastating news I had ever heard.  For a moment, pictures of JFK flashed before my eyes.  Kennedy, the youngest President ever elected, who had followed the oldest man to hold the office; this vibrant, healthy, handsome man had been SHOT.

Since it was near lunch time, and because all sense of time seemed to just melt away, Mrs. Sheetz told us to just go, and report back after lunch.  I wandered out into a hall full of hushed chatter, shocked faces, kids walking like zombies.  Some of the girls were crying.  I walked out of school, heading for the little burger shack down the street.  As I left school one of the things I remember hearing was some kid suddenly blurting out "They finally GOT the son-of-a-bitch!"  I don't know what happened to that kid, but I didn't hear him again.

The burger shack was about three blocks away from the school and as I walked I began to realize I was in some stage of shock.  I was breathing strangely, the colors of the day were oddly off, pale, washed out, and I seemed to be on auto-pilot, not really knowing where I was going, but knowing I would get there anyway.  I'm sure I was walking with someone, or perhaps several others, but I have no recollection of who it was.  The next thing I remember, I was in the burger shack, lots of people milling around, no one really ordering anything, the radio blaring in the corner (remember, this was before video machines, and even TVs were rare in cafes'.)  I ordered nothing, just stood there.  It was there I heard it.  On that little cheap radio in the corner. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead.

I left the shack alone, and walked purposefully back to my high school.  Perhaps I was hoping for the sanity of an afternoon class, or maybe Mr. Moffitt would come back on the P.A. and tell us it was all a mistake, that the President of the United States is just fine, that people were going to be punished for this horrible joke.  I was within a half a block of the school when several of my classmates walked by going the other way.  "School's been cancelled, go home," I was told.  Apparently it was no joke after all.

Since it was Friday, we had the weekend to recover slightly, at least, but then they declared the following Monday a national day of mourning.  The rest of the week is a complete blur, except I remember clearly, sitting in front of our Stromburg-Carlson black and white TV, watching the funeral procession, listening to the steady beat of the funeral drums, and the clip-clop of that riderless horse.  I think I cried for two days straight, off and on.  So did most everyone else.

JP

Congressman Radel's "Problems"

How about tossing Trey Radel out of Congress, for life?  He failed a drug test, badly, and so he should be recalled immediately and prevented from ever running for Public Office again.

Does that seem too harsh?

That's exactly what Radel voted for, with regard to Food Stamps.  Fail a drug test and you're disqualified.

Ironically, there is some logic to the idea of giving drug tests to those applying for Food Stamps, as long as it isn't a disqualifier.  The costs of giving those using drugs a course of intensive therapy would be far, far less costly than imprisoning them in a street bust.  You know, like the one that nabbed the Congress-critter.  Who was all drunk, so he had to repeatedly score coke in order to...   in order to what?  Sober up?

The logic of the "Rob Ford" defense is dubious, at best.  Can Radel point to any incidents of public intoxication?  None have been mentioned.

The idea of buying a highly illegal and addictive drug in order to self-medicate one's alcohol problem is...   what would you call it?  Astoundingly poor judgment?

A childhood friend's father was a Doctor who apparently had a drinking problem and attempted to deal with it by taking Morphine instead.  How's that for questionable judgment?  Apparently that is a fairly common phenomena among Physicians.  One could even suggest that working in a hospital was as dangerous as living in a bad neighborhood where drugs were readily available.

Let's start talking about drug abuse, instead of letting it be the cash cow of the Prison/Industrial Complex.  Poor guys without good legal representation?  Send 'em to the local Prison, which incidentally is run by a private corporation, who in some cases are giving Judges "back-handers" for sending them healthy inmates, who can be put to work at slave labor wages in order to enrich the parent Corporation.  Seriously, isn't that a gussied-up modern form of slavery, with about ten or twenty moral shortfalls involved?

How on EARTH can we permit bullshit like that to continue to thrive in our "exceptional" country?  In Bangladesh one might expect it, or in Romania or Zimbabwe.  But here?  In our country?  in 2013?

Can some tech guru divert their attention and resources from the exploration of an endless lifespan or space and please set up an organization to focus on the plight of the hundreds of thousands who should NOT be in prison, but instead should be out in the community, under close supervision and counseling.  Oh gosh, just like Congressman Radel says would be appropriate for him.

I'm going to give Radel the benefit of the doubt.  It is possible that he will come to his senses and realize what a hypocritical dick he has been, with his vote against Food Stamps.  He may also (let's hope) become a voice for less imprisonment.  If he was poor and black, he'd be in prison right now.  Guaranteed. If he grasps that truth, and has an ounce of moral sense, this could in theory turn him into a far, far better and more principled man.

Or else he can continue to be a Republican Tea Party douche.  He has an opportunity to become a better and decent human being.  What he does with that opportunity will be worth watching.  But in the meantime, resignation would probably be the most appropriate step.  That should give him a lot more time to get therapy and reconsider his views on life, instead of him rushing through an upscale "rehab" clinic and rushing back out to try to cling to his Congressional seat.  That's a recipe for disaster.

Arthur

A Random Rant

The Republicans are having a lot of fun moaning about our having to waste/spend $250 Million in the effort to provide affordable healthcare to all of the people of our great country?  

AN OUTRAGE!!!   Oh, that $24 Billion the "shutdown" cost, we won't be upset about that...

Unless the Republican assholes realize that the American people are perfectly capable of doing math, and that

$24 Billion is NINETY-SIX TIMES LARGER than $250 Million

...then there really is no hope for them.  And did they notice that during the critical period of getting the online website up and working, our government (not THE Government, okay?) was distracted by a large group of proto-McCarthyite self-aggrandizing douchebags, preening before television cameras and telling colorful lies to the American people.

Those of you who are preening self-absorbed douchebags know exactly who you are.  But what you may not realize is that the American PEOPLE have figured out who you are.  And what you are. We don't like the amount of our money that you just pissed down the drain, or the uneasiness you caused in other nations, or how you emboldened our enemies and caused concern among our friends.

Talk to someone who was in Hong Kong, Europe or China during the "shutdown" and you will learn that their press and politicians had a field day with it.  One of my sons was in Italy and the Italians were making snarky remarks about how fucked up our government had become.  The Italians!  I mean, what nerve!  I told him he should have said he thought that if our President had some "Bunga-Bunga" parties maybe things would have gone better.  He said he did say something a bit like that and they didn't think it was funny.

When the Italians, who are wonderful people but who have a bizarre circus for a government, feel bold enough to crack jokes about the US, that will tell you what a stupid, stupid display of douchery the shutdown was.  It was, to put it bluntly, as stupid as something that Berlusconi might have done.  Oh wait, that he DID do, on October 3rd.

One might suggest: Ted Cruz = Silvio Berlusconi.

A different type of brainless self-absorbed moron, but similar psychiatric problems.  Different styles of self-absorbed fools.

Oh, and when Calgary Cruz went down to Texas after the Shutdown fizzled?  He told an audience there that he was "glad to be back in America".  Seriously? I love Texas and have a lot of family there, but America, the America Cruz swore an oath to uphold the laws of, is a great deal larger, and a great deal more united, than a divisive twerp like Cruz will ever understand, until the express train of public opinion rolls over him.

I'm working to help a family member get on the ACA in Texas, which the Texas State government has worked hard to keep from working.  Consumer Reports Magazine lists 14 ACA Insurance companies who are open for business in Texas.  Nice try Cruz!  Nice try Governor Perry!

We, the American people, are going to remember what you did this year.

 

Arthur

The Hateful Season

Ah, Fall is definitely in the air around here.  As I've said, and say constantly (some say too much), Oregon is the ONLY place to be this time of year.  On a good day it's foggy in the morning, clears off around noon, hits about 65 in the afternoon, and gets down to about 35 at night.  The trees are on fire with color, and the neighborhood wild life is active and busy gathering food for the winter.  We have a huge window looking into the back yard, and you can find me sitting here watching it all happen, brandy in hand, the latest Stephen King novel by my side.  Retirement is good, my friends. But I'll spare you any more of this drivel and digress ...

• We've noticed lately, with some degree of fear and loathing, the increasingly vitriolic hate
  
  messages being vomited out on the Internet.  Scanning some of the most popular news sites, for example, one can find the most obscene comments made by what seems to be professional haters.  While I doubt there are vast numbers of these people out there, they certainly are as vocal as they are undereducated.  For example, a small set of them seem to have great difficulty writing President Obama's name in a sentence without throwing in a couple "F" bombs.  Hate. Hate. Hate.  Some people think the anonymity of the World Wide Web brings out the worse of people.  Mark Morford comments: "You Are All Completely Insufferable"
• And while we're on the subject of hate, how 'bout them Republicans?  Some of them have such a hard time keeping their stupid idiotic thoughts to themselves, like the South Carolina Republican party official who thinks transgendered people should be "put in camps."  Well, I have nothing against camping, but I do think it should be voluntary.  Here's "10 Nutty, Vile and Absurd Utterances From the Fringe This Week."
• Arthur did a great job on his report concerning the government shutdown (see below), and he sent us this link written by Frank Rich.  It's a very interesting essay that points out that shutting down the government isn't by any means a new idea.  Check this appropriately named: "Frank Rich on the History of Government Shutdowns."
• And how about this?  It needs very little introduction, you just know it's going to be good.  Thomas Friedman compares the Tea Party wing of the G.O.P. to the tactics of the P.O.G. — “Party of God” — better known as Hezbollah.  Oh my, this is getting to be fun ...
• As we said, some people HATE President Obama.  And usually when someone HATES something or someone, they also FEAR it.  Here's an interview with a true typically misinformed Obama hater.  See if you can feel the fear in his answers.  Click Here
• Back in the dark ages, or was it the light ages? who remembers, I used to enjoy Dennis Miller's intellectual humor.  His humor at that time was mostly harmless, and most of it was really funny.  But something happened to Dennis Miller during the Bush administration.  Like an uneaten banana, he turned bad. He began spewing hateful rants against Liberals who were criticizing the Bush-Cheney plan to invade Iraq after the Sept. 11th attacks.  He turned vehemently Conservative.  He immediately ceased to be even remotely funny.  Last Friday Dennis, on a radio program, told an alleged small business owner to fire all his employees who support Obamacare.  Oh Dennis ...
• And speaking of Dick "We Call Him Dick" Cheney, it was revealed this week that The Dark Lord, former president George W. Bush’s right-hand man in the “war on terror,” had his heart implant altered to prevent terrorists from hacking into it.  Also mentioned in this article "Cheney said that despite being aware of numerous studies showing a significant link between severe heart disease and memory loss, depression and hampered decision-making, he wasn’t worried about it and was not counseled on it either."  I don't know whether to laugh my ass off, or just sit down and cry.

JP

PS:  Ed Note:  Here's some inadvertently left out comments from Arthur.  Thanks!)

Just to add one interesting note, the odd and secretive share of a Jamaican Investment Fund   "Ted" Cruz owns an "informal share" of?  The one registered in the British Virgin Islands?  (Sounds dodgy already, right?)  That isn't supposed to be worth anything, really, its just sort of a "dormant investment"?  That one?  Remember that about five months ago the British got ahold of all of the secret accounts in the British Virgin Islands, and are making quite heavy-handed deals with the owners to cough up taxes on those accounts and their earnings.  What do you want to bet that someone in our government, who doesn't like "Ted" very much this week, could convince the Brits to do a little digging for our government, informally of course, all between friends, and gather some interesting dirt on little Teddy?

I'm not entirely clear why, but I find the guy's face really, really yucky to look at, what he says is slimy and bullying, and in the end he reminds me of people that I instinctively dislike and distrust.  Aside from that he seems like a lovely rodent.

Arthur

The Shutdown, Race, High Crimes and Medical Costs . . .

In the wake of the failed attempt to hold our nation to ransom, some of the attempted kidnappers are pleading innocence.  My suggestion is that we take such protestations with a large grain of salt.  Personally, I don't see much difference between the actions of those miscreants and the actions taken by Somali pirates.  In fact, I see no difference.  Attempted hijacking is attempted hijacking, regardless of where it takes place.  Is trying to hijack a large boat a worse crime than trying to hijack a small sailboat?  Okay, if you think that, then tell me;  what degree of crime is it to try to hijack an entire government?  Our government?

Of course, when a hijacking goes badly wrong, everyone involved runs away from the area, claiming that they were only there by accident, and they CERTAINLY were not involved in that attempted crime!!  Oh no!

How much did this adventure cost our nation? (Click Here)



Ted Cruz aka 'A Lovely Rodent'

Many have suggested this was all about the Presidential ambitions of Senator Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, aka "Calgary Cruz", in recognition of his having been born in Calgary, Canada, to a Cuban/Canadian father and an American mother.  Senator Cruz is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.  He announced on August 19th, 2013 that he would renounce the Canadian half of his citizenship, but it turns out that it takes about ten months for Canada to get through the process of letting go of one of their citizens.  Wait, so Cruz was born of an American mother (gosh, just like Obama was...) and there is clear documentation that Cruz was born in another country (Canada).  According to Donald Trump we all need to ask to see Senator Cruz's BIRTH CERTIFICATE, to make certain that he was physically born in the United States, rather than in say, Kenya, Canada or Cuba...

But there is one key difference between Cruz and Obama.  Cruz is light-skinned enough, that although some Cubans show a strong African heritage, Cruz does not.  And so...  the Rightwing doesn't seem to care where he was born, what his citizenship was at birth, or any of that nonsense, as long as he's white.  There is one set of laws if you are dark-skinned, another if you are white.  Have you all forgotten that?

Ironically, both Cruz and Obama attended Harvard Law School.  Small world, isn't it.  Obama got far better grades.

So the "Birther" and "Tea Party" movements, which are fairly closely linked, share some curious characteristics;  they are racist, and they are tools of enormously wealthy conservatives who fund fake "grassroots" organizations that are fighting against progressive and accountable government in the United States, to keep our government from controlling their businesses in any way...   you know, with liberal efforts like concern for the environment, health care for workers, good public schools, roads and an egalitarian society.  Crazy stuff like that...  while Rightwing Billionaires would prefer to have government stay out of their way, so they can grab more, more, more Billions!!  And control State, local and the Federal Government!!  Because...   uh, because power apparently creates a thirst for greater power, for more money!!

A nationwide grassroots effort called "Flush Rush" has had a surprisingly powerful impact on the career path of Rush Limbaugh.  More than two thousand advertisers have told Clear Channel that their ads may not be used on Rush's radio program.  As the number of advertisers who ARE willing to support him dwindles, consumer pressure against those businesses has gained strength.  If you don't believe me, take a look at how many ads there are for "Angie's List" on MSNBC.  Those are the ads that no longer are on the Rush Limbaugh show, after a huge protest against the company.  And the list is an increasingly long one.

It is pretty easy to find out which businesses Koch Industries owns.  None of their products are unique.  Maybe a person would prefer a type of toilet paper they make, as compared with what a competitor makes, but the odds are good that they could find a brand they liked almost as much.  Certainly good enough to encourage them to switch.  And then there are the businesses who can be encouraged to simply stop carrying Koch Industries products.  After all, those are the bastards who gave $200 million to organizations like "Freedomworks", who in turn badgered and bribed GOP candidates to follow their guidance, not the guidance of their local constituents, let alone looking out for the welfare of their constituents.  That's what Congress is supposed to be about, but the changes in Campaign Finance law have allowed scum like the Koch brothers to cast their net across our nation, buying up candidates and districts with large donations and such powerful threats that they currently OWN a large bloc of the US Congress.  Yes, Virginia, some US Congressmen are whores, I'm sorry to have to tell you that...

Or rather, the Koch brothers used to own a large bloc of Congress and parts of the Senate. Yesterday those titles got challenged. 

And this is just the beginning.  Whether this ass-backwards attempt to grab control of our economy and our public health care costs our country $5 Billion, $12 Billion or $24 Billion in financial losses is not important.  Two conservative douchebags, almost single-handedly, tried to grab control of our government.  A kind of soft-core coup d'etat.  How should we feel about that?  Impressed?  surprised? or furious?

Some have suggested that the Republican right is terrified the "Affordable Care Act" will be wildly popular with the American people.  I think they are right.  Omigod! (say the wingers) it might be like the New Deal, all over again!!

Indeed.  Medical Care in the United States costs twice as much as medical care costs in any other country on the planet.  When they caution us that medical care is what...  18% of our national economy? so we'd better be careful what we do, it raises an obvious question, "Why the hell does health care cost so much?"

When I was a child it certainly didn't.  According to numerous studies we don't provide the best care in the world, by one measurement we rank the 38th best in the world.  Number 1 for costs, 38 for performance, when the population as a whole is judged.

A recent article about a guy who needed a hip replacement said he found that it would cost him $68,000 to have the surgery in Colorado.  He looked around and discovered that he could have an identical surgery done in Belgium for $13,500.  Including round trip airfare.  He is very happy.

Did you wonder why there was a big to-do about a tax on "Medical Devices" in Affordable Care Act?  Because that is a huge monopoly industry in our country.  Do you think they might have a small army of lobbyists?  or maybe an army and a half?  Count the lobbyists and you can pretty well tell who is trying to steal the farm.  Right?

So, that's part of what happened yesterday.  The back of the beast was broken.  The nutbags got their nuts cracked.  Our government is open again and people who are owed money are getting paid once more.

Now the work begins.

It is time to run these bastards out of town on a figurative barrel.  We don't really use barrels or hot tar anymore.  We're much more modern.  But what is important is that the fight has started, and we can't back off from it until we have taken our democracy back.  I've got a few things to say about Fox News as well.  Their parent corporation, "News Corp" is in deep trouble in the UK over phone and Internet tapping, bribery of police officials and the list goes on.  Does anyone want to bet that News Corp hasn't done the same things here in the US, in their quest for power?  If so, it might be time to call them to account for those crimes.  We should not have a two-tier legal system, that jails those who are poor and hides its eyes from the crimes committed by the powerful, well-connected and wealthy.  That's NOT the foundation our country.  Our job, as citizens, is to keep pressing our government to become more fair, more transparent, more even-handed and more just.

We've got some work to do.  But yesterday was a very good day, for about fifty different reasons.

Arthur

P.S.:  Within the Republican Party there are roughly three factions;  pro-business moderates, social conservatives and the Tea Party caucus. They aren't getting along very well these days.  And things are about to get even more interesting.