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10/26/2009

I really, really wish that Eric Cantor, republican House Whip, would leave my state of Virginia and move to a place he is more suited to. Like Texas, because he's just as dense as the Texans are right now. Or Antarctica, because this cold hearted little weasel-faced bastard would be perfectly suited to the climate.

Really. He irritates me. That little rat face, that nasally whine about how tort reform will cure all of America's social ills and is all the healthcare reform we need.

Those poor doctors and hospitals who get sued for amputating the wrong limb, or taking out the wrong kidney. It's not their fault! That patient just lying there on the table like a lump should have spoken up and said something!

Or maybe Little Eric would say that Sorrel King should have known better than to take her 18 month old daughter Josie to Johns Hopkins after the baby was burned by scalding water in a bathtub accident. Josie was healing well, and was set to be released, when nurses who denied her water to drink caused her to dehydrate badly. Then the methadone was overused. And in a couple of days, the King's held their baby while she died from medical errors. Even in Johns Hopkins, THE world's premiere hospital, deaths from stupid mistakes occur.

Eric Cantor is a lawyer. He's a real estate lawyer, which means he knows bupkis about litigation and medical malpractice. But, in that self-righteous smug way that republicans tend to do, he thinks that stopping people from suing the hospitals and doctors when their children, or their wives, or husbands or siblings or parents die because a doctor or nurse made a horrendous mistake, is the only way to save healthcare. He actually believes that if that guy who got the wrong kidney cut out in the operating room couldn't sue for damages, then healthcare would be cheaper. A hell of a lot more dangerous might be closer to the target, if the number 200,000 means anything.

200,000 people a year die from medical errors in this country, and that should put medical error right up there as the #3 leading cause of death in the United States.

I'm sure Eric Cantor would just say "tough luck", like when he told the crying woman at a townhall meeting over the summer to go to her neighbors for help because she couldn't get health insurance.

Sorrel King found the strength to form a foundation to educate the public about medical errors, and how to avoid them. She just released a book titled "Josie's Story" so whoever has the gumption to read it can read her warnings on trusting your hospitals and doctors and nurses implicitly. They may be the experts, but they are not perfect. For every surgery or treatment that gets screwed up to the point of death or permanent disability for the patient, there are thousands that are performed competently and correctly. Which only means that maybe the incompetents need to be weeded out, because medicine is a business where incompetence cannot be tolerated.

Sorrel King lost her baby, but gained her voice. Most people, however, have one option when their life is plunged into hell by a doctor or nurse who makes a mistake: litigation.

When a criminal murders or maims another person, they go to jail. When a hospital kills or maims another person, they get sued. Can't send 'em to jail, so we sue 'em. Simple.

They stop killing us, we'll stop suing them. Quid pro quo. I think that's a fair deal.

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10/25/2009

I have almost recovered from cooking my noodle trying to knock the WaPo's socks off, and now I have something to say about something that happened today.

Lil' Bee and I were on an outing this afternoon. She found some lime-green lace-up boots that actually look pretty cool on a quirky 3 year old - very punk, like little Doc Martens.

On the way home, the turkey in front of me at the stoplight in the "McDonnell" and "Nobama" sticker encrusted car had his neck craned, fit to break, glaring petulantly at the woman in the median holding the sign that said "Homeless please help god bless thank you." Then the woman in the van who gave her some cash got the glare treatment. For the entire light cycle, then through the double left turn, then another 1/4 mile through 2 more stoplights, this guy glared at her. I was suprised he didn't wreck that fancy mustang, the way he had his neck craned, fit to break, staring at the woman who dared to upset his personal universe by doling out cash to the homeless.

I didn't give the homeless woman money, only because I didn't have a cent of cash on me at the time. I have given cash to this particular woman before, and I've felt the daggers staring into my back from the other vehicles around me. She is definitely homeless, definitely not quite right in the head from the way she will raise her sign over her face occasionally and have a full blown argument. The old "conservative" adage of "Get a job!" doesn't quite fit, does it? Not when the person in need is batshit crazy and probably in need of meds she won't get.

So where did that asshole get off glaring scathingly at a person who gave another in need a couple of bucks?

One retort I've heard from unfortunately for me having to spend 8 hours a day trapped in a room with a bunch of raving republicans is "They'll just spend it on crack or booze."

And so the hell what if they do? I look at it this way: If my couple of bucks gives them a release from their hell of a life for a few minutes, who am I to judge how they get that release? And maybe they're just hungry.

Like the fellow I came across at a stoplight in another part of town. He didn't have that dulled vacant stare, or wild glint, in his eyes of a "professional homeless." He was wearing a newish jacket like you could get in any JC Pennys or Kohls. He looked abjectly humiliated when in response to his sign saying "Lost Job Need Help" I handed him fiver and a simple "good luck, buddy." You could tell he was new to it all.

I see people on the street, asking for a hand, and I can't help but think to myself "Bee, there but for the grace of dog go you, darlin. One wrong turn, one bad patch, that could be you one day."

So why is it so f-ing difficult for turkeys with republican stickers all over their cars to turn that glare down a moment, tune out their own petulant and whiney voices for just a second, take a close look at someone who is hurting, and realize that could be them one day? Seriously. If I can do it, they can do it.

And just where the hell do they get off looking the homeless or just-plain-down- and-out like they are stray dogs that shouldn't be fed or they might not go away? And where are they going to go, anyway? Dead sooner, that's where, and I can't help but think that's exactly what this brand of republican wants. I can't help but think that is exactly what they want. I think that, because that is the image they project of themselves to the world around them, as if that world didn't exist at all.

Because, you see, if the government were to take care of people, that might cost a republican driving a brand new Mustang GT a dollar out of his paycheck in taxes, and that by god is HIS dollar, and let those homeless go their their own goddamned dollar and let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if they are mentally ill, well that's just too damned bad, ain't it? Tough luck for them. But don't you dare raise MY taxes to pay for those deadbeats and lowlifes who won't get a job, never mind there are no jobs to be had and who would hire that woman in the median who argues with herself behind her sign anyway?

Alan Grayson was ridiculed by the Right Wing for saying that republicans in Congress just want us all to die more quickly.

I think that's exactly what most of them want. Because in their world, it is ALL ABOUT THEM.

I my world, I am sickened by their attitude toward other human beings.

In the Star Trek episode, Captain Kirk ends up on the parallel universe version of the Enterprise, where everyone is out for personal gain, and personal gain only. Want a promotion? Assassinate your own superior, but watch out, because that puts your own head on the block. The parallel universe Kirk ends up on the Good Enterprise, where he is immediately seen for what he is by Spock. When Good Kirk is finally returned to his Enterprise, Spock tells him that he knew immediately that Bad Kirk was not his Kirk, because it is easier for a civilized man to pretend to be a barbarian than it is for a barbarian to pretend to be a civilized man.

The republican party, and 98% of its followers, are the barbarians pretending, badly, to be civilized. Unfortunately, we don't have a parallel universe to send them back to. So, instead, I just give them dirty looks when they don't give a dollar to that woman arguing with herself behind her sign.

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10/20/2009

I've been a bit busy, a little frazzled, a tad crazy and today I pushed the submit button.

What submit button, you ask oh-so-coyly?

The Washington Post's Search for the Next Great Pundit button. If you haven't heard, they're having a contest to find some fresh blood for the opinions page, which they do badly need, by the way.

In a couple of weeks, 10 potential pundits will be chosen to move on to the next round. They will be poked, prodded, spit on and cursed at by veteran WaPo editors and columnists. They will have to prove their mettle by not making complete asses of themselves on video and by meeting vicious deadlines. The pundit left standing at the end will have 13 weekly columns published in the WaPo. Oh, and some cash, but who cares about cash - 13 weekly columns in the WaPo! Can I get a WHOOP WHOOP please?

I'm pretty sure I can handle all of that.

So, I've been thinking and watching for what I can knock their stodgy staid socks off with, and tonight I pushed the submit button.

So wish me luck. And if you want to enter too, you just need to follow the link on the WaPo home page, or on the Opinions section page, and submit a 400 word piece of cake, along with 100 words on who you are and why you should win.

Go on, you know you want to.

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10/15/2009

In Louisiana, a Justice of the Peace refused to marry an interracial couple. He claimed that it might be bad for the children. Which is usually code for "Aah just don' lahk it...t'aint natooral."

I'm pretty jaded, but sometimes it amazes me just how plug-stupid people can be. And this Justice of the Peace is pretty plug-stupid. Is this 2009, or 1909? It's like a Star Trekkian time warp. Suddenly, we are dragged by this bayou fool back to 1909.

After picking up my chin from the floor, I ran across this headline and breathed a sigh of relief, because following the shenanigans of these two assholes has been my guilty pleasure for some number of months now and it is finally about to come to an end:

No More Jon&Kate After November.

And we're back to 2009. How do I know? Because only in 2009 can a couple have fertility treatments, end up with 8 kids at one time (ok, 2 times, 2 were twins), land a hit cable tv show, strike fool's gold on airing the kids as they run around naked, poop, eat, sleep, fart, scream, cry and beat the hell out of each other, with the parents ending up in a nasty divorce fight aired all over network television and on the cover of every grocery-store "news stand" in the world.

Meanwhile, the Duggars are planning to swoop down and relaim Jon & Kate's time slot on TLC by dropping a few more babies, then we'll get to watch Michelle Duggar carry her uterus around in a cart she drags behind her.

Only in America, folks, only in America.

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10/12/2009

It is time to throw down the gauntlet, to ready the horses, to don the armor and to ride out into battle.

With an important vote in the Senate Finance Committee concerning a version of the healthcare reform bill, PriceWaterhouse Coopers released this report (full text .pdf), commissioned by America's Health Insurance Plans, which looks innocent enough from an initial glance at their website, but with a simple google search of their street address on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a couple of blocks from the Capital Building and the White House and just a few floors down from a bluedog democrat group, it becomes apparent that they are a health insurance industry trade group.

The report released by PWC claims dramatic increases in healthcare costs without any type of reform, and even more dramatic increases in healthcare costs with the bill before the Senate Finance Committee, the same bill that the CBO last week declared would reduce the federal deficit while providing costs controls for escalating insurance premiums and skyrocketing costs throughout the health insurance industry.

This report is highly suspect just on the face of it, as it was bought and paid for by a trade group for the health insurance industry. A trade group that has been masquerading as an independent arm willing to work for a bi-partisan solution to the healthcare debacle this country is facing. They have proven to be anything but. In August they teamed with FreedomWorks, the "teaparty" astroturf website to provide talking points for the disruption of townhall meetings. This is a group that parades a "bi-partisan" approach, and then turns it's rabid automaton tea-baggers loose to do it's dirty work. Those people don't know it, but they were used, and used badly, by an industry which has as it's sole mandate not healthcare, but profit margins.

The report bought by AHIP is 26 pages, and looks and reads suspiciously like the 17 page alternative budget that the republicans presented when their hand was called by President Obama earlier this year. Full of dire warnings, charts, graphs and not a single number to support those charts and graphs, it looks oh-so-official and oh-so-impressive until it is actually perused. The report is based upon the assumption that nothing will change economically in this country over the next ten years, and it assumes that the current increase rate of 6% per year for a non-reformed healthcare industry will stay at a consistent 6%, when it is clear that without checks and balances and restrictions placed upon the healthcare industry, the annual increases will be far more than 6% per year.

The report assumes that the number of employed now, with insurance provided by an employer, will remain the same. Considering that the number of unemployed, and therefore uninsured, increases daily, that also is a false assumption.

The report excludes any price-adjustments that a public option plan would, by its very existence, force upon the industry as a whole. The report ignores the simple fact that if insurance companies are forced to compete with a public option (and despite all the big talk recently, the public option is not entirely dead and buried yet), they will likewise be forced to lower their rates, and costs will magically reduce as well, just as they have been magically increasing for the past three decades. Increases that were tied to nothing other than a corporate mandate to increase earnings and increase dividends to shareholders, and a "gentlemen's agreement" among their top executives. (Don't think for a minute those guys don't all know each other.)

The only reason for a corporation to exist, it's nature, so to speak, is to provide profits for shareholders. Some of the current big-hitters like Cigna and United, well known for their ruthless treatment of their insureds, might cease to exist. Or they might have to adapt and become non-profit companies, at the worst. I can think of worse situations for this country to face. Frankly, we did just fine before they existed, we'll all be just fine when they close their doors and turn the lights off permanently.

The timing of the release of this report is no coincidence, and the White House is incensed, as it should be. With impending votes facing the Congress, this threatens to turn those in Congress who already dodder from one side to the other, and who aren't the sharpens crayons in the box, against healthcare reform. These are the Senators and House Reps who would go down in history as being so plug-ignorant that they bought into a bought report, bought and paid for by the insurance industry itself. And then there are those who aren't just stupid, but paid by the insurance industry, bought as well. Call your Senators today, and let them know that under no uncertain terms they face political annihilation if they throw it all away based on AHIP's bought and paid for drivel.

Let them know that this report is bunkum and pseudo-math, tarot cards and tea leaves all rolled into a flashy 26 page .pdf report that proves nothing, says little else, but risks everything. Shred it for the catbox, because that is all it is worth.

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10/7/2009

You have to have a little admiration for Mayor Bloomberg, NYC. After all the talk and speculation about what really goes on at gun shows across the country with one side saying "no proof" and the other side providing no proof, the Bloomster sent out his own investigators to gun shows in several states and got the proof. Proof that supports what the ATF has been saying about how guns oh-so-easily get into the hands of guys like Seung-Hui Cho, who promptly massacred 30-odd people at Virginia Tech.

The proof is in the lead pudding. Gun show private dealers (i.e., the guys who run the gun shop down the street) selling weapons to undercover investigators who told them "yeah, look buddy, I don't think I'll pass the background check." To which the private gun seller says "No problemo! I'm a private seller! I don't care if you're the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, here, only $500 for this Glock."

Meanwhile, "30 percent of guns involved in federal illegal gun trafficking investigations are connected to gun shows."

"The investigation videos showed that 35 out of 47 sellers approached by undercover investigators at these gun shows sold guns illegally."

Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for providing the cold hard facts that the media and Washington DC don't seem to have: That the sellers at these gun shows are crookeder than a dog's hind leg, and couldn't care less how many people, young old and everywhere in between, get slaughtered because they sold a gun to a felon or a mentally unstable.

The Supreme Court today heard the case about whether a cross erected on a federally owned WWI memorial site is a violation of the separation of church and state.

This exchange was a particularly mind-numbing:

When Scalia said the cross was the "most common symbol of the resting place of the dead," Eliasberg replied that would not be the case in a Jewish cemetery. Scalia shot back that it was an "outrageous conclusion" that the cross only honored Christian war dead.

It's always nice to see Scalia in a Snit, but that exchange begs the question: WTF planet did Scalia grow up on anyway?

Wait, that's right - he grew up in the LaLaLand of extreme religious belief. While the other justices were huddling and working out an exit strategy for this particular bugaboo of a case before lunch next month with some narrow, case-specific ruling so the Justices don't have to go down in history as being the Court that blew a hole through the Separation Wall so big that one could drive a Sherman Tank through it. And don't you just know that the other Justices were groaning "NOOOOOOOOO! DON'T GO THERE" when Scalia had to be his usual fundamentalist talibangelical self, and open that can of worms. You see, they don't really like to hear cases like that, and when they do, they tend to rule very narrowly, without taking on the entire cultural hullabaloo over whether such displays on public land are constitutional or not. So, when lower courts already said that the cross has to go, Congress turned the area into a national WWI monument, and then turned over the land to a private group who can do what they want with it. And a Supreme Court case was born. And Scalia gets to preach from the bench. Lemme hear a big "Activist Judges! Whoop Whoop!"

And, for our grand finale, we give you....drum roll please....Conservapedia is re-writing the bible. They say they are taking out the commie effete liberal Jesus, and putting in the uzi-toting, free-marketeering, commie-killing Jesus.

I'm not even christian and that just offends me. Although it should be a rousing-good-time tearing into it when, and if, they ever get it finished.

I'm really waiting to see what they do with the beatitudes. That should really be a hoot'n'a'half.

And Jesus said: Screw the Meek, for they are too poor to live! They are Leeches on Society!

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10/4/2009

In a decision that flew right under the radar, the Justice Department has instituted a panel that will decide whether or not a piece of information or possible testimony is a State secret BEFORE any agency is allowed to simply deem it a State Secret and therefore not subject to being looked at, touched, commented on or even thought about in any way, particularly in a court of law.

NPR gives us a nice little rundown:

The Justice Department on Wednesday unveiled a new set of rules for when the government can claim it is protecting state secrets in court.

The Obama and Bush administrations have both been criticized for the way they have invoked the state secrets privilege, which essentially lets the government tell a judge to throw out a case because a trial would expose information that compromises national security.

Among other things, the new rules say that in order for lawyers to make a state secrets claim, a government agency must convince the attorney general and other top Justice officials that releasing information would "cause significant harm to national defense or foreign relations."

In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said this will "provide greater accountability and ensure that the state secrets privilege is invoked only when necessary and in the narrowest way possible."

ACLU Attorney Ben Wizner has argued cases against government lawyers who claimed state secrets. The new rules make him hopeful.

"But," Wizner says, "even as they are rolling out this new policy, they are simultaneously demanding that federal courts throw out lawsuits brought by torture victims, including my clients and victims of illegal surveillance, citing the state secrets privilege."

The new policies take effect Oct. 1. It is not clear whether they will change the administration's position in Wizner's case or others already filed.

It is also unclear what impact this will have on pending legislation that would restrict state secrets claims.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is one of the bill's sponsors. "We want the privilege, but we don't want it misused," Leahy said. "We have to have mechanisms to guide its application, and today's announcement marks progress."

Leahy said he would still like to see more involvement from a judge to make sure the privilege is invoked in a responsible way, but he called the new rules movement "in the right direction."

Wizner says even if these new policies are perfect as written, there is still a major shortcoming. "These reforms, even if they're meaningful, will last no longer than the Obama administration," Wizner says.

For that reason, he hopes Congress moves legislation despite the new guidelines.

Even as the Obama administration trumpeted a break with the Bush administration on the issue, officials pushed to continue Bush-era policies on the state secrets issue.

Three parts of the USA Patriot Act expire at the end of the year, and the Obama administration wants to extend them. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Leahy, the panel's chairman, and other Democrats said they think the law needs more protections for civil liberties.

For example, Leahy pointed to one expiring provision that lets investigators secretly take business records, broadly defined. Investigators could seize computers, for example, or financial records. Seizures could encompass "any tangible thing at all," said Leahy, "even if it meant it closed down your small business."

"And the government is almost always guaranteed success," Leahy said, because the law as written presumes the government is correct when it claims business records are relevant to an investigation.

Other parts of the law that are set to expire include the "roving wiretap" provision, which lets the government continue eavesdropping on someone who repeatedly changes cell phones, and the "lone wolf" provision, which lets the government spy on an independent terrorist under the same rules that apply to members of a terrorist group.

Some Democrats have introduced legislation that would scale back the three parts of the law that are up for renewal.

David Kris of the Justice Department told senators he cannot yet state the administration's position on those proposals, but he said the administration wants to work with the committee "to try to see if these tools can be sharpened."

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