Talking Loud, Saying Nothing

Pretendident Baracus Hubris Maximus, (Hail Caesar!) Spokesmodel-in-Chief, says nothing better than practically anybody living or dead (especially the latter) could ever possibly have potentially dreamed to.  Which is not surprising, since he is most often reading carefully crafted sweet nothings designed to bamboozle the eye patch panties off of even the most resolutely celibate lobbyist among us, without even spreading his or her tightly crossed legs.  These rather ineptly recited, poor man’s Barry White-esque, “ooooh, baby, baby, oooooh,” entreaties against common sense and self interest are no less annoying for their much less than baritone, faux streetwise, preachery delivery and improbable success, than they are for their air of frantic backseat fumbling during an ill-considered mercy date with the president of the A/V Club.

However, I suppose if one is sufficiently lonely, desperate, and/or imaginative, one can project enough pseudo-suavery onto his twerpy waffling to satisfy one’s own fantasies of a personal, God-delivered, just your size, slipper in hand Prince Charming to melt one’s own Candy Pants.  But, for me, no amount of supplemental digital manipulation can adequately whet my libidinous political appetites, so to speak; on the contrary, repeated exposure to his inartful seduction renders my pleasure points dry as the Sahara.

Dueling AstroTurf Express

When the “Only Obots AstroTurf” deniers of the clearly rightwing AstroTurfing of the TEA Parties/Recess Rally/Townhall Ruckus/Hot Air Mess With The KoolAid Krowd’s Heads campaign first started calling me everything but a child of God because I said, “uh…PUMAs?  Ya might not maybe wanna get involved, ya think?…I was pissed the fuck off pretty upset.  Now that the whole sordid mess is in warp speed gear from both sides, and is so out in the open that when the ShameScream Media asks for quotes from either/or both faction’s lamebrain trust that nobody even thinks about pretending to be fauxraged, I’m simply amused.  Ha!

Double ha!

Pretendident Bah!Rock Whosayin’ Yomama’s Our House Now, Baby’s officially sanctioned fake grassroots-laying arm, Obagandizing For America, is taking their Obama’s Witnesses show on the road to counter the GOopers’ RNC sanctioned-on-the-downlow Malkin/Beck/Hannity promoted FreedomWorks “We Got Healthcare, Screw Your Granny” bus tour.  Quoting spokesfolks from the DNC, RNC, FreedomWorks, Health Care For America Now, and Americans For Prosperity, the Washington Post reports:

Happy AstroTurfing ObamaCare Day!

Today is AstroTurfing ObamaCare Day, didja know?  If you’re not a right wing anti-socialized medicine groupie, you probably didn’t.  If you’re just a regular old anti-socialized medicine groupie, you might just think it’s Protest Obama’s Non-Existent Health Care Plan Day, ‘cuz…well, that’s what you’re supposed to think.  Only the clued in are aware that “ObamaCare” is a Gooper dog-whistle.

In case you forgot it was coming up, or your neighborhood Fuck Health Care Reform Group neglected to send you your own personal hndy dandy “Get Out The “No” email in a timely fashion, Fox News printed a helpful announcement to remind you to do your part to further the cause of the side of your choice in The Great Dueling AstroTurf War:

If Democratic lawmakers thought all the furor over President Obama’s health care plan expressed this month at town hall meetings was dying down, they might be in for a surprise Saturday.

That’s when citizens are planning anti-”Obamacare” rallies across the country Saturday in all 435 congressional districts.

And their message is clear: We will not stand for socialized, government-controlled health care.

The same groups who made the “tax tea parties” possible in April are behind this weekend’s movement. American Liberty Alliance, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity are working with The Sam Adams Alliance, among others, to stage the rallies.

Screwed

The reason that we, as a nation, are as embroiled in this ridiculous debate about “access to affordable health care,” as opposed to “government guaranteed access to comprehensive health care” for all its citizens, is because the politicians, press, pundits and PR firms paid to punk the public are very, very good at what they do.  If they were not so adept at re-framing and complexifying simple issues, otherwise intelligent people, unduly influenced by these influence peddler-backed influence pushers, might use their collective common sense to ask different questions than the ones currently being debated, and demand that our country’s best and brightest make proper use of their good old Yankee ingenuity to come up with some practical solutions.

Why are we even talking about a “public option?”  Why not a “private option” to a guaranteed government single payer health care program?  There’s your competition right there.  Make the insurance industry compete between themselves for the privilege of providing coverage over and above basic, yet comprehensive services, in order to justify their obscene profits.

Why Is Single Payer Off The Table?

If you don’t ask the right questions, you’re never going to get a sensible answer.  So, how come it seems nobody’s asking, why is single payer off the table?  Could it be that the game has been rigged from Day One to keep that particular option from ever being seriously considered? Some of us really want to know.

If that is the case, the natural follow-up question is, why?  Why would our elected officials, the media, and everybody else simultaneously stick their fingers in their ears and go “lalalalalalalala” when it comes to the question of “government run health care?”  Could it be something as simple as, if the American public was to be offered a “single payer, Medicare for all, everybody in, nobody out” solution, they would jump on it, forcing the party in control of Congress and the White House, and the other one, too, to implement it, or face the wrath of the voters next time up?  What would that do to their personal bottom lines?

According to a Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) article highlighted by Allegre yesterday, the fact that many pharmaceutical companies share board members with a lot of corporate media might have a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to do with it:

Manufacturing Real Outrage

The current news reporting about the Dueling AstroTufing going on regarding health care reform, or the lack of it, aka, “health insurance reform,” is just as disingenuous as the motivations of the instigators on both sides.  While I don’t think anyone seriously discounts the obvious truth of the notion that “conservative” factions, at the behest of anti-health care reform lobbyists,  ginned up dissent and directed it, and the resultant anger, at primarily Democratic Congresspeople, (persons? critters?) holding town hall meetings during their summer recess, those uncomfortable with the idea of being manipulated by forces of the GOP defiantly claim that their “anger is real.”  Duh.  It is possible to be both, ya know?

Those “innocent” manipulators of the real fauxrage now standing back with their hands in their pockets, hunching their shoulders while trying to whistle and maintain a “who me” expression at the same time, even have a name for the game:  The Recess Plan, complete with Rocking the Townhall memo, confirmed by its author.  I’m pretty sure they don’t mean playing hopscotch in the schoolyard after milk breaks, even though any school-aged child is familiar with the tactics suggested.

Dueling AstroTurf III

In an earlier series of posts about Dueling AstroTurfing, Parts I and II,Obaganda, GE/MSNBO/FOX News, etc., among others, I have examined the phenomenon of main- and minor-stream media spin, collusion, distortion and all the other neat little Sheeple Mind Control tricks in their their seemingly bottomless greasy little Felix the Cat goody bags, and their role in using them to advance various corporo-political agendas.  And, while they never take a break, (this is American politics we’re talking here) the information dissemination forces of darkness, evil and insane profit, and their assorted nefarious blogospherian satellites, are at it again with a vengeance.

First up, after a week or so of speculation that Pretendident Baracko Bama deliberately, and disingenuously, amped up the volume on the country’s historic racial discord by shooting his mouth off at his snoozefest of an interminable press conference on health insurance reform about the “stupidity” of the Cambridge police in arresting his “good friend,” Professor Henry Louis (Skip) Gates for being Uppity While Black, in order to deflect attention from the “fact” that his “plan?” was tanking, seems that the Forces of Axelrovian Disinformation have thrown the wolves new meat.  Sarah Palin.  Ah, Sarah.  Remember her?  Well, obviously somebody does, and since the GOP’s Alaskan Answer had, for reasons known only to her, stopped chattering via Twitter and Facebook, somebody (wink, wink) decided to give her hungry fans and foes sumpin’ ta talk about.

Yippeee!! The Pretendident’s Going On TV Some More!

Obama's EarPrompTer?

Oh, goody!  The Obamessiah and his minions, or, Barry and the Obacolytes, as I like to call them, have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the way to combat falling poll numbers and the Screamin’ Blue (Dog) Meanies opposed to his sweeping ambiguous health care suggestion plan, is to take his case to the people via yet more interminable TelePrompTer-read sermons speeches in public, on television and You Tube, on Facebook, MySpace, and Obamaweb, by e-mail, and yes, even Twitter!  Oh, joy!  Is your breath bated?  Are your loins girded?  Legs a-tingle?  I know mine are…not.

Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, a day without Barack is like a day without having cod liver oil-laced grapefruit juice squirted into my eyeball socket with a syringe.   I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but, something about the stage-managed, over-produced “events” featuring the head-swiveling, boy-stood-on-the-burning-deck, frat boy written, less-than-inspiring, recitation of whiny-assed, often contradictory platitudes leaves me cold.  Far too often, I find myself half-listening, staring at the mole on the side of his nose with a scowl on my face and my mind wandering to contemplation of more pleasant activities like, listening to chalk, fingernails, or Styrofoam  screech, or breaking in new 6-inch, 2 sizes too small platform stiletto boots with severely pointed steel reinforced toes.  The idea of being the lone adult human passenger on a sold out flight to Antarctica with barking puppies, crying babies, novice pre-school aged bagpipe and didgeridoo players, and cats in heat occupying alternate remaining seats provides a more enjoyable diversionary daydream.

Demand Single Payer

“If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)

Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals, Number 10

After a week of reading and writing about the horrors of the Twitter Revolution, both in terms of the human tragedy, and (mainly) the specter of external agitation, I was all set to explore the madness of HBO’s new series, Hung, about a guy with nothing going for himself but a big weenie, and this Salon piece about how the economic downturn is causing American women to resort to the fall back asset they were born with, (as opposed to typing and shorthand) prostitution.

Then I read this.

Don’t have health insurance? Don’t want to pay for it? Too bad.

It’s looking like President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are going to require you to pick up the bill.

In Washington-speak, it’s called an individual mandate — or a requirement that people who don’t already have health insurance to purchase it, much like most states require drivers to have automobile insurance.

What The Fuck?

Pretendidential Sneakitude

I’ve heard the leadership style of Pretendident Black Whosayin Yomama referred to as “11th Dimensional Chess on Pluto.”  I call it, “wimpitude.”  For those hopium hooked Kool Aid addicts impressed with the Waffler’s habit of saying one strangely enticing, yet ultimately, incomprehensible thing and doing another, polar opposite, incomprehensible one, the Celebritician’s “hardball with clean hands” approach seems Solomonaic.  To rational people, his TelePrompTer read doublespeak is infuriating.  And, it pisses people off, too.

Basically, Obama’s style is to try to get his goals accomplished without revealing what they are, by getting other people to do the dirty work.  He imagines himself Godfather-like; “send Clemenza out to get Paulie and the cannoli, but make sure nothing comes back to me but dessert.”  Thus, his interminable, ubiquitous speeches sound like wire tapped phone calls between the Capo and his henchmen, “tell the guy to do the thing, but, if it gets done, he didn’t go it, and we never had this conversation, capice?”

Lying Liars Indeed Lie

I don’t know if Al Franken is the originator of the “lying liars lie” line, in fact, I don’t know much about Franken at all, except, I never thought he was very funny.  I’m not much of an SNL fan, but, I do seem to recall that the Franken years were among the show’s suckiest.  And, I don’t know anything at all about him as a politician, and that’s just fine with me.  Minnesota’s not my home state.  But, all that aside, the “lying liars” sentiment he used as a title of one of his books is spot on when it comes to politics, and journalism, today.

Enumerating all the “lying liars” examples in my mind today might take a while, and take us all over the map, so bear with me, ‘kay?  I guess I’ll start with Salon’s Glenn Greenwald’s vendetta against Jeffrey Rosen over Rosen’s NPR “hit piece” on Sonia Sotomayor.  Seems Greenwald has a butt bug about Rosen’s report that some people think the Supreme Court nominee is kinda bitchy on the bench.  Greenwald says, yeah, she’s tough, but, so’re a lot of judges, and, if a lawyer’s prepared, he or she has a better chance of escaping unscathed from Sotomayor’s wrath.  So far, so drama-less.  The episode takes on a bitch-fest quality of its own, though, when Greenwald takes exception to Rosen’s use of anonymous sources, in fact, it’s at that point that the whole thing proceeds to the Twilight Zone.  For Glenn to get his panties in a twist over Rosen’s use of unattributable quotes is almost, nay, definitely, laughable.

It’s The Medical Records, Stupid

Forget single payer.  Not Gonna Happen.  The Obamacans say it’s off the table, and I believe ‘em.  Just like I believed their duly selected Spokesmodel-In-Chief, Barack Hussein Walker Obushma, when he said, back when he was just the Inevitable Candidate, that  he wasn’t opposed to all wars, just dumb ones, and that blowing shit up in Afghanistan and Pakistan was a pretty freaking radically brilliant idea, as far as he was concerned.  “Anti-war, my left tit,” said I back then, and, sure as shootin’, turns out my faith in the Black Sheep of the Bush Family was not misplaced.  His FISA vote and his subsequent, “look forward without anger, why change things when they work for me” philosophy regarding Bush-era transgressions doesn’t surprise me a whit, either.

I have always been struck by the cozy, lovey-dovey relationship Georgie’s Ba’ Bruh has always seemed to have with “Obamacans.”  When I first heard of Republicans for Obama, I was like, “what’s up with that, huh?”  Why would a group of Republicans get together in 2006 to encourage the “most liberal Senator in the history of…liberals and Senators” to run for President after the guy had only been voting against their interests on a national basis for a couple years or so?  Sure, coulda been just another Axelrove AstroTurfing campaign, but, if it was, why weren’t real Republicans yelling their heads off about it?   Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney are not exactly shy about slamming one of their own for being too buddy-buddy with the other side.  Why did all the black Republicans endorse this “most liberal Senator, blah, blah, blah, either explicitly, or tacitly?  Why did so many registered Republicans switch party affiliation to vote for a community organizer, (a phrase they utter with all the dripping sarcasm, venom and contempt a mother uses to describe her law school-grad son, the “rap singer”’s career choice) in the primaries and caucuses, then neglect to switch back, swelling the ranks of Independents while depleting their former party’s numbers so significantly it’s now a shell of itself?  In fact, didn’t the guy Al Franken called a “big, fat, idiot,” encourage that?  Operation Chaos, anyone?  Why didn’t the sleazy Obama ploy plea for Republicans to become Democrats for a Day cause the “liberal media” and the “progressive blogospherians” who supported him with a blind fury to turn their backs on, and wash their hands of, him?  How come the Barackamedian’s biggest laugh on his Rock Star Tour campaign trail come from his oft-related response of “Thank you, why are we whispering?” to Republicans’ hushed confessions of “I voted for you”?

The Myth Of Affordable Health Care

There are many reasons I didn’t want Barack Obama to win the Democratic nomination for president last year, other than the fact that he’s a lying, cheating, race-baiting, race-traitorous, unqualified, inexperienced, corporate shill, whose only reason for running was to be a front man for the Money Mafia.   However, the main reason is that it was patently clear from the beginning that if he were to be elected, the closest we would get to comprehensive health care reform would be a long-winded, TelePrompTer read, apologetic, “what a good boy am I,”  insurance company-favoring, less-than-nothing, “compromise was the very best we could do” speech about why we won’t get it.  There was only one candidate in the entire field who was likely to fight for true health care for all, and that’s exactly why she’s not president right now.

So, now that the Mystical Magical Lyin’ King has been firmly ensconced in the Oval Office, we’re supposed to sit through this stage-managed, dramatic production of a serio-comic farce that’s currently running in Congress where the insurance industry assumes the role of its own regulators once again, and pretend that we’re fooled into believing that something benefiting us will eventually come out of it.  One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist, brain surgeon, or second grader to realize that America will get no closer to “affordable” healthcare for all, or, even most, of its citizens, than I will get to Pluto on a bicycle in my lifetime.  What we will get is lip service, bullshit, lies and theater.

An example of all of the above rolled into one juicy hopium doobie is this bit of happy crappy reported by CQ Politics yesterday.   During the way-off Broadway production of Health Care Follies running in Congress starring the Senate Finance Committee and Big Insurance as themselves, Karen Ignagni,  president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, (AHIP) as the Beaver, put on a big, “We see the light! Let us fix ourselves!” show, designed to fool the gullible into believing that the outcome of this charade is not a foregone conclusion, and a government run option, far from single payer, mind you, is actually on the table.  Don’t believe me?  Read the script:

Make Nancy Pelosi Cry

Some days there are just so many good stories to pursue in the news that you just don’t know where to start.  Today is not one of those days.  Yes, many stupid things happened yesterday that can be laid at the feet of the Obministration We Love To Hate, but the one that stands out, really stands out.  Seems President Arugula Barry Waffles’ brain, Speaker of the House, Nasty Pancakes, is whining about the overwhelming number of faxes she’s received in support of putting the option of single payer health care on the table.  After 1Payer.net’s email campaign reportedly flooded Nasty P.’s office, her suckophants tried to sound the all-clear.  Don’t let ‘m off the hook.  They’re the ones who issued the Dirty Harry-esque, ” you feelin’ lucky, punk, make my day” challenge, daring the 59% of us in favor of true health care reform to “make them” put the option on the table, so, I say let’s come back at them with our own Die Hard-style, “yippee ki-yay, motherf*ckers,” response.  Fax, email, call, and/or write all of ‘em.  There are three options available on the 1Payer.net site, with links to easy form emails as well as Nasty’s office email address, AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov.   And, pay no attention to her predictable claim that your faxes don’t count if you’re not in her district.  She’s the freaking Speaker of the Freaking House, a pitiful Freddie Prinze,” ees not my yob, mahn,” impression just doesn’t cut it.  Eeet ees your fluckin’ yob, Bighead.

Single Payer This Way

According to Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire via Corrente, who got it from somewhere, but is directing everybody to 1Payer.net, it seems single payer health care is off the table because Nancy Pelosi is convinced that we, the people, don’t want it.  From Corrente:

It appears that Congressional leaders are being deliberately dismissive of single-payer to the point of ludicrous statements. It’s like they have put their fingers in their ears and are yelling “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you.” Here they are in all their Congressional member glory:

Baucus a few days ago: “Everything BUT single payer is on the table. Single payer is off the table.”

Pelosi: “In our caucus, over and over again, we hear single payer, single payer, single payer. Well, it’s not going to be a single payer.”

Pelosi’s aide: “Where are the phone calls, e-mails and faxes in support of single-payer? Speaker Pelosi has been in favor of single-payer for a long time. Now make us do it.”

If you do want single payer health care, which Physicians for a National Health Program supports, or you just want to make a liar of Nasty P., send faxes til the cows come home.  Then, send another one twenty.  It’s quick, easy, painless, and crucially important.  Don’t let Barry Waffles and Nasty Pancakes screw this up without a fight.   As Cannon points out, if the Obacrats are gonna cram this thing through no matter what the Republicans want, make ‘em go all the freaking way.  This chance might not come again.   Let’s just do this.  Please.

Also, please read this comment that Alessandro Machi of Daily PUMA left on my Dueling AstroTurf II thread about the egregious behavior of the credit card industry and how it impacts all of us.  It’s important, too, in my humble opinion.

The credit card thing. Bravo to those who avoided it in the first place. However, there are legitimate reasons people go into debt. Business investments and medical emergencies are two common reasons, paying for children’s education is another one, so is losing a job and using the cards to get by.

Can You Believe This Guy?

For whatever reason, it seems our Too Too Yummy Presilicious is hellbent on being…difficult petty somewhat of a jerk.  Some of his recent moves are hard to understand.  Like his announcement of Tim Kaine’s appointment as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, carefully scheduled to occur while outgoing Chairman Howdy Doody Dean was otherwise occupied thousands of miles away doing party business, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being kept Elastic Man’s arm’s distance away from today’s Compromise on Health Care Summit.  In fact, she’s being kept out of the debate, by everybody but the press, entirely.

This is by design of the Obacracy.  No one associated with the Big Shot’s walk back from Universal Health Care is making any bones about it, either.  Their flawed thinking is, the enduring stench from Clinton’s failed attempt at true health care reform is so permeative that nothing short of the stench of his new Health and Human Services Secretary’s failed attempts at health care reform can overcome it, and that’s only if Clinton is isolated in exile halfway around the world.  Or something like that, according to David Axelrove, quoted in the New York Times:

“I think we’ve got her pretty well occupied,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, adding that the president and Mrs. Clinton had spoken about her experience with health care “only in the most general terms.”

The story for publication is that the Exalted One has learned from Clinton’s gross incompetence not to make the same egregious mistakes and doesn’t want her tainting the process of caving to insurance companies at the taxpayers’ expense.  Or something like that:

In an interview, Mr. Emanuel described the White House effort, beginning with Thursday’s policy forum, as “the manifestation of a series of learned examples, learned lessons,” a litany of health policy do’s and don’ts. To begin with, the Clinton plan was drafted in secret and delivered to lawmakers as a fait accompli; Mr. Obama is articulating broad principles and leaving the details to Congress.

Since I don’t want health care reform, I want health care, I would appreciate Hillary Clinton’s hands-on input and influence based on hard won experience being a huge part of the mix.  But, since Obama has been all over the place with his promises, depending upon who he’s talking to, one minute claiming to be a single payer proponent, the next, a “just keep what you got with a little something on the side,” insurance/drug industry suckophant, I can see where Clinton’s more committed participation might not be welcome.  But, a less diplomatically challenged adult might have  found a way to get that point across without slapping his potential ace-in-the-hole in the face in front of the world.

However, the White House’s tanned Beverly Hillbilly is obviously incapable of  exhibiting even the barest semblance of decorum and grace, according to the British, via the snarky L.A. Times Top of the Ticket:

Some sensitive Brits, who recall that Brown dropped everything to provide that happy walking photo op during Obama’s European campaign swing last summer (see above), think that Obama, the son of a Kenyan whose homeland had a bloody colonial parting with Britain many years ago, meeting with Mexico’s president before his inauguration, traveling to Canada on his first foreign trip, having Japan’s prime minister over to the White House already, sending Hillary to Asia first, schmoozing with ex-PM Tony Blair at the National Prayer Breakfast, removing the Winston Churchill gift bust from the Oval Office and refusing to schedule a full-fledged side-by-side news conference with Brown that would look great on TV back home where Brown faces elections next year after the Brit was so effusive in his not-exactly-nonpartisan praise for Obama during the U.S. campaign is some kind of slight toward British leaders, who’ve been nothing but publicly stalwart toward the former American rebels for generations.