I’m jealous I didn’t write this

From here via Naked Capitalism:

Now really, isn’t this the very heart and soul of liberalism? Leave all the core institutions of the society alone — including that most ancient and hallowed of institutions, poor people — but think, think very hard, about clever ways to improve the lot of those… poor… people. Everything is on the table. Sky’s the limit. Think. Think! Think outside the box!

Except the one unthinkable idea: abolish the poor. Which is to say, give ‘em money.

Bullseye!

And it encapsulates the rapidly deteriorating Obama Presidency.

What are we going to do about health care?  I know, let’s keep the corrupt for profit health insurance companies and dick with the system around the edges!  Awesome, that’s great, we’re great!

What are we going to do about predatory banking and shitty risk management on Wall Street?  First off, let’s not break any banks up.  Let’s keep those messes intact and dick around the edges.

And on and on it goes.

Sen. Max Baucus, dirty whore the for health care industry, to retire…

From here:

He was one of the main authors of the Affordable Care Act, which goes into full effect in 2014. The first year is sure to be bumpy, and Baucus himself scolded Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing last week, warning of a “train wreck” because the Obama administration wasn’t doing enough to make sure people understand the law.

That’s your “train wreck”, Senator Baucus.

It’s called universal health care, motherfucker, and you know when Indonesia is rolling it out universal health care in the third world, we have a completely rotten, bogus political system.

 

 

 

Best country ever! (if you’re up in that there 1%)

From here:

The growing divide in America comes at a time when emerging nations in Asia and Latin America are directing a significant portion of their resources to eliminate extreme poverty and reduce inequality. Indonesia is working to provide health insurance to all 240 million citizens starting in 2014; Thailand introduced pensions for its informal sector in 2011; and India expanded its job guarantee scheme to include every rural district in 2008.

We are so politically corrupted by the health care industries — drug companies, hospital chains, and insurance companies that we’re being shown up by Indonesia.

Indonesia people!  Not a country usually at the vanguard of political change.

Man, we suck.

 

America needs its food colors and dyes

From here:

Two food bloggers from North Carolina have gathered more than 200,000 signatures in an effort to persuade food giant Kraft to remove two chemical food dye additives from the mac’n'cheese packaged meals that it sells in America.

Both ingredients, called Yellow #5 and Yellow #6, are not present in equivalent products produced by Kraft in many other countries. In some places they are replaced by other substances, such as paprika, amid some health concerns over their safety.

We are the greatest nation the planet has ever seen and we need those additives and chemicals in our foods.

It’s an essential part of our greatness — it helps to generate record illness in our American population that is taken care of by the greatest health care system in the world.

Unfortunately, almost 50 million of us don’t have access to that system, but these are details.

We’re still friggin’ great and don’t all you foreigners forget it.

 

Why liberal pols over conserve-atize voters?

From here:

Liberal politicians, meanwhile, don’t imagine that their constituents are super-liberal. A majority of them also believe that their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. Which, well, that explains your Democratic Party since the Clinton administration.

I would like to offer one simple reason why this happens.

Most liberal politicians aren’t liberal politicians, they’re just slightly more democratic than Republicans.

Projecting voters as more conservative than they are helps them to advance the agenda of both parties, which is not an agenda for their voters, but for donors, and is more conservative than people who don’t share the same concerns as for profit organizations.

 

Once a bloated, greedy pig business always a bloated greedy pig

From here:

“put simply, with Obamacare we’ve changed the rules related to who pays for what, but we haven’t done much to change the prices we pay.”

This quote is from the big Time story by Stephen Brill about healthcare in the U.S.

But it’s strangely parallel to Wall Street reform.

We are, strangely, a nation of pussies.  We can’t ever say, as a society, this shit is broken, and we need to fix it.

We do this bullshit ‘reform’ which is a bunch of watered down shit and nothing really changes.  It may change around the edges, but even those small changes are denounced as the most earth shattering changes every.

It’s a sign of our corrupt government.

Wall street has politicians in its pockets.
Health care companies have the politicians in their pockets.
The war machine has politicians in their pockets.

#fuckingsickening.

 

There it is again — corporate run government doing you

From here:

Excerpt 1:

It’s conventional wisdom that the post-industrial workforce doesn’t want to be unionized. Butsurvey data show that workers’ desire to join unions has been growing since the 1980s, and a majority of nonunion workers would now vote for union representation if given the opportunity. So if workers want unions, why is unionization falling?

Excerpt 2:

Differences in labor law and public policy are at the root of this disparity.

God damned Canadians with their universal health care and their unionization rates.

Show offs.

So building a middle class is now a liberal idea

Guardian headline:

Obama to push on with liberal plans

Underneath the headline:

President, in first official weekly address since inauguration, says job in second term is to broaden and strengthen middle class.

Maybe this is why the Republican wingnut party is swirling the toilet and can’t win an election.

If it’s not your job to build the middle class and you hate poor people, and black folks and the other non-white folk flavors, and gay folk and women that doesn’t leave an awful lot of voters.

It leaves about 1% of the population if my math is correct.

P.S. Obama is not going to build the middle class, he’s just blowing air up your skirt.  He might throw you a few crumbs but the meat is going to his donors.

#It’sabigcrueltheatershow.

 

America sneezes and Japan catches the asshole flu

From here:

Japan’s new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country’s finances.

Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to “hurry up and die” to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.

I guess being an austerity minded asshole is now a worldwide franchise.  I had higher expectations for the Japanese due to a rich history of manners and spirituality.

Apparently, I was very wrong.

I will go hurry up and die.

What the fuck happened to love thy brother?  That shit is gone and I didn’t get the memo.

Clueless rich a-hole Part 1

From here:

Excerpt 1:

David Tepper, who runs $12 billion distressed debt hedge fund Appaloosa Management, was on Bloomberg TV “Market Makers” with Stephanie Ruhle moments ago.

Excerpt 2:

He’s said he’s “going to come out of the closet” as being bullish in 2013.

The reason, he explained, is there are no major negatives and basically nothing to really be bearish about.

“This country is on the verge of an explosion of greatness,” he said, “An explosion of greatness.”

This is an out of touch ruling class asshole.

I saw a show on PBS where they were profiling a mobile dental clinic where this cool dentist goes around the country doing one day free dental fairs.  People drive from 12 hours away in hopes of getting their teeth fixed.

100 million Americans can’t get their teeth cared for.

What the fuck is this asshole talking about an explosion of greatness?