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February 06, 2010
According to a Gallup Poll, "More than one-third of Americans (36%) have a positive image of 'socialism,' while 58% have a negative image."
But it's still the scariest word of these:
Posted on 02/06/10 by
abi
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January 31, 2010
Another voice out of the reality-based community on the "success" of Massachusetts'
almost-kinda-sorta universal health care "reform" — this time from the state's treasurer:
Health care reform has not been a Massachusetts miracle. The state’s new health care system has been fraught with problems from the start, from excessive costs to taxpayers to unaffordable insurance options for families...The reform has placed an enormous hardship on middle-class residents who do not qualify for the state-subsidized Commonwealth Care program, as high premiums, deductibles, and bill payments — even for the least expensive plans — have rendered these options unaffordable.
And remember, those hardships on middle-class residents are imposed on them by state mandate.
Posted on 01/31/10 by
abi
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January 30, 2010
That [Howard Zinn] was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.
Posted on 01/30/10 by
abi
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As President Obama likes to say, let's be clear: The election of Scott Brown didn't sound the death knell for health care reform. Obama and the Democrats put reform on life support right from the start by never giving single-payer serious consideration. That life-support came in the form of the public option.
But over the summer and fall, the politicians started hacking away at the life support machinery, until all that remained was the expansion of Medicare to 55-and-older Americans — essentially eliminating the public option for everyone except people 55 to 64 years old.
But Joe Lieberman pulled the plug on even that, and finally, on December 13th, 2009, Lieberman pronounced reform dead.
Sure, we still may get some needed regulations on the more egregious practices of private, for-profit health insurers. But as long as the so-called people's representatives in Washington fail to provide an effective alternative to the inefficiencies, bureaucracies, and bottom-line self-interest of those insurers, reform simply isn't possible.
Posted on 01/30/10 by
abi
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When you look up the word "leadership" in the dictionary, you should find this link in the definition.
Maybe the Massachusetts slap in the face was just what Barack Obama needed.
Posted on 01/30/10 by
abi
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January 24, 2010
Since that bluest of blue-states, Massachusetts, elected a Republican to Ted Kennedy's senate seat last week, President Obama has been ratcheting up the rhetoric, particularly about those "fat-cat" bankers.
But the time for mere talk is passed. As already noted, this is do-or-die time for the Captain of the Washington Generals. Frank Rich noted it too, comparing this moment in Obama's presidency to a similar one in JFK's, when he was publicly dissed by U.S. Steel:
Kennedy didn't settle for the generic populist rhetoric of Obama’s latest threats to “fight” unspecified bankers some indeterminate day. He instead took the strong action of dressing down U.S. Steel by name. As Richard Reeves writes in his book "President Kennedy," reporters were left “literally gasping.” The young president called out big steel for threatening “economic recovery and stability” while Americans risked their lives in Southeast Asia. J.F.K. threatened to sic his brother’s Justice Department on corporate records and then held firm as his opponents likened his flex of muscle to the power grabs of Hitler and Mussolini. (Sound familiar?) U.S. Steel capitulated in two days.
Will Obama allow his moment to flicker? Time will tell, but I'm not optimistic.
Posted on 01/24/10 by
abi
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January 23, 2010
Speaking of health care 'reform,' I got my 2009 Form MA 1099-HC Individual Mandate — Massachusetts Health Care Coverage form in the mail today, with little boxes checked off for each month during the year I was covered by health insurance.
As Americans everywhere may soon find out, this is the form you need to submit with your taxes to prove you are innocent of flouting the mandatory insurance law.
Oh, and let's not forget the friendly little reminder I posted here.
Posted on 01/23/10 by
abi
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I love a good joke as much as the next guy, but not when the joke is on me.
You're telling me that the Supreme Court, in its rock-solid Conservative wisdom, has ruled that corporations can now spend as much as they please to skew elections in favor of the candidates of their choice? What a hoot! I'll believe that when Massachusetts sends a Republican nobody and former nude pin-up to the U.S. Senate.
Oh my dear God, it's true.
Well, at least we've stripped away (speaking of nude pin-ups) the fig-leaf covering up the naked fact that we are and have for quite some time been a government by, of, and for the moneyed interests of America.
But hey, this is America, where we have something called freedom of speech, where every person has the right to coax someone else to vote a certain way, whether it's you jawing with your neighbor over your back fence, or whether it's Goldman Sachs spending some of the $4.95 billion in profit it made in the last three months to convince Americans that banking regulation is a bad idea.
But wait, Goldman Sachs isn't a person, like your aunt Nell or the guy down the street. Is it?
Oh my dear God...
Posted on 01/23/10 by
abi
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Between the election of Scott "My Name-Is-Scott-Brown-and-I-Drive-a-Truck" Brown, and the Supreme Court's unmuzzling of that amoral, insatiable beast we euphemistically call the American Corporation, this has been a devastating week for Barack Obama, the Democrats, and in fact, for all Americans.
This is also the pivotal moment in Obama's presidency. If he doesn't get it by now, if he doesn't find the wherewithal to start living up to the grand and incessant promises of change he made during his campaign, and damn soon, he can forget about 2012 — just like the Democrats in Congress can forget about 2010.
And the rest of us can forget about the America we learned about in school.
Posted on 01/23/10 by
abi
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A column in today's Boston Globe offers this not-so-flattering reason why blue-state Massachusetts voted for Republican Scott Brown and against the Democrats' plan for health insurance reform:
One of the smartest analyses of this week's Senate election came from Stephen Colbert, the faux talk show host on Comedy Central. He summed up the race by saying Massachusetts, a state with near-universal healthcare, had a message for the rest of the country: "I got mine, Jack. You can" — well, you can imagine, but it isn't nice.
If you believe the Democratic spinmeisters — and that includes a few media cheerleaders — we in Massachusetts just love our new mandatory, almost-kinda-sorta universal health care plan. But if you believe the people of Massachusetts, you get a different story. According to a Rasmussen poll conducted of Massachusetts residents last June:
Twenty-six percent (26%) of Massachusetts voters say their state’s health care reform effort has been a success.
Sure, most Massachusetts residents are now 'covered' because tens of thousands have been required by law to buy products offered by private corporations. Meanwhile, the cost of those products keeps going up, and nothing is being done to rein in the underlying costs of providing health care in the state.
This is the model the Dems in Congress want the rest of the nation to follow.
So in electing Scott Brown as the 41st vote against Obamacare, the people of Massachusetts weren't telling the rest of America, I've got mine and f- you. They were, at least in part, expressing how profoundly unenthusiastic they are about this type of 'reform.'
Posted on 01/23/10 by
abi
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