Thanks, Obamacare

It has become difficult for stories about what an utter dumpster-fire US healthcare has become to genuinely shock me, but this one managed to do that in spades:

New insurance policies expect Emergency Room patients to diagnose themselves and put the patient on the hook for the very big bill if the self-diagnosis is wrong.

What's funny is that even now, prog-dems still defend Obamacare. (Hints: It was supposed to control costs but in fact did the opposite; the working class's reaction to getting soaked by it also has more than a little to do with the fact that Trumpi is now our fearless leader, but by all means, scream about Russia some more!)

My advice: Avoid the ER. Yes, you may die, but the way you could get robbed blind if you do go there might make you wish you had died.

An update: Anthem revises the policy somewhat and does so retroactively.

My favorite Gen-Xer in the media does it again

Matt Taibbi writing for Rolling Stone magazine serves up some Truth Tea (TM) about "Russiagate"

Obamacare repeal

We all know that the Republican Party owes its current political dominance every bit as much to grassroots opposition to the so-called Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") as it does to the adept manipulation by the Koch brothers of the electoral and legislative processes. However, it would appear that the Republican congress lacks the will to either replace or even just repeal former President Barack Obama's signature legislative accomplishment. As one might expect, this has led to no small amount of rhetorical keening from the hard right of the US Internet.

I find this only worth noting as a possible "latest nail in the coffin" of our political class and its two-party system. Not that anything good will necessarily replace them, as these nails are being pounded by the inexorable progress of industrial society's slow collapse. After all, such collapses usher in bad things just as readily if not more so than good things.

Social justice warriors want you to Punch A Nazi!

Well, du-uh!

Democratic leaders are a craven bunch of idiots bent on self destruction by David Lindorff.

Mid-winter linky goodness

Paul Street writing at Counterpunch.org serves up some Truth Tea about the outgoing Obama Administration.

And Glenn Greenwald writing Theintercept.com tells us that the Deep State and their Democratic Party lackeys continue to be as horny as a teenage boy with sex on his mind for World War Three with Russia, which will only make the Democratic Party fuck itself in the long haul. To which I say, "Boo-fucking-hoo."

To be quite honest, I see a nuclear war with Russia or China in the not-to-distant future. There may be less nukes around than there were during the Cold War, but it only take a pretty limited mutual thermonuclear warhead exchange to bring about a nuclear winter followed by what one might call an "ultra-violet summer". Now is probably a good time to make your peace with your Higher Power.

You are being lied to, and if you vote for Republicans or Democrats, you're a patsy

Washington, DC and New York City based mainstream publications and websites are the real fountains of fake news in our society.

Since McCarthy lists are now back in vogue, I will contribute my own list of publications and websites you should avoid in order to prevent terminal brain-rot:

Newspapers:

The Washington Post

The New York Times

Magazines:

The Atlantic

The New Yorker

Websites:

The Huffington Post

The Daily Beast

There are more, but this list is only for the most egregious offenders.

And apologies for the dickered link up above, it has been fixed.

The decline and fall of the USA is ahead of schedule

Once again, a writer at Counterpunch.org summarizes my assessment of the situation in a very cogent and precise manner.

The rich and the powerful really do engage in viciously abusive child sex-trafficking

"Pizzagate" is probably a false-flag psy-op designed to discredit the promotion of the Wikileaks information. However, child sex-trafficking is a real thing that is happening, and Bill Clinton is personally implicated in it. And as far as I'm concerned, Bill and Hillary Clinton are a political tag-team, so the sins and crimes (of which there are many) of one are the sins and crimes of the other as well.

Russian hacking mind-control psy-op bullshit

David Lindorff serves up the Truth Tea.

Let's say for the sake of discussion that the Russians did furnish the Wikileaks information. Wouldn't that simply mean that the they simply did the job that the mainstream media should have been doing by making the public aware of information that was absolutely true? The Democratic Party Kool-Aid drinkers have been sinking to such brand-new lows lately that I don't think I will ever vote for another Democrat ever again. (And I was mostly at that point already. Anyone who doesn't like it can fucking suck it.)

Why the Democratic Party Kool-Aid will always reek of vinegar

The Democrats Do Their Job Again by Paul Street writing at Counterpunch.org

Though one flaw in Street's analysis is that the neoliberal-neoconservative faction of the Deep State isn't just taking defeat lying down. Here is my analysis of what I think is going on:

What I think is going on with this clusterfuck of an election is that two different factions of the US Deep State are in open and hostile conflict with one another, and neither one of these factions is "on the side of the angels". The neoliberal-neoconservative-consensus faction is pursuing confrontation with Russia and China that could lead to global thermonuclear war, and a more paleoconservative faction that is usually content to remain silent decided to get behind Trump's campaign in the interest of preventing armageddon. To be sure, the Republican establishment doesn't really like Trump, but they also realize that this may be their last real chance to get Obamacare totally repealed. And since I really don't think Russia wants World War 3, either, it stands to reason the Russians would do whatever they could to help this mysterious rogue faction.

And now the dominant neoliberal-neoconservative-consensus faction is trying to retaliate by creating a new McCarthyism of which the special-snowflake Tumblrina feminists with their "76 genders" are ironically enough making themselves the willing dupes. But I guess it's not surprising considering what easily manipulated authoritarian fools the special snowflakes are. The faking of hate-crimes to make Trump supporters look bad sure is a nice little touch of class, isn't it?

While I'm sure the Russians engaged in psy-ops and counter-psy-ops aplenty (and possibly even the cyber-attack on the Democratic National Committee), I continue to harbor strong doubts that they were the source of the Wikileaks e-mails or were involved in any election-theft that might have occurred. Such allegations are probably more psy-ops from neoliberal-neoconservative-consensus faction of the Deep State.

Mark Ames on WaPo neo-McCarthyism

Truthdig.com has really been on fire since the election, which is odd, because most of the time they're actually kind of "meh". Today their site featured an in-depth piece by Mark Ames that opens up the Pandora's Box of Cold War far-right racism, nuclear-war-mongering, and general extremism behind the promotion of the Propornot website's neo-McCarthyist agenda.

The neoliberal-neoconservative consensus faction of the Deep State, which is represented by Hillary Clinton and Democratic-Party Kool-Aid drinkers, must be getting truly desperate. But what's truly funny is that they wouldn't be as "on the ropes" right now if they hadn't insisted on forcing the Obamacare boondoggle down the country's throat and blindly continued to drink the Kool-Aid about it when it was clear that the whole thing was imploding!

Matt Taibbi's take-down of the whole "Propornot" debacle is also worth reading.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

In case any readers jump to the conclusion that I am somehow objectively pro-Trump, this article on Truthdig.com about Trump's cabinet picks sums up why that isn't so.

I am outraged, *outraged*, I tell you...

...that this blog didn't make it onto The Washington Post's McCarthy-list of websites that disseminate Russian propaganda!

This should do it:



Sing along if you already know the lyrics! :-D

Election 2016 post-mortem

Donald Trump is moving into the White House, and liberals put him there by Thomas Frank.

This trainwreck of an election

Unsurprisingly, an article on Counterpunch.org manages to sum it up better than anything else I have read to date.

Of course, the real power in the land is the Deep State.

Donald Trump supporters

A more compassionate, fully-realized view.

Shillary's professional trolls

Sometimes the only thing there is to say is, "Fuck off, troll!"

Update: Now it's really starting to become tempting to think that Hillary wants to lose!

Further update: There is another side of the story indicating the possibility that Internet rumor-mongering has exaggerated the nature of the situation even if the fundamentals of the story are pretty much true. Also, many other pages went down on Facebook when those pro-Sanders pages went down.

"Your Love" by The Outfield

A song from the old daze that has been playing in my mind of late.

Final cannibalization stage

According to The Economic Collapse Blog (which I am aware is run by a fundie Dominionist, but the guy still talks about things that really are happening in the global and domestic economies), big corporations are piling on massive debt in order to buy back their own stocks in order to artificially inflate the value of these stocks, in some cases taking on so much debt that they end up defaulting on it. If this is what they have to do to keep the financial markets propped up, I would go so far as to say that we are in a final cannibalization stage that presages a very major, very world-shaking correction.