He's just dancing with thems that brung him. And that specifically excludes me and thee. I keep writing and blathering about how campaign finance reform is the single lynchpin that's blocking complete, top to bottom reform of this entire banana republic-like corporatocracy. Just watch these tortured, twisted, illogical Texas two-steps they do when trying to justify the concept that their Cadillac health care plans -- which will follow them and their extended families around for life -- are ...

everything else is bullshit. In this case, we all know goddamn good and well that the US marines have been killing civilians in that war-besotted country since 2001 -- mostly women, children and old people just looking for a little place in the sun at the end of their miserable war-torn lives. Before that, it was the Taliban; before that the so-called Northern Alliance -- all happily blowing up their own countrymen. Before that it was the Russians. And before that, maybe Venusians or Satur...

How about supplying sleeping bags and urns of hot coffee? How about supplying the freelance video crews to record it all for posterity -- and for the current news cycle as well? Maybe a priority FedEx delivery of adult-sized diapers for Vitter and some tap dancing shoes for the honorable gentleman from Idaho? How about treating these loons with the precise level of respect they've so richly earned? How about putting the whole country on notice that they've been taking their marching orders f...

... or start realizing that, without public financing of campaigns, there's nothing -- literally nothing -- progressive individuals can do to see their agenda(s) addressed in congress or the executive branch. And until the Scalias and Alitos of the world start dying off -- and not just on the SCOTUS, but throughout ranks of Federalist Society-vetted judges -- the judiciary is useless, too. So start pooling those quarters and dollars and fives and 20s, decided among any of maybe a dozen effec...

For decades, the GOP has been proud to be the planet's largest hatchery for world-class assholes. And they've got plenty of company. They're very appealing to the tens of millions of natural born assholes who infest this country like nowhere else I've ever been. You know that jerkoff down the road with the mullet and the truck and the Confederate battle flags? He's an asshole and he loves it when the GOPiggies screw the dems again and again. But only before he's had his daily 12-pack of Bud lit...

Just keep repeating it and maybe it'll eventually lose its sting. But not its effects on the great American death toll. Overall quality, fairness of access to and effectiveness of medical system -- 37th -- just ahead of that medical nirvana, Slovenia and behind Costa Rica, where there may not be an ATM in every little wide spot in the road, but there's nearly always a medical clinic, open to all, regardless of ability to pay -- Annual per capita cost of funding medical system -- 1st (arou...

How about trying to follow the civilized countries of the world for a change -- the western European social democracies come to mind, along with the former Brit colonies Canada and Australia. New Zealand's doing well, at least until some snooping petro-geologist discovers OUR OIL in a sub-oceanic puddle 20 miles off the North Island's western coast. Then they're fucked, along with the "rag heads" and "sand Ni**ers" of the middle east. Africa's next, and Nigeria looks like it's being meas...

... And as such, it's the perfect template for the so-called "War on Terror." The physical and legal infrastructure's already there; the American people are already conquered and pacified to an extent far greater than that achieved by the Third Reich in WW II Vichy France. Aerial and satellite surveillance has been a fact of life for decades, particularly in rural areas. Zero tolerance means they can steal your stuff for absolutely no reason, and indeterminate sentencing makes sure that eit...

... I just can't buy the finality of that depressing statement. Do you really feel "We have no choice," as your post is slugged? Or that we seal the deal ourselves by continuing to accept the unacceptable from our so-called leaders, then claiming that you can't fight city hall? Not singling you out or anything, but that's just a lousy and self-defeating excuse for refusing to accept the obvious truth: 300 million people have the power of numbers required to make their own choices. It...

... because the sad fact is these vermin have more in common with the Bushies and the slime creatures they fronted for than they do with the people who granted them overwhelming majorities in both houses -- a position of rare political omnipotence that neither Reid nor Pelosi seem to have the slightest idea what to do with. Dems even got the White House, along with control of all House and Senate committees, and note how well the alleged effort to end our disgraceful for-profit medical scam is ...

... he's such a smug little prick so much of the time. But he's a good observer, at least good enough to know it when a gigantic lemon hits him square in the face with a "splat" heard in the next county. It's like they're still operating on that old fantasy slogan: "Vote Democratic because we don't suck quite as bad as the GOP." But they're catching up in a hurry, it seems. Obama refuses to admit he's on record (like there's actual TEE-VEE footage from when he was an Illinois legislator)...

Plus it's a pretty good bet that Saxby his-own-seff hadn't a clue about what the CIA did to Mossadegh in 1953 until his staffers Goggled the blessed event and stumbled upon Saxby is the quintessential archetype of the complete fucking conservative idiot. He's a living tribute to the power of mass stupidity that forms like thunderheads when a dull-witted constituency finds a representative so like them they can actually put aside their prejudices against suits and ties and have a beer with...

... but personally, I'm getting a little fucking tired of "petitioning" these useless, bribed-to-their-earlobes, reactionary assholes hiding behind that little "d" after their names for what's already my birthright in the first damn place. Sorry for the boldface, but it's about goddamn time the 65 to 70 percent of Americans -- those who state in poll after poll after poll that they want "single-payer, universal-access health care" and not this "expanded coverage" horseshit -- start screaming ...

Thems that gots those hideously expensive medical insurance policies or enough cash on hand tend to get better. Many of them can afford to buy a controlling interest in their own senators and house members, too, so they're covered six ways from Sunday. However, thems that ain't gots the policies or the dough-re-mi tend to die. And they do so at rates far exceeding the national average, even when adjusted for demographics, environmental and occupational risk factors, lifestyle and so forth. ...

I mean, fuck... a thriving public health system is only the single most critical element within the entire concept of "health care," as distinct from "medical insurance." An affordable, bureaucracy-free single-payer, universal-access health care system is considered a basic right by virtually the entire civilized world. Here, even though we're finally starting to get a hint as to who the screwers and screwees are (which would be "them" and "us," respectively), medical coverage is still an ex...

... an objective which, at bare minimum, involves stitching his lips shut, clamping his rheumy eyes open and making him watch as each of his assets are seized, one by one, using any of the legal means at the DoJ's disposal (or just making shit up like the DEA does when it lusts after some yacht or a house overlooking the Pacific). Next... dismantling his right-wing publishing empire right under his nose and, finally, when there's nothing of his left that anybody would want, consigning him to th...

... if our useless, bribed-into-slavish submission federal non-representatives are incapable of responding to the overwhelming popular outcry to dump this extortion racket ASAP and join the other 18 post-industrial countries -- all of which have some version of single-payer, universal access health care at less than half the per capita costs we pay for this utter bullshit non-system here -- why expect anything but the same shuck and jive, bowing and scraping from them on all other progressive is...

... It's just another corporate shake-down. Premiums are protection money paid to legalized extortion rackets, who then allow you to keep most of your stuff – house, car, pre-Columbian art collection, et al -- if something serious (i.e., expensive and maybe requiring hospitalization) happens to you. Medical insurance has nothing whatsoever to do with health care except in the twisted minds of Chicago School libertarian fanatics and profiteering free market pitchmen. Break that nonsensical, a...

... go fuck themselves twice in the most painful ways possible? Then swear them both in, seat them briefly, then take the afternoon off, have a tourist day at the Smithsonian or just walk the mall, and let these assholes rant and rave with only each other and a lone C-span camera for company. What the fucking hell is it with these invertebrate idiots? Why is it so difficult to at least pretend to be an opposition party? I'm pretty sure of the answer, but it's so awful I'd prefer to be comp...

... by the Bushies crew of serial liars every single time, no matter their alleged expertise on the subject? (Boy... this got long, as I just realized while running the spel chekkur. So it may be endless, but at least it's incoherent too. As our story begins...) This time it's Rubin, but these dems seem to have all caught the deadly dunce germ and sooner or later it's going to be their turn to put on the pointy dunce cap and cop to being the witless dupes and rubes and hicks that they se...

First, let's say you could turn back the clock about five years, give or take. You'd be back in a world where only the rich, recent inheritors, sudden stock option millionaires and previous home buyers could possibly afford a house anywhere in the country remotely fit for human habitation. This would be what many seem to be pining for; the good old days of outrageous, unregulated speculation by all levels in the property buying food chain -- from inflated appraisals to falsified annual incom...

... so everything's obviously OK. And since it's OK now, it'll be OK forever. And how do I know that? Well, I live in the moment, refusing to acknowledge the past or the future, and things are just ducky at present." Fair enough. A quick note of caution: Nobody gives a shit about Zogby, or any other poll for that matter. What those in position to influence these things do care about are the really important numbers that make or break the whole operation. Like the numbers of Obama vot...

Their corporate massuhs will absolutely not permit them to ask questions that could lead to uncomfortable moments for their pet reactionary corporate suck-ups. People think it's all about ratings and share and ad rates and "quality sponsors." Nonsense. Their owners couldn't care less whether they turn a profit or bleed red ink for years. There's a lot more going on than just getting immediate cash. The intrinsic value of harnessing the greatest propaganda medium in recorded history, an...

I'm familiar with what you don't believe about "the events of 9/11"(tm). What then do you think happened? What kinds of plots and schemes and miraculous coincidences infest your heart of hearts when the mystical phrase "the events of 9/11"(tm) flit through your memory? Just a bulleted summary from mainstream sources will do, kinda like Paul Thompson's timeline, also drawn from mainstream sources and official documents. And best of all, archived video/audio feeds from a gaggle of blown away T...

...and that their phony "war on terror" is just another of their get rich quick schemes, this shit will continue and get incrementally worse and more abusive. Their fight isn't against some raggedy assed group of "Islamofascists" called Al CIA-duh -- a wholly owned subsidiary of US intelligence (if that's not too much of an oxymoron) created, funded, armed, trained and deployed to the USSR/Afghanistan border to fight another of the dozens of US-sponsored proxy wars against the USSR. They're ...

...to see whether it breaks their toes or their skulls. (Caution: Another rambling essay when I intended maybe 100 words. It's just hard to confine my hatred of for-profit medicine, and the idiots who support it, to a paragraph or two. Read at your own risk.) When I first began to understand how this extortion racket works -- who gains and who loses -- I figured that any improvements, much less dumping the whole for profit scam and setting up a proper system like civilized countries have,...

Until people hear the unspun truth, they'll continue to be oblivious as to how and why this country fell apart so quickly, how to eliminate the causes, and what alternatives are in practice all over the world that work where this system of unregulated zero-sum capitalism has failed so completely and destructively. They have no idea that the US ranks 37th in the World Health Org's study of 191 countries' health care systems. They have no idea that an estimated 22,000 people die in the US each y...

Like we're all just supposed to happily give up our laptops and wave good-bye to all our information as some power-mad asshole with a tin badge steals them and takes them somewhere for "further examination?" And this is somehow just another pain in the ass that we have to live with because if we don't, the terra-ists win? This must stop. It's already gone on far too long and the response has been grousing on Internet boards and very little else. I'm honestly out of ideas that don't require...

... to keep the domestic population from objecting to the complete takeover of their former democratic republic by the very worst pack of rabid hyenas ever to steal an American election. It's fairly clear that these people aren't simply hardline right wingers. They're fucking maniacs, and they're completely out of control. They're obvious sociopaths whose actions and motives are incomprehensible to "normal" people simply because you have to be as crazy as they are to appreciate their world vi...

The point is that these people and their former employer entered into a contractual agreement -- apparently by mutual consent, not coercion -- and one party unilaterally broke that agreement without seeking or getting the consent of the other. And despite blatantly welshing on a legally binding contract, it's very unlikely that GM will suffer any consequences at all, even though it's absolutely screwed these people to the wall. That $300 a month isn't going to go very far when these people t...