Quacks

 Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

The real state of the union

 Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Their lack of humanity is staggering

Corporate Health Care Lobbyists: Medicare for All would lead to rationed care.

Gallup: A record-breaking 38% of Americans were forced to delay needed care last year because it was too expensive.

The greed of private health insurance companies is literally killing Americans.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 26, 2023

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Labor has been a big win for us this year!

 

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

Never underestimate the ability of Americans to fail to see the forest for the trees

I am fascinated that Americans are crying over gas prices, but never seem to utter a peep when the broken health care system cleans out their pockets and sends them into bankruptcy.

— Susan Forness (@SForness_1) March 9, 2022

Republican = Traitor

Peace,

emaycee

 

Covid Amy

 

The gift that keeps giving...to republican defeats

I was never among those who felt Democrats had a prayer to stop Covid Amy from being confirmed for the Supreme Court--that ship sailed when we didn't win the Senate in 2018.  But I do have to admit I really like their strategy going forward, and that is to make republicans own it when it comes to Obamacare. 

At yesterday's hearings, each and every Democratic Senator featured an Obamacare story in their prepared remarks.  Covid Amy can lie all she wants about how she doesn't know how she'll vote (another fucking lying conservative Catholic--what a surprise), but she was put there specifically to make sure that racist Donald Trump overturns President Obama's signature achievement.

I'm sure the republican strategy is that Americans will have forgotten about it by the next election, but I highly doubt that people are going to forget that their mother can't get healthcare because she has a pre-existing condition and republicans destroyed Obamacare.  Or the countless millions whose children won't be able to get affordable health insurance because republicans killed Obamacare.  Or the tens of millions who won't be able to afford to battle the ravages of COVID-19 so mercilessly mishandled by Donald Trump because republicans extinguished Obamacare.

The salvos from Democrats in yesterday's confirmation hearings weren't for this election--they're for 2022.  So republicans can enjoy their little political stunt and their sham of a Supreme Court hearing.  And in so doing, gift another blue wave to Democrats in 2022.

Or in other words, as President Obama so famously said, please proceed.

220,000+ Dead Americans

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

An unwinnable game--like capitalism

Seems the billionaire class is worried about the future of capitalism in America.

Want to ask me how much I give a fuck about the future of capitalism in America?

After nearly forty years of wading through the muck that is working for a living in America, I can honestly say that capitalism is little more than a code word for the rich get richer and the poor stay poor.  Ever since the Reagan devolution, we've witnessed wages that haven't kept up with inflation, levels of income inequality not seen in the history of this country, CEO salaries setting records in comparison to the wages their workers earn, the number of Americans living in poverty continuing to grow, health insurance going from an employer expense to a shared expense (and the level of coverage ever decreasing), and going from the safety of a pension plan to 401ks which are subject to the whims of...rich people.

Frankly, as far as I'm concerned they can stick capitalism up their asses.  To me it's just a word like God or Santa Claus full of empty promises that help no one except the powers that be.

Socialism?  Bring it on--can't be any worse than the losing system we have now.

Fuck Donald Trump
emaycee

Ain't that some shit

So the Supreme Court today saved the republican party's ass (millions of people losing their health insurance and no backup plan does not an electoral success make), and republicans reaction was pretty much what you would expect:

• Completely fucking nuts, i.e. Chief Justice Roberts is being blackmailed by the Obama administration or is under surveillance from the NSA.
• Completely idiotic, i.e. repeal (fifty-six tries aren't enough?) and replace (with what? five years down the road and still nada from republicans on what they'd replace it with).
• Demonstrably false, i.e. , it is neither bad law, nor a failure.  Obamacare is a tremendous success--driving down the uninsured rate markedly, saving billions in the federal budget, and coming in under projected costs (stat freaks rejoice here).  Is there still work to do to make it better?  Certainly--but you can bet your bottom dollar it won't be republicans tweaking it to make it better for Americans.

In a nutshell, the republican party is either insane, stupid, or lying--all three of which should disqualify their members from any positions of leadership in this country.

Peace,
emaycee

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Other than Paul Krugman, generally when I read an article by an economist my eyes glaze over after a paragraph or two and I scan down to the bottom to get the highlights and move on to other reading.  This piece by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz for Vanity Fair--and it's great reference to our governement:  of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%--was not one of those dreary articles, and even better, has got me to thinking about the state of economic well-being for those of us who make up the poor, the working class, and the middle class.

It isn't pretty.

State legislatures are more interested in helping business than in helping us--South Carolina joined Michigan (fucking republicans), Missouri, Arkansas, and Florida in cutting the number of weeks one can collect unemployment ostensibly believing that cutting payroll taxes for businesses would create jobs.  Har-de-har-har.  One idiot actually said they had to cut it because some numb nut business owner had people turning down his job offers because they could make more on unemployment.  One supposes it never occured to the pinheads in the South Carolina legislature that the pay rates being offered were the problem.  Needless to say, the feelings of their constituents don't matter, as noted here in Michigan where republicans pushed through their $1.8 billion tax cuts for businesses despite Michigan residents being overwhelmingly against it.

Thanks to the republicans being in the White House for 20 of the last 30 years the Supreme Court is now made up of the best justices corporate money could buy--Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy--and they somehow seem to have misinterpreted the Constitution as being a document that protects the powerful and not the powerless.  It's not bad enough that corporations can now buy our elections, they can pretty much now cheat, swindle, and maim their clientele with impunity.

Guess what?  CEO pay now exceeds the levels it had reached before the Great Recession.  Guess what else?  Though I'm sure this won't surprise most people, ours doesn't.  How long, do you suppose, is it before ordinary people say enough is enough and begin to demand their fair share--by any means necessary?  My guess is not much longer.

Bad news from the No, Shit Sherlock Files:  it seems a new study proclaims what anyone who has ever worked a minimum wage job already knows...you can't survive financially on minimum wage.  Which is especially unfortunate because we seem to be moving in the direction of minimum wage jobs for the vast majority of us.  Back to the future anyone?

All of you with health insurance you received through your job raise your hands...not so fast there, Mrs. Jackson!  Work for a small business that provides health insurance?  All it takes is one debilitating illness of a co-worker and voila!  Health insurance rates rise to prohibitive levels (intentionally) and your company soon finds it can no longer afford the premiums, and next thing you know, no health insurance for you and your family.  And the problem with Obamacare--other than it doesn't go far enough--was what, exactly?

The class divide keeps growing--this is another of those "No, you've got to be shitting me!" pieces, but while we struggle to put food on our tables, Saks Fifth Avenue is doubling down on the rich.  And why shouldn't they?  Every time we turn around the republicans are giving away our future to put more money in those who already have enough's pockets.  And all those claims of how broke we are to justify cuts to education and healthcare and the poor?  Complete and total bullshit.  But it sells newspapers and T.V. news advertising and income inequality (which will be the downfall of this nation) does not.

The point is not to be Donnie Downer--most of us realize how shitty the economy and our own personal finances are these days.  The point is to remember--and get the Democratic Party off its ass to promote--that these problems, these issues, this unfairness, this inequality, was created by republicans who are absolutely no different than the boneheads they were from 2000-2008.  The only difference is now they realize how short-lived their reign can be and are striving to take as much away from us as they can before they are out of power.

Heaven help us if we don't fight back with everything we have.

Peace,
emaycee