Friday, June 05, 2009

Medical bills underlie 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies: study


Truly a horrific headline if there ever was one.

A society that idly sits by and allows catastrophic illness or injury to bankrupt individuals and families and ruin countless lives is a society deeply in need of some emergency life support itself.

It bears repeating. 60% of ALL personal bankruptcies have unpaid medical bills as the root cause! That's just an incredibly sad commentary on the state of this country's health care system.

Having had family members with horror stories of illness and subsequent dealings with the health care industry bean counters as well as my own recent adventure with the same monolithic system, I can state first hand that something is god-awfully fucked up with the way health care is managed in America today.

One of the great boogey men for the conservatives has been Michael Moore. Regardless of how you feel about Moore's politics, if you haven't seen his movie Sicko, you should. It's a damning indictment of health care in the United States and the people running (profiting from) it and it's a subject that will touch everyone at some point in time no matter your political affiliation.

President Obama has made major health care reform one of the centerpiece goals of his administration's policy plans. If conservatives want to stand in the way of that vital national progress -- go for it. It'll just be another nail in the coffin of their morally and intellectually bankrupt ideological movement.

----k

President Obama is a Traitor . . . Still and Again . . . Sigh . . .

You knew it was coming didn't ya? I mean, it was only inevitable after President Obama's speech in Cairo, Egypt yesterday. The GOP right wing nut brigade is in a tizzy today, parsing and out-of-context cherry picking Obama's speech, feverishly constructing their own bizarro-world narrative that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (in their own childish minds at least) that Obama is indeed a Muslim and is ready to turn over the reins of U.S. power to Al Qaeda.

And the GOP poobahs scratch their heads and wonder why they've lost all three branches of electoral government, are now the minority party for the forseeable future and have polls consistently indicating more and more Americans are rejecting their reactionary world-view every day.

Let's take a peek, shall we, at what the GOPers are braying about this morning. This is just a sampling from the great state of Oklahoma contingent, with a special post-analysis from krazee:
Sen. Jim Inhofe said today that President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was "un-American" because he referred to the war in Iraq as "a war of choice" and didn't criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

Inhofe, R-Tulsa, also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

"I just don't know whose side he's on,'' Inhofe said of the president.

krazee's analysis: Umm Jimmy Boy (I'm calling Inhofe a boy because the fully-developed brain of a normal man is more intellectually advanced than his is) -- Jimmy Boy -- The Iraq war was a war of choice. Torture was documented at Guantanamo. The only people still in denial about those facts are men-children like yourself who are incapable of separating fact from fiction and whose moral character is as tenuous as your own grip on reality. As for "what side" President Obama is on - he's on America's side and the right side of history you fucking twit!

One down, two to go.
Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Oklahoma City, said Obama "needs to take a stronger stance against regimes which threaten international peace, sponsor terrorism, brutalize their own citizens and threaten the existence of other nations with the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction."

krazee's analysis: Ahhh yes -- the old "weapons of mass destruction" hysteria. Hmm - I wonder if Rep. Fallin is referring to the WMD's which the Bush administration stated Iraq had (but never found) and were imminently going to use to incinerate America, or the ones America did have and which were used to incinerate and pulverize the already weakened, but functional Iraqi infrastructure back into the stone age? It's all so confusing (if you're a brain-dead hillbilly wingnut that is.)

Two down, one to go.
And Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, said, "When the United States promotes peace around the world, it ensures our own security -- militarily, culturally and economically.

krazee's analysis: This one's my favorite. Say Rep. Lucas - you state that "when the United States promotes peace around the world, it ensures our own security." You may find this surprising, but I happen to agree with that statement. Having said that and if it's true, doesn't it necessarily stipulate then that "when the United States DOES NOT promote peace around the world, it DOES NOT ensure our own security?" I understand it's difficult for the average right-winger to wrap their heads around a lofty and elitist concept such as logic, but think about that for a moment. There - - - your moment is up - so please explain to me Rep. Lucas - how exactly does invading a sovereign Middle East nation based on manufactured evidence, and bombing that nation to smithereens, torturing detainees, instilling corrupt puppet leaders and raping their natural resources (oil) equate to "promoting peace that will ensure our own security?" ?? Quite the conundrum huh?

This has been another fine edition of Bitch Slapping the Stoopid Out of Wingnuts!

----k

Thursday, June 04, 2009

All In The Family . . . . (lying liars edition)




Darth Cheney's hell-spawn Liz has been all over the airwaves the past few weeks revising Bush regime history and basically regurgitating her daddy's worn out and disproven lies. You literally cannot turn a cable "news" channel on without seeing this deceitful woman's face plastered all over it.

So -- like I've said -- "liberal media" my ass!

----k

I'm Still A Traitor It Seems . . .




I've got to call major-league Bullshit on this one. During my workday, I typically have cable t.v. on in the background just so I can keep track of what the teevee bobbleheads are lying about lately. It's interesting to note that even with a Democratic, landslide winning President in office and the GOP taking a curb-stomping beating in the last election, I can peruse the cable and news channels all day long and consistently find a majority of center-right and right wing bloviators opinionizing on my television screen - any day of any week - ALL DAY LONG.

Liberal/progressive voices are far and few between on cable tv and news shows. It's even worse on AM talk radio. Just try finding a prime-time/drive-time liberal/progressive host on AM talk radio in any major city in this country -- DOES NOT EXIST! And the dying newspaper industry? It's dying because people are tired of reading the corporate sponsored propaganda instead of the truth. It's time we finally put a rusty fucking dagger into the heart of this "liberal media" lie. I love debate, but the next time anyone pulls the "media is liberal" argument on me I'm going to call you out on your know-nothing horseshit.

Basically what the "honorable" Republican Senator and the Fox Noize hack are saying in this video clip is that anyone who dares exercise their constitutional right and civic duty to speak up and dissent (particularly evil liberals like me) against the demonstrably failed, GOP, right-wing worldview is a traitor and a threat to America. And of course they piggy-back their charge on the back of the hoary old, albeit wholly debunked, liberal media myth.

For this reason, this tiny little blog (and millions other like it) exist. On one hand there's a prideful feeling being part of an ad hoc citizen/journalism movement that strike's fear into the shriveled hearts of the right-wing establishment. However, that good feeling is tempered by knowing that the type of fascism and theocratic authoritarianism espoused by the Republican leaders (not so much the Boehners and McConnells, but the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Gingriches and Dobsons) is always bubbling under the surface, just waiting for an opportunity to gain political power and instill their perverse version of "democracy" in America.
"We must dare to think "unthinkable" thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about "unthinkable things" because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."

J. William Fulbright, March 27, 1964
US politician (1905 - 1995)



----k

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Sigh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



The warped mentality required to believe that one's chosen invisible father figure is entirely capable of exhibiting the traits of a mafia boss by cowardly ordering surrogates to murder in cold blood is reason number 13,684 as to why krazee is not a Christian nor an active member of any other organized religious cult.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal



----k