...and If You Hate Obamacare...

I am one of those South Carolinians waiting with bated breath for the U.S. less-than-Supreme Court to rule on the Affordable Care Act.  It infuriates me that in this country, so many who are fortunate enough to have health care security will continue to rant and obstruct the program that has given so many of the rest of us the same.  The what's-in-it-for-me crowd is so blinded by greed and rage that they are unable to see how, in fact, making health care a right instead of a privilege has been a major factor in the dramatic upswing in our economy.

We have gone in a short time from an economy crippled by high unemployment, in which the younger job-seekers were shut out because we older folk had to hang on till we were eligible for Medicare.  We stayed with jobs we hated, jobs that hurt our aging bodies, jobs that often did not pay a living wage, so that we could cling to that health insurance that each year cost more and covered less.  Employers called the shots because they knew they had something we needed -- and it wasn't that barely living wage.

The health insurance industry, with a strong house advantage, never lost the insurance gamble.  They took in the young and healthy and priced out of the game anyone who actually might cause them to have to pay out.  The cost of people growing sicker and dying because of lack of adequate health care never showed up on the health insurance industry bottom line.

It is true that the health insurance industry made sure to take care of its own when reform became inevitable.  They made promises in exchange for the ability to make even more money.  They did this by allowing our government to subsidize those fat premiums.  And their lobbyists made sure the public saw the government as the enemy and not the industry itself.

So for pretty much the entirety of President Obama's terms in office, we have been listening to the uninformed parroting the vitriol against health care reform.  I've heard people complain about Obamacare in the same breath that they admitted they were now paying less for coverage.  They rage against "Obamacare" as though it is responsible for the global warming they deny and pretty much everything else (Melissa McCarthy as Tammy:  "Four dollars a gallon.  Thanks, Obamacare.").

It is also true that the ACA has only slowed the rise of health care costs.  Well, if Democrats had spines and Republicans had consciences, we just might be able to tackle the greed of the insurance industry.  I'll bet they could have enough profit without raping the all-too-willing government.  It might even be that regulation of the industry would result in a better product.

But we were left with the worst of capitalism, that bit that decries government involvement, unless of course, it is writing the checks.  If you look closely at your "affordable" health insurance, you will see that the government is picking up the tab for most of what continues to be a ginormous premium.  And yet you still have to pay all those cleverly named additional amounts when you actually need health care.

Yet people like me do have affordable health insurance.  For now.  Because even though all those idiotic votes to repeal in the US House, and despite states with governors with Tea Party dreams like ours, the federal government passed a law that has stood up.  Democracy, right?

But now that libertarian Koch darling, the Cato Institute (support with "the Gift of Stock") is leading the challenge to the ACA in the Supreme Court.  And the hook this time is four words in the law, which may eliminate federal exchanges in states like South Carolina, where we insist that the best way to help people without health insurance is to deny them health insurance.

I only just today learned that argument will be heard on Wednesday.  Most of us, happily insured, are totally uninformed on this fight for our very health and well-being.  I worry that while we look away, we will lose our health care security once again.  And ironically, a lot of those who are going to lose are the Obamacare haters.  Imagine that.

Tim Scott's Anti-Environmental Agenda

Hooray for Tim Scott!  Once again, he has received an award -- and just in time for the upcoming election -- for his service to, well, to the wealthy and powerful.  In Newspeak, it is called, The Award for Manufacturing Legislative Excellence.  With emphasis on the word "legislative" of course.  What it means is that our Tim has worked hardest of all hard-bought legislators to make laws that protect big business.

You might not be surprised to learn that the National Association of Manufacturers is associated with our friends the Koch brothers.  Their agenda is also not much of a surprise:  they are anti-environmental regulation and have fought efforts by the government to control greenhouse gas emission.  Most recently, they lobbied to exempt certain external power supplies from complying with federal energy standards in February of 2014.  Yeah, Tim!

It's been a bit like word-puzzle fun to get an email from Tim about an award and trying to figure out what it really means, but not that much of a challenge.  As usual, Tim doesn't ever break new ground.  He pretty much does what all those fancy corporate lobbying groups tell him to do.

But I am tired of our state being held hostage by ALEC and the Kochs.  Our workers are underpaid and there are too many unemployed (latest figures show the numbers creeping up in spite of the nation's continued downward trend).  We sacrifice improving schools and roads and bridges so we can cut taxes on big corporations who are willing to do business in South Carolina if we treat them real good.  Too many in South Carolina are needlessly uninsured and suffer poor nutrition because Tim continues to vote against programs that would give his constituents a fighting chance.

Tim Scott and his buddy Nikki Haley have gotten pretty tiresome.  Their press releases are lies that cover up their true alliances as we continue to hold down the bottom rungs of any measure of education, health, public safety.

This is why we need to talk up the November 4 election.  Lots of our friends and family don't know it's coming up, and too many don't think it is important.  With only two more years of the Obama administration we need to give him a Congress that will support his environmental, health care, and immigration initiatives.  We need to give him a Congress that does not force him to compromise on programs that will truly move us forward.

Joyce Dickerson is a woman who will accomplish that in the US Senate.  She has been fighting to be heard over all the cash that is flowing on the other side, and she needs our help to let others know who she is.  She is the candidate that will work for better health care, better education, better services for seniors and veterans.  She will fight so that we all can earn a living wage, and so that women have the same rights as men.  She will protect our rights to privacy and a safe and healthy environment.

So please, spread the word.  The time is getting short and this election is too important to skip out on.  Use Facebook and Twitter, send out emails, call your friends and family and talk to your co-workers.  Tell them how Tim Scott's votes have kept them from improving their lives and those of their family.  Let's not let the phony awards get in the way of the truth.

Joyce Dickerson

for US Senate

November 4

Our Nanny State

My husband has cancer, and so far chemo isn't helping.  I only bring that up because he has been dealing with pain for nearly two years.  Increasing doses of Oxycontin do nothing to alleviate the pain, only increase his dependence on Oxycontin.

He has been left, at age 76, to skulk around trying to find connections to procure weed in order to ease his pain.  And this pisses me off.  Our legislators, drinks in hand, are quick to point out that marijuana is too dangerous to allow us simple folk access.  Meanwhile, they whine about having to clean up the air we breathe and the water we drink, claiming that the polluters would suffer if forced to clean up our living space.

In defiance of the facts, we are encouraged -- encouraged -- to bring guns into bars, schools, pretty much anyplace except the state and US capitols that these idiots inhabit.  And because facts would prove the need for gun control, they pass laws preventing the collection of data about gun control.

On the other hand, they are concerned enough for our bad behavior that they allow cameras on every street corner and permit police to invade our houses in search of illegal poker games and, of course, medicinal marijuana.

Just as much psychotic legislating goes on regarding our health care:  laws that grant the government the right to monitor our decisions about our bodies, while denying health care to pregnant women and infants.  Death panels?  Not from Obamacare, but from our own legislators, the ones whose stated goal is to protect us from the evils of providing health care to all.

Here we are, listening to bullshit about freedom from the people who are attempting to limit our choices, curb our freedom to live in pursuit of life, liberty and as much freedom from pain as possible.  These are the people who are all too quick to make laws that deny us our rights while granting them to corporations.  Regulate the people, not the banks, or the pharmaceutical industry, or Monsanto, or the Kochs.

So why do they get elected?  In the beginning, this time around, in the 70's, our good lives had some setbacks, and the fearmongers turned us against ourselves.  They had been waiting for their moment, and it came, and so they preached the evils of unions, and regulation, and ungodliness.  And they found a teflon coated actor to lie to us, and the American people bought it.  Morning in America.

And as corporate America became more powerful, even those of us who knew they were wrong began to believe we could not win.  We stopped voting, we stopped fighting.  Our unions compromised themselves out of existence.  Our politicians leaned ever more to the right in order to not fall off the sinking ship.

You don't have to look too closely to see the hypocrisy.  On the one hand, control the individual, with the Patriot Act, with electronic spying, with laws that make our lives more dangerous and on the other hand pass laws that prohibit us from making decisions that would keep us safe.

Meanwhile, my husband would just like to be able to buy some grass so he can get a little rest from the pain.

Getting Slammed and Fighting Back

Here is the difference between Democrats and Republicans:  we Dems -- the ones who volunteer and vote -- are doing okay, but we know that there are others who are not.  We understand that we will all do better when we all do better.  We also empathize with those who are struggling.  We see ourselves in them.  Republicans, on the other hand, are focused on getting the most for themselves.  Capitalism, Christianity, even democracy are twisted to their own needs.

So when it comes to getting out the vote, when it comes to firing up the electorate, the republican party knows how to make it meaningful for their voters.  Even if they have to lie.

They make it about jobs, and don't mention that those jobs will underpay and offer no security.  Nikki Haley is running on all those jobs she brought into the state, but neglects to mention that our tax dollars paid for giveaways to those corporations so that they could pay less than they would elsewhere.

On the republican side, the mantra is to cut taxes.  Well, everything else is going up but our taxes, so it makes sense, doesn't it, that what we get for our tax dollars is going to be struggling schools, poor highways, inadequate medical care.  But with the millions of dollars that goes into campaigns, most voters only see the message that their candidate will provide jobs and cut government.  A simple good/bad message.

I just watched the documentary film, Koch Brothers Exposed, and although I have lately been working hard to take our state and country's downward spiral in stride, I have to admit that it brought me to tears.  The Koch brothers, having done their dirty work in attempting to segregate schools and controlling the universities and state government in North Carolina, have set their sights on South Carolina.  They now have three offices in the state, the newest one in Mount Pleasant.  They are of course, going to work to cut taxes, thereby making our government even more ineffective, and continuing the push to privatize education.

Our Supreme Court (and I use the word "our" quite loosely) has made it clear that money talks and the rest of us can just do what we are told.  Shovel money into banning women's reproductive freedom, and the Supremes are all for it.  While corporations have become people and as such have unfettered freedom of speech, as in the ability to buy candidates and elections, the rest of us have lost our own religious liberty, along with the right to the health care we are paying for, equal opportunity in education, and the right to vote.  All with the blessing of the evil Scalia and his right wing-nuts, bought and paid for by the Kochs.

More depressing even than that is that all nine justices voted to allow abusive demonstrators access to abortion clinics, as a freedom of speech issue, apparently not recognizing the irony that we the people can get nowhere near the justices themselves to engage in our own freedom of speech.

So it's been a tough time.  The greedy and powerful are able to control the uninformed and insecure.  We need to fight fire with fire.  We need more wealthy supporters who understand the cost of increased poverty, underemployment, poor education, poor health, low taxes and an unfair tax system.  We need politicians that understand that voters need to know exactly how this bad system affects them.  Sadly, those with health care have been led to believe it will cost them more if others are insured.  They need to see in black and white how much emergency care is costing them, and the jobs that come with health care expansion.  Most of us can't see how bad roads risk lives, but give them dollars and cents of how much wear and tear on their car will cost going over those potholes.  Compare the cost of increasing the prison population versus improving schools.

It saddens me that we have as a nation become so self-absorbed that we are unable to see that what affects one affects us all.  That insecure politicians can be bought so easily.  That the wealthy who now control our elections find it so easy to appeal to the lowest common denominator among us.

But the Koch brothers don't waste their time worrying about the way things should be.  They look at what we are, and they use it.  If we are made vulnerable by our fears and insecurities, then we need our progressive candidates to understand what we are afraid of and explain to us what they can do to help.

U.S. Economy's Worst Kept Secret

I just learned that America is no longer a democracy, but an oligarchy, wherein the country is controlled by a few.  Well, you could have blown me over with a feather.  In fact, Paul Krugman warns us of this very thing.  What is amazing is that he warned us of this in 2011.  So why are we surprised?

Not only that, we've become a plutocracy, which is government by the wealthy.  I know, this is another shocker.

Day after day, as the rich get richer and even more of a controlling interest in the United States of America, we continued to be astonished that this could happen -- in a democracy!

I'm looking at this as a kind of a snowball in hell:  the more wealth and power, the greater the wealthy and powerful become.  And the greater they become the faster they become more wealthy and powerful.

Unlike the rest of us, the wealthy and powerful know how to form a union and then they know how to strategize to get what they want (more wealth and power).  They don't really care whether or not you get an abortion just as long as the folks they elect to office keep us distracted by fighting about it while also, that's right, legislating greater wealth and power for the wealthy and powerful.  And as long as they can keep us fighting amongst each other over whether to feed the hungry they figure we aren't going to much notice that they are growing the national debt by:  giving more to the wealthy and powerful.

I'm not much into history; after all, I am an American.  But of late I am learning an awful lot about the Gilded Age, wherein the cruelty and excesses of the wealthy and powerful actually led to the great reforms of the Progressive Era.

And I am being told that we are in the midst of a new gilded age.  One of the things that concerns me though is that we seem to be unable to move ourselves into the new progressive era that, according to history, should follow.  Are we that much better off?  Are perhaps not enough poor children dying?  Will Obamacare and food stamps cause us to survive just enough to keep those billionaires going while not giving us the strength to fight for more?  Are we like the frog who is put in a pot of water at room temperature and then the heat is turned up so we die so gradually we don't even notice?

I'm  not suggesting that things should get worse so that we can decide we need to fight to make it better.  But it seems that that is the way it's going.  The gains are too small, too few, too far apart.  By the time we get an increase in the minimum wage, it will already have been shrunk by the increases in the cost of living.  Hail Obamacare, but the insurance industry has made sure that it's the middle class and the government that are getting gouged with rate increases, and the poor will still have to struggle with co-pays, deductibles, and all those other economic creations that have made health care in the U.S. unattainable by so many.  The insurance industry will continue to be, that's right, wealthy and powerful.

My father was a tool-and-die maker.  I never really knew what that was, but he earned a living.  He had job security.  And the rise of the unions was recent enough that he understood their importance.  That generation would have gone on strike, picketed, and risked imprisonment or worse if there was a threat to their livelihoods, because they were close enough to know what it would be like if they did not.

But my generation lacked that knowledge.  We had always known job security, a living wage, benefits, overtime, health care coverage, sick pay, retirement benefits.  We grumbled about having to pay dues.  And I believe this is why, when the economy hit that big rough patch in the 70's and the big businesses began to ask unions for concessions, they began to concede.  And it hasn't stopped yet.  We first caved because we thought if we were reasonable, our employers would as they promised, make the concessions temporary.  Blue skies ahead.  Then we caved because we could lose our jobs.  Then we caved because some of us had already lost their jobs.  Then our employers screwed us anyway.

And like a bully who is angry that nobody likes him, capitalists continue to have tantrums because their great profits are not great enough, that they are expected to contribute to the society without which they would not have that wealth.  And they are angry because anger works.  We are intimidated.  Afraid of losing what little we have.  And those of us who are still making it are terrified of the time when they might join those long-term unemployed, the uninsured, the homeless.  And terror has made us powerless to fight the bullies, so we fight those with even less than us.

Unions?  We gave ours up while corporate America was growing theirs.  They have PhRMA making sure drug prices stay high while government regulation shrinks.  Then there is the agricultural lobby, that this year assured that big farms would continue to receive subsidies (although they are apparently calling it crop insurance now) while cutting food stamps for the poor.  The oil industry has been strangling us with increased gas prices, and the environment with its careless drilling practices.  And then there are the "pan-unions," like American Legislative Exchange Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Enterprise Institute, and Americans for Prosperity.  The latter is owned and operated by those uber-plutocrats, Charles and David Koch, whose father was one of the original members of the John Birch Society, and whose oily hands are into every aspect of our lives.

And all the while all these big fat capitalists who rise in fury at the thought of a mandated living wage are spending fortunes in advertising and in political campaign funding to convince us that all those things that are good for the country will take food out of our own mouths.  That the price hikes since Obamacare are not just more of the same profit game but are caused by those deadbeats who don't pay for insurance.

I don't know what it will take for us to look out and see who the real bad guys are.  I don't know if I will see a new Progressive Era in my lifetime.  I do know that things change, they have before and they can change again.  Against all odds.  Because we have done it before.    

When Nanney Backs Down

This morning I read that the appropriately named Wendy Nanney, House representative from Greenville, had introduced a bill that would require bicyclists and moped operators to be licensed and insured.  "Hmph," I muttered, there goes Mama Nanney again.  I gave a wee bit of thought to what a boondoggle that would be for the insurance industry, one of the groups that our legislators take good care of here in South Carolina, and then went on to other matters.

Hours later the headline in The State informed that after great protest, Nanney had withdrawn the bill.

Now, let's back up a little here.  Wendy Nanney is the legislator that is pursuing with no less than religious zeal the bill that would prohibit abortions after twenty weeks.  She has brought all the power that the Bible and bad science can bear, and many of her partners in crime lined up to co-sponsor the bill.  It mattered not that scientists had proven that the "facts" of her bill were wrong.  And she cared not that women's health and medical care were being invaded and compromised by the requirements of the bill.  Wendy was out to save "lives."

Yet, when she looked out on the street and saw that bicyclists were being careless, and decided that it was her duty to write a law forcing them to, well, take a course and then pay for a license, there was such an outcry that she dropped the cause immediately.

So why are some "lives" more expendable than others?  Why would a woman making decisions about her own body be so much more important than a cyclist riding in a way that endangers themselves and puts others at risk?  In fact, Nanney points out that her bill would only require licensing for those fifteen or older.

Please, please explain to me why a child would not need the safety precautions that an adult cyclists requires???  This makes about as much sense as requiring a woman whose pregnancy is at risk to carry the pregnancy to term, while not making health care available for all pregnant women.

I worry about the mental health of many of our legislators.  It seems that they work so hard to prove their worth that their judgment fails.  And then they are rewarded with way too much power over us.

I also wonder that the Palmetto Cycling Coalition has more political clout than groups like the ACLU and the National Organization for Women.

Or it may be something else entirely.  After all, the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association was quiet while a bill was passed allowing guns in bars and restaurants.  While they claim that was because owners were split on whether they were in favor of the bill, many owners say they were not made aware of the bill.  Of course, the NRA has more clout with legislators than both the Restaurant and Lodging Association and the Palmetto Cycling Coalition (and throw in NOW and the ACLU).

Which must make you want to ask who has so much clout that Nanney and her buddies would tirelessly pursue abortion bans and personhood bills?

As with the NRA, we need to follow the money.  It's not the right-to-life groups, really, that are keeping these horrible bills afloat, year after year.  They are merely the very loud and committed spokespeople.  They are being controlled by groups like the NRA, groups like the American Enterprise Institute, groups run by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.  It may not seem like they are being controlled; maybe it is really just the Partnership from Hell.  But it amounts to the same thing.

The people with the money and power, who stand to lose some of that money and power if we unite against issues like living wage and health care, have learned that they can get followers to rise up and pledge their support for the candidates who will further their power agenda.  All they have to do is create a smokescreen of "moral issues."  Nixon did it with his "law and order" campaign.  Reagan's handlers realized that there were millions who could be turned to their advantage by pretending that the quest for power was a religious quest.

And today we have anti-abortion groups, anti-gay groups, anti-Moslem groups, all working to foment fear.  They support the candidates (and the candidates support them)  so that none of us can muster the strength or the dollars to fight the people who control the country:  big agriculture, pharmaceuticals, oil, Wall Street.  Fortunately for bicyclists, Wendy Nanney didn't think their lives were important enough to turn into a cause.

Not Just About the President

You might think, by watching the "news" that the only important election coming up is that of Obama v. Romney.  And I have to admit, our President could be doing a better job reminding us why those Senate and House races are so important.  Like whenever he is accused of not having done enough in the past four years.

This election season, puppeteers like Karl Rove and the Kochs are busy funneling money into races to defeat those Democrats that have stood the strongest for our democratic values.

But why not?  It's been working for years.

In 2004, Senator Tom Daschle, who was accused by Dick Cheney of being the "chief obstructionist" of the Bush agenda, was up in the polls by 5-7%.  It was reported to be the most expensive Senate race in 2004, and we watched in shock as he was defeated.

This year, Rove's piggybank, Crossroads GPS, has targeted critically important people like Elizabeth Warren, who if elected would surely effect positive change in our financial lives.  Rove, who has gotten away with so many criminal acts, like his part in outing CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame, does not even pretend to fund only "issues ads", which is a requirement of anonymously funded superpacs.

Outspoken and ethical Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio has been targeted by right wing groups which have spent over 17 million to be rid of him.  The radical and powerful Club for Growth is at the top of opponent Josh Mandel's contributors' list, with Senate Conservatives Fund right behind.

We should be hearing more about these Senate races, because they are so important.  Same is true of the House.

Because when it comes down to why the Obama agenda has struggled to succeed, we only need look to Congress.  The Mitch McConnells and John Boehners have twisted and perverted the function of this institution, not just since Obama came to the White House, but since the Democrats won control in 2006.

The proof is in Mitch McConnell's proud goal in the Senate:

where filibusters made it necessary to have 60 votes rather than a mere majority for any bill that reflected the Democratic agenda.

And let's not forget the oft-teary-eyed John Boehner, and his shout-out over the voices of the Democrats in the House over  Obama's health care bill:

Yes, I'm talking about the "jobs, jobs, jobs" John Boehner who began introducing anti-abortion bills to the House on his first day, and only stops to play a few rounds of golf with his moneyed constituents.

If we don't change the composition in our Congress this year, a re-elected Obama will face another four years of frustrated goals.  On the other hand, Romney is getting his rubber stamp warmed up just in case he wins, because, per the king of the tax cut and the Republican Party Grover Norquist, all they will need come November is a president that will sign any bill a Republican Congress will send.

Cut taxes for the rich and cut social services and safety nets for the rest of us.  Gut Medicare, ban birth control, increase spending on defense, and watch the debt rise like we haven't seen since the days of "W".  And send in the Scalia clone to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, because what that Republican Congress wants, is what Romney will give us.

So let's not forget how important all those other people that are running for office on November 6 really are.  Because this is what it really comes down to:

Pardon My Cynicism, But I'm Exhausted

I tried watching the third debate last night, I really did.  But let's be honest here, this whole thing has gone on way too long.  We've all heard the same questions, and seen the same tap dances around those questions, way too many times.

It feels like it's been y-e-a-r-s.  Oh, that's right, it has been.

Meanwhile, all those millionaires and billionaires who won't allow a penny to be squeezed out of their tight fists so that a child can get health care have been throwing buckets of cash at -- again, let's be honest -- all the candidates.  Yes, some have been targeted by more of this generosity than others, and we all know who they are.  The Rove's and the Koch's and all those other weasels have been waltzing around tossing hundred dollar bills at candidates like Little Orphan Annie cartoon characters.

Barack Obama has been a good president, probably as good as any we could have gotten in this catastrophic post-W. era.  But he's no 98-percenter, anti-Wall-Street liberal.

And so many of us are supporting candidates who could be heros, if they can only spend enough money to be heard over the sound of all the corporate speech that's going on.  So we give our $5, $25, $100 or more whenever we can and whenever they ask.

And boy do they ask.

Think of all the good things we could have done with that money.  We could have paid down some of our own personal debt.  We maybe could have taken our kids on a vacation.  We could have done a couple of car or house repairs that we can't afford.  We could have had that doctor's visit that we keep putting off.  Or just gotten a haircut.

But we need to keep feeding this god-awful monstrous campaign machine.  How on earth did we get here?  Why do we tolerate this enormous drain on our time, on our wallets, on our country?

And yet, on November 7, those fools in the media are going to start to conjecture on who's going to run in 2016, and damn if it doesn't start all over again.

So last night, after five minutes of same old/same old, I went back to the DVD I had been watching, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, by Martin Scorsese.  I think I made a good choice.

Only one thing might have convinced me to stay tuned to the debate:

DEBATE ENDS ABRUPTLY AS OBAMA PUNCHES ROMNEY IN FACE

Posted by Andy Borowitz

Irony Abounds

Where to start?

First of all, immediately after announcing Paul Ryan as his running mate, both Mitt and his new sidekick proceeded to blast President Obama for cutting Medicare.  Welcome to Through the Looking Glass, GOP style.

If you recall way back a few months ago, or maybe it was years ago...

Anyway, for as long as I can recall, the republican party has been bashing President Obama for single-handedly increasing the debt.  According to the GOP, we poor folk, those who have lost our jobs, or our health, or our homes, have been living high off the hog here in the Democrats' U.S.A.  Entitlements, entitlements, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a republican on a soap-box talking about entitlements.

Of course, they didn't mean corporate entitlements.  The big corporations -- Wall Street banks, ExxonMobil, big pharma, big agribusiness -- they need us to keep feeding them.  The fatter they get, the hungrier.  After all, we are told, they are the job creators.

But the rest of us poor slobs are just sapping the strength of this great land.

Now the way I remember it, peacemaker Obama agreed to begin to cut the waste out of Medicare, if only the republicans in Congress would agree to just a teensy-weensy tax increase for the wealthy.  Which, of course, left us with Medicare cuts and no increase in taxes.

Those Medicare cuts that Paul Ryan wants you to believe will kill his grandmother are actually to a large extent cuts to the private insurance companies -- Medicare Advantage -- that supplements regular Medicare benefits.  Another large piece of the savings is through lower reimbursement rates to hospitals that see more of the uninsured, which will be less necessary under Obamacare and the individual mandate.

Not exactly killing grandma, is it?

But then, if you can stand to listen further, Ryan (and Mitt) will tell you that you shouldn't worry, you old people.  Because apparently they are only going to screw people under 55.

Okay, so that's Part One of 2012 Madness.

Then there is the unveiling of David Koch.  You know, the gazillionaire that owns Mitt Romney, and unknown other large pieces of the country.  Apparently, it is time for Koch to come out from behind the curtain, especially since we all had caught on to the fact that it was him running things anyway.

Of course, if you have gotten caught red-handed, the smart thing to do is act like you've planned it that way.  So David Koch is actually going to be an official delegate to the Convention.  Even more special, he will be honored at a "Salute to Entrepreneurs," and we can all get tickets.  Well, actually, we can all get on the wait list.  You might be surprised to know that this event, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, is actually funded by the Koch Brothers.  Well, maybe you won't be surprised.

And definitely not last, but all the irony-processing center in my brain can handle at one sitting, is the cornerstone of the convention.  No, I know you're thinking the anti-abortion plank, but that's the cornerstone behind the cornerstone.  The centerpiece of the convention, which is being "unveiled" today, is the "National Debt Clock".

Don't laugh.  It's true.

After creating laws that would chase down teens and women  trying to get birth control or abortions while shutting down the most cost-effective health care programs available to women...

After refusing to even consider the most modest tax hike for the wealthiest Americans...

After working exhaustively to kill Obamacare despite Congressional Budget Office and other expert opinions that savings will outweigh costs...

...these idiots are going to show us just how much debt we are accruing as they speak.

No, too much irony for me.  Need some air.

Social Insecurity

I lost my free wireless last week.  With an income of $12,000, it is unlikely that I will be paying upwards from $55 a month for a wireless connection.  So I will haul my laptop, which I bought refurbished for ½ price, to the library, which fortunately has in the past year advanced into the 21^st Century with public wi-fi.

One of the things that I can do that Tea-Partiers cannot, is recognize that there are others who, through no fault of their own, are far less fortunate than I.

That does not mean that I am thankful for this state of affairs, because I also recognize that there are people who, for no good reason (and I mean good in the Golden Rule sense of the word), have far, far more than I.

I don't care how many aircraft the Koch Brothers have at their command; what I do care about is that they have the power to engage in criminal, deceitful, ugly acts to manipulate the public, to garner support for political policy that continues to provide them with that power.

Now, those with a little more than I, the middle class, have more to lose.  Rather than feeling more secure about what they have, this has made them vulnerable to those who use their power and fortune to convince them that change means loss of what they now have.  Not a vacation home, mind you, but health care, a job, savings for retirement.

At the time the generous soul who shared their wireless with me left town, I had spent the month paying large (to me) sums of money for repairs – it seemed everything I owned, old but cared for, was breaking down.  A week's pay for a car repair, a week's pay for a lawn mower, an inexpensive printer that I now cannot use because it is wireless and, alas, I no longer have wireless access.  The airline ticket I paid for my annual visit to my daughter is something I cannot afford.  I do what I have tried hard not to do:  waste my life worrying constantly about money.

So when I lost the wireless, which in truth, in this freedom-at-a-cost country, I was stealing, something in me broke.  My lifeline to my family, all far away, is gone.  My ability to sit down and write a blog now needs to be structured and fit into time I am at the library.  And the calendar I throw together every month on Publisher has no picture gallery because I am putting it together at home without the internet.  My old computer had a picture gallery, but instead of feeling pissed off, I opt for – I can't think of the word, and I can't get to the internet thesaurus site.  How about resignation?

I am poor, I have no right to contact with the outside world.  I am lucky I have my laptop and a library connection, and for now, I am lucky that my car, with its 156,000 miles, can still get me there.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers have convinced the insecure among us who still have a middle class life, that by helping us they will lose that life.  And meanwhile, while the Tea Partiers fight the Koch brothers' battle for them, they in fact are helping them destroy what they now have, and what used to be considered a secure life.

Woman of the Century -- The 19th Century

It was another proud moment for us South Carolinians, when our own Governor Nikki Haley and the ever confused Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona faced off against Democratic (no, Nikki, not "democrat", which is a noun, not an adjective) Governors Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and John Hickenlooper of Colorado on ABC's This Week yesterday.   


Jake Tapper introduced his roundtable as "four of the top governors", leading to the inevitable question, "top of what"?  He further introduced Nikki Haley as "age 39, the youngest governor" which caused me to wonder if, in light of Nikki's reputation, Jake was maybe putting some moves on her.


Haley is nothing if not enthusiastic.  And outraged.  On the subject of the Wisconsin Democratic senators' protest, she twice used the word "cowardly".  Tapper, moments later, redundantly asked the Democratic governors if they didn't think leaving the state was "cowardly", and I may be wrong, but I think he winked at Nikki as he asked the question.  Not to be outdone, Jan Brewer saw and raised Haley's "cowardly" with an even more outraged "despicable".


First of all, I have to say, coming from the state where the former governor and Nikki Haley supporter Mark Sanford left without a trace for a week while he "walked the Appalachian Trail", it takes a great deal of nerve for Haley to refer to the 14 senators as cowardly and irresponsible.


Furthermore, I think Governor Haley has some misconceptions regarding the whole idea of "collective bargaining".  She believes that the state should get rid of collective bargaining because "they opposed health care cuts and they opposed benefit cuts".  I believe that is called the first step of negotiations -- each side asks for what they see as the best possible position, and then they bargain from that point.  I understand that Haley, coming from the right-to-work cheap state of South Carolina, would be unfamiliar with workers making demands, and in fact, the whole idea of negotiating might be a bit scary to the new face of the "good ole boys", but that's the way it is done.


Finally, it concerns me that Haley has so little respect for the role of protest in our nation's history.  From the Boston Tea Party to student protests over the Vietnam War, the right to protest is what has made our democracy as robust as it is.  The most amazing and hopeful aspect of the current revolution in Egypt is that the police and military stood with the protesters.  The actions of the Wisconsin Democratic senators means that they were listening and being responsive to their constituents, and not taking the easy way out.


I wonder that Haley and Brewer, governors of two of the most miserably failing states (morally as well as financially) in our proud nation, are asked their opinions about what is wrong with Wisconsin.  Given the corporate excesses and enormous federal tax cuts that have broken our states' treasuries across the country, Wisconsin was not seen to be in desperate straits.  Certainly, collective bargaining as opposed to the union killing measures Governor Walker had plotted, would have left the state in good stead.  Unless of course, Walker then went on to give tax breaks to businesses and write no-bid contracts into legislation to benefit corporate giants like the Koch brothers.