J.The past few years in the long twilight of the Bush Administration have been a never ending death march of lies, deceit and human evil not witnessed in America since, well... The Reagan years. Because of the commitment and hard work of the West Wing in providing a never ending stream of mind numbing horror to us every week, we sometimes neglect to ponder exactly what these people actually profess to believe in, and what, in part, they hope to pervert our fair nation into.
This idea came into perfect focus this week as the Texas Republican Party convened to shed their reptilian skins as they hammered out their platform. The Texas version of this dreadful ritual is particularly interesting, since our President and the Majority Whip of the House all hail from the state thats a whole other reality.
In fact, as these men rose from the rank stench of Texas to national office, they dragged their evil cronies and misshapen genetic experiments, errrr, ...lobbyists from campaign contributors to Washington. I suppose once you create a legion of wretched evil Homunculi, its hard to stifle the urge to let it loose to terrorize the villagers.
And the playbook these mooks use is straight out of the platform vomited forth from Texas this week. It was so dreadfully insane, so devoid of any grip on reality, that we just had to pimp it to you wireheads. Heres a taste of a few of our favorites brought to us via Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly:
The Party calls for the United States monetary system to be returned to the gold standard. Since the Federal Reserve System is a private corporation, has no reserves, and is not subject to taxation or audit, we call on Congress to abolish this institution and reassume its authority, enumerated by Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, for the coinage of money.
Dissolve the Federal Reserve? Return to the gold standard? How exactly are the capital markets supposed to function without the Reserve, exactly? Is congress going to open up a franchise branch in new York to sell Bonds?
Did anyone down in Texas actually contemplate the reaction of our creditors, the nice people who loaned us 6 Trillion dollars under the delusion that we werent freak insane? Do any of these geeks understand exactly what the Fed really does? Or why we left the Gold Standard?
Actually telling the international markets that we are even contemplating nuking our central bank or returning to the Gold Standard will begin a financial apocalypse that will make the 29 Crash look like an Olsen Twin birthday party. Are we supposed to trade goats and cabbages to other countries to pay off our crazy debt?...Hang on..there s more...
Congress should be urged to exercise its authority under Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the United States Constitution, and should withhold appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in such cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and all rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.
Darn those founding Fathers!..Having a judiciary that makes us actually live up to the rights enumerated in the Bill of rights and the Constitution is making it really difficult for the Texas Republican Party to screw everything up. Why, they could bankrupt the country and turn it into a 700 club Theocratic funhouse if those damn judges wouldnt drone on about equal protection and trial by jury.
And treating women like human beings? Don't they read their damn bible? Holy Christmas! Federal courts should do what God intended them to do, protect the property rights of wealthy Texas millionaires!
Our Party pledges to do everything within its power to restore the original intent of the First Amendment of the United States and the concept of the separation of Church and State and dispel the myth of the separation of Church and State.
The funny here is that the original intent of the Establishment clause is laid out pretty clearly by the Founding Fathers. The United States at the founding had so many different Christian denominations, all claiming to have a better grip on True Christianity, that it was a no brainier to the Framers to not allow any particular faith into the public arena.
Many of the framers were deeply influenced by the Enlightenment, and its rejection of Organized religion and superstitious religious mysticism. Restoration of the original intent is the last thing these mensas want.
The Myth of the separation of church and state is in fact that it was not the intention of the Framers to separate religion from the exercise of political power. The analysis staff here at the Wire estimates this piece of the platform was conjured up on a cocktail napkin during the open bar on Casino Night. Many things seem reasonable after 25 bud lights that look a little dimwitted when you roll out of the rack in the morning.
S. The party opposes the decriminalization of sodomy....We publicly rebuke judges Chief Justice Murphy and John Anderson, who ruled that the 100 year-old Texas sodomy law is unconstitutional, and ask that all members of the Republican Party of Texas oppose their re-election.
Is it just us, or does it seem the Republican Party is obsessed with Sodomy? Can the gay bashing just stop for 10 seconds in the republican party? Ive never seen so many closet queens so desperate to prove they dont like sodomy, no sir, not in the least. How would they feel if jacking off like a coked up ape in the men's room at Hooters were made illegal?
Besides, God knows what these guys are worried about. Contrary to Republican myth, the dream of every gay man in America is not to be locked up in cell block A with a fat bald Republican Red neck. Your ass is safe GOP....
The Party believes that scientific topics, such as the question of universe and life origins and environmental theories, should not be constrained to one opinion or viewpoint. We support the teaching equally of scientific strengths and weaknesses of all scientific theories--as Texas now requires (but has yet to enforce) in public school science course standards. We urge revising all environmental education standards to require this also. We support individual teachers right to teach creation science in Texas public schools.
If there was any Science in Creation Science, they might have a leg to stand on. If you have no data, no testable hypothesis, and all you do to pimp your take is deliberately pretend to misunderstand real science, you dont have a competing theory.
Pimping your quant Creation myth as a science is bad enough, requiring it taught in science classes is just humiliating to the rest of us in this country who arent ignorant freaks. It doesnt help your theory when your adherents look and behave suspiciously like a tribe of Neanderthals who want to kill the poor bastard who discovered fire..
This next one is my personal favorite:
The Party urges Congress to support HJR 77, the Panama and America Security Act, which declare the Carter-Torrijos Treaty null and void. We support re-establishing United States control over the Canal in order to retain our military bases in Panama, to preserve our right to transit through the Canal, and to prevent the establishment of Chinese missile bases in Panama.
Chinese Missile Bases? In a platform stocked full of insane jabbering, this one has to take the cake. What in the name of all that is holy are these numb-nuts talking about? Hey guys, I guarantee that those Chinese restaurants in Panama dont have a missile silo concealed underneath.
So the Chinee Red Menace wants the Panama canal? And those crazy yellow guys are planning to put missile bases near the canal? Are you sure those arent UFO sites GOP? Maybe you should adjust the antennae on your tinfoil hats? The canal is worthless to the United States in any significant military sense, and only the Tom Clancy Mouth breathers in Texas think otherwise. Weve seen a lot of whacked out Commie Chinese hysteria, but this one really has to take the cake.
Theres more, but Mojo's eyes are bleeding yellow pus and our Producer is mumbling obscure Latin phrases to himself to try to drown us out. This is the America they want you to live in Wirehead. The America where Creationism is science, we put the fun back in sodomy, our financial system is blown to pieces and and were back on the barter system, the Federal Government is a evangelical theocracy and Panama is finally free of the threat of Chinese flying saucers.
Texas..coming soon to a state near you...
RUMINATIONS ON MEDICINE
J.Remember the days when your arguments and discussions about politics were about substantive policy debates as much as the horse race to office. Yeah...we dont either. But believe it or not, at one time, public policy was a priority at the White House, at least before these loons grifted their way in.
As we cringe at the avalanche of evidence that our government was trying to turn itself into a franchise office of the Gestapo, and the deification of Reagan, we are going to actually talk about real public policy issues. Yeah..thats why were on public radio folks..were just loony that way...
Now, as we all know, being poor and sick are just forms of God's Judgment on people for being wicked. And yet, John Kerry, being the evil liberal commie pinko from Taxachusettstan that he is, has been offering ideas from the stump about issues the public actually says it cares about, like education and health care. Lets take a look at some of his policy positions and see how they stack up against what the Bush Administration wants to pimp you:
The state of affairs in the Health Care markets is not particularly encouraging these days. Costs, driven by pharmaceuticals, an aging population with longer life spans, and expensive technology are, in part driving up premiums throughout the country. The American health Care model, which relies on employment as the primary vehicle to provide health care coverage for most Americans, is caught between two competing forces.
One, the expectations of Americans that sound medical decision making will place the patient before cost considerations or profit. Second, the business of health care, where employers seek to reduce the cost of providing coverage by selecting low cost plans and passing on the costs increasingly to employees.
Also driving the business side is the need for publicly owned health care companies to expand profits, placing more pressure on the medical side to ration care. This cost pressure is creating an effect called Adverse selection.
Adverse selection is where private health care plans cherry-pick the healthiest members of the risk pool with low premium , high deductible plans, a very enticing incentive for young people who need minimal care. That leaves the older and more expensive part of the pool to pay large premiums. This is particularly problematic for employers, who must insure older workers as well as younger ones.
We can see the effects in various places in America. The UFCW grocery workers strike in Southern California illustrates the cost pressure driving employers. The threat of Death Star retailer Walmart and its low cost advantage, coupled with the demands of capital markets to reduce labor costs, drove grocery stores into a savage brawl with their workers with the hopes of passing as much of the cost of health care as possible on the workers, which they succeeded in doing to a large degree.
The cost transfer from employer to employee is happening in every employment sector of the economy. Another area where we are seeing the effects is in the impact on Bankruptcy rates. According to the consumers union, A record 1.6 million families will file for bankruptcy in 2004, 90 percent from the middle class.
Health care costs contribute to half of all bankruptcies; that's 800,000 families in America who go under because they cannot afford their health care, in large part to a catastrophic illness in the family. Perhaps the most glaring example is the ranks of the uninsured. Close to 50 million Americans lack health care coverage.
Which really should be translated as, 50 million Americans must seek some kind of public assistance for even the most simple of health care needs because the private health care delivery model is unable to provide coverage.
S. The public system, comprised in large part by the Federal Medicare and Medicaid programs for the elderly and poor, must assume responsibility for this gap through demonstronably inefficient and expensive outlets like Emergency rooms. We dont really save any money by not insuring through the private market, we simply shift the cost to the public sphere. Here are some of the Kerry campaigns ideas:
Providing tax credits to make health insurance more affordable.
Allowing Americans to buy into the same health plan available to members of Congress.
Expanding state-based programs to insure all children and millions of adults.
Allowing reimportation of Drugs to lower costs
Require the Federal Government to pay 75 percent of all medical costs over 50,000
A tax credit to cover 50 percent of premiums for small business
Government-subsidized private insurance to workers between jobs.
The Kerry indicatives are attempting to do a few things here. First, improve the quality and access to care for workers and reduce the cost burden for employers through tax credits and subsidies for small business.
Next, take three quarters of the cost of expensive health care over 50,000, which will directly impact bankruptcies and reduce the incentives for private health care plans to ration expensive care or deny access to the elderly and the less healthy.
Third, cover the gaps in coverage that propel cost shifting into the strained Emergency rooms and providers of last resort, which are key drivers in rising costs. Also, allowing reimportation of lower cost drugs, a direct slap at the grotesque pandering of the Republicans to their money lenders in the Pharmaceutical industry.
And what are the Presidents proposals: Associate Health Plans, a buyer group of small to medium businesses According to the Kerry people AHPs will offer minimal benefit plans targeted at healthy workers, leaving behind groups with greater health care needs that are more expensive to insure.
The Congressional Budget Office predicted that nearly two-thirds of the promised savings from AHPs will come from insurance companies cherry picking small businesses with the healthiest employees and refusing to cover others.
The CBO is correct, this is a pander to the Chamber of Commerce, it does nothing to address the drivers of rising costs, just shifts the costs around again.
The Bush Health Care policy is to make it easier for employers to pass on the costs of health care, which will help their contributors and cause resentment for the subsidized coverage we give to the poor through Medicaid. Thats how they think, set the Middle Class against the poor while their corporate buddies rob them both.
This administration has offered no plan to address cost shifting, health cost related bankruptcies, adverse selection or cost shifting. It just pretends they dont exist. Their solution to rising drug costs is to fight reimportation and drop an expensive drug company subsidy scheme through Medicare on the elderly, which is so deranged an convoluted that even HHS cannot explain it and the health care plans are not required to provide anything expensive.
Kerry has offered several good proposal to address various problems with the American Health Care delivery model. The Bush Administrations plan is to take your money and give it to their buddies on K Street.
Can we put it any more clearly?
J. So our patriotic thought for the day: Rejecting the holy godhead of St. Ron, Commieslayer, means the terrorists win, or as John Ashcroft says... “It ain't torture if were doin' it to terrorists, 'course we gotta torture 'em first just make sure they ain't terrorists neether...”
S. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, until, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.
And remember, you can now email the Mojowire at Mojohaus@hotmail.com, that’s M-O-J-O-H-A-U-S@hotmail.com. Email, us hippies!
J. And now you can check out the Mojowire online at Mojowire.Blogspot.com; you can read the entire archive along with our general ramblings...
This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...
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