Romney meets the Lizard King - foreign policy madness

Endangered reptile, Dick Cheney, emerged from under a rock somewhere sporting a new, donated heart and the same incredibly ignorant hubris as always.  He was at the Wyoming republican convention endorsing Mitt Romney, and called Obama an “unmitigated disaster” and he ought to know; he engineered and presided over the most tragically wrongheaded series of foreign policy blunders since the Gulf of Tonkin.   His complete misunderstanding of the potential outcomes in Iraq and the idiotic post-invasion policies dreamed up along with Rumsfeld over cocktails at the Bohemian Grove is to blame for, not only our continued disastrous involvement with Afghanistan, but the tar pit from which Obama has been carefully struggling to extricate us since he took office almost four years ago.

 Now with Romney as the presumptive nominee, the snarling pack of neo-con hyenas and chicken hawks is once again whispering seductive messages in the ear of the GOP – like, reasoned engagement is weakness and restraint only encourages those who hate us for our freedom – a foreign policy that stinks of bad cheese but which the camo-clad limp dicks of the party are all too eager to embrace out of frustration, racism and the urge to kill something.   

Being the empty headed vessel he is, Romney is also enthusiastically casting aspersions on the Obama foreign policy, criticizing him in the wake of the abject failure of the feared North Koren rocket launch, apparently not realizing the US foreign policy and accompanying comprehensive sanctions have starved the North Koreans of the technical resources necessary to achieve what has to be considered as the monumental bluff that it is.  Still, Japan clearly gets nervous every time some addled Korean poo-bah decides he wants to join the space age, even if the rockets typically pose more of danger to the North Koreans than they do Japan, so it’s important that we have some kind of influence over their behavior.  Romney seems to feel that talking to them – and offering them food – only serves to encourage this behavior and we should disengage, not give them anything and hope that teaches them the lesson we want to impart.  Fat chance, Mitt, but thanks for weighing in with your opinion.

With Obama in Cartagena this week for a Latin American summit, Mitt also apparently feels the time is right to re-state his solidly 1980’s-era advice – you know, right up there with his contention that Russia is our main foreign policy opponent these days – and parrots the utterly discredited but strangely pervasive notion that Cuba is a menace to us in the Caribbean and should be treated with a firm “communist-threat-to-our-way-of-life” hand until they allow freedom and democracy and cheap consumer goods to sweep over the land.  Never mind that Cuba has a 97% literacy rate – higher than ours – universal medical care and are as catholic as Rick Santorum.  They play that goddamn merengue music, smoke cigars and drink rum all night; they are suspect and dangerous as long as that bearded freak Castro is alive. 

No, Mitt is of the Dick Cheney / Jean Kirkpatrick / George the Dull school of neo-conservatism that proposes that all foreign policy decisions and policies arise from the seed of American exceptionalism and entitlement.  If a country doesn’t want to play ball with us we need to ignore them or – in the case of one perceived as a threat – park an aircraft carrier offshore.  It’s a variant of the “nobody fucks with us – you lookin’ at me?” testosterone-fueled belligerence that put George the Dull into a bigger shit-storm than he expected when he decided to start bombing people willy-nilly in the wake of 9/11.  It presupposes that other countries have no patriotic self esteem and will roll over and piss themselves if we just threaten them with tragic enough consequences for misbehaving. 

That this has been a miserable failure for the last 50 years escapes these donkeys.  It’s either that or the “Obama is wrong about everything” reaction that has characterized republican policy making since 2008.  They think the way to calm down a pissed off Doberman is to hit it with a stick rather than tossing it a rib-eye.

For his part the newly recovered transplant patient Cheney, spent part of his night trying once again to justify water boarding, extraordinary rendition and various other medieval enhanced interrogation techniques favored by his merry band of fascists in front of the GOP movers and shakers in Wyoming, the most republican state in the union, where he still has some sort of reputation as a kingmaker in spite of his being shoulder to shoulder with Bush the Dull during an administration known more for blundering ignorance and malapropisms than any historically notable achievements.  For me, I hope you do have Mitt’s ear as some kind of twisted elder statesman, a la Henry Kissinger, and he trumpets his fealty to the cause of incoherent foreign policy that is your stock in trade.   It would give people one more reason to vote for Gary Johnson…

And then there was 1; thoughts on Romney versus Obama

Now that Rick “The Saint” Santorum has finally sobered up and realized he had as much chance of being elected president as some guy named Abdul has of being the next pope, the race for president has crystallized into a two man race between Obama and Romney.   The frantic republicans are scurrying around searching for some issue that will resonate with voters, apparently realizing that, “things aren’t as good as we think they should be” isn’t it.  And they’re having a tough time; gas prices seem to be dropping and experts predict they will continue to drop absent Iran doing something suicidal and stupid.  This deflates the bogus, “Obama is causing gas prices to rise” rhetoric and takes away the “drill, baby, drill” urgency and trumped up pseudo-patriotic rants of oil soaked lobbyists and their insipid sycophants in congress.   Iraq is typically restive but not on fire.  North Korea-The Axis of Bumbling - had their giant firework go sideways.  Our economic nemesis, China, is experiencing slowing growth which isn’t a good thing for us but as long as they don’t start redeeming 10 year T-bills we’ll probably be OK.  There just isn’t a lot of traction for the Romney juggernaught to get some momentum.

 And yet, the democrats are once again proving that they are capable of misplaying a royal flush just because they are so politically inept.  It’s a party without an overriding guiding principle – unlike the republicans – and they are so unfocused they can’t hit a soft, underhand toss out of the infield.  The latest example of this tendency is the whole “Republican War on Women” stuff that they are beating into the ground.   During the last couple of months we had mouth-breathing male clowns proposing to make birth control illegal at worst and unaffordable and out or reach at best, force women seeking an abortion to have vaginally intrusive ultrasounds against their wishes, oppose pay equality measures and generally treat women in total as a nice smelling convenience who are lucky they are allowed to leave the house to vote.  I will grant that this makes for a tidy bit of campaign material to use against them.  I find it hard to believe any woman would vote for these guys, even if her family has been republican since Lincoln.   The last thing we need in government is a bunch of tired, closeted blowhards who are afraid of women and who probably watch tape loops of Ann Coulter while wearing nothing but tighty-whities and cowboy boots filled with Vaseline.  

But I can’t help feeling that the incessant drum beat from the left about this “war on women” is counterproductive – the horse is dead; you can stop hitting it anytime now.   Are there any conscious women in America who need to be convinced?  I don’t think so.  So get off it already.  I’m sure some propeller head at democratic headquarters thinks it’s a swell fund raising tool – maybe it is.  But it makes them look like hysterical opportunists working to exploit an issue that is already right there for all to see.  I don’t need 10 hyperventilating emails every day telling me what brain-dead assholes they are.  We get it.

And worst of all is the issue now bubbling away around the comments made by Hillary Rosen, questioning Ann Romney trying to portray herself as every woman and defend the essentially indefensible positions of her husband’s party.  Rosen said – quite justifiably – that Ann Romney shouldn’t be trying to come off as being a typical woman who understands and relates to women’s issues when she is married to a multi-millionaire and who never worked a day in her life.  Suddenly the media jackals and hyenas pounced on her and the indignant bleating and wailing was heard to echo across the land.  Of course we expect Faux News and other empty-headed news organizations to seize on this as some kind of bell weather issue and try to stir up controversy for its own sake.  And I understand the Obamas’ reluctance to embrace the rhetorical high hard one just for political comity.  But really; do we have to trip over each other apologizing to imaginary, infuriated soccer mom's and hard working June Cleavers over it?  IT’S TRUE, for Christ’s sake!  She can’t know what it’s like to have to choose between her job and her day care and her kids and the baby sitter's money.  The Romney’s probably had an upstairs freakin’ maid for all we know.   What are you apologizing for? 

Isn’t this right in our wheelhouse; the out of touch patrician Romneys clumsily trying to appeal to every day 99% blue collar voters?  This is so typical of the democrats, who can’t seem to throw a punch even as they are getting stomped to death, and then when to do get in a crisp, left hook that connects they are mortified that they resorted to such tactics and apologize, all while the opponent is getting up and pulling a Crocodile Dundee knife to eviscerate them. 

Obama should, by all rights, be able to beat this guy.  And if he does – in the face of the most disloyal opposition in the country’s history – it would be an historic achievement.   I get the feeling he knows enough not to bring a knife to a gun fight and I trust him – for the most part – to be able to take care of his business.  But Barack – for god’s sake – get some people with some balls on the team.  We don’t want a bunch of stammering nice guys slap-fighting with Karl Rove and the Koch brothers and the rest of these savage dingoes.   They’ll eat your children just like Idi Amin.  You need the democratic equivalent – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – to Newt Gingrich; a half mad bull terrier to chase Mitt right down the god damned driveway and not let him get away with pissing in the flower bed.  I’m kinda busy right now or I’d volunteer for the job myself but call me in August for the stretch run.

A hero shall arise from among them, and his name will be...Mitt?

Apparently the only thing the republican party fears more than a Romney nomination is the specter of a Caligula-like orgy of sweaty delegates clumped together in Tampa in August feverishly trying to decide on an alternative to a delegate deprived Mitt.   Listening to him try to speak extemporaneously while Newt works the floor for uncommitted delegates and Santorum holds court in the adjacent conference room, speaking in tongues does not make compelling television.   So one after another, the jowly and powerful, treacherous and Machiavellian have come out and grudgingly endorsed Romney.  “Well, uh, I guess…I mean I think…er…that is, I believe that Mitt will do an OK job…I mean, a much better job than that terrible negro we have now…”

Today’s slim Wisconsin primary victory – 43% to 38% - was immediately trumpeted as the latest sign of the inevitable coronation in Tampa, and brought a fresh round of plaintive urging for the other candidates to “do the right thing” and leave the playing field to the champion.  Mitt as the conquering hero appears with the weasel-like Paul Ryan standing beside him - his little tail wagging – and sincerely and politely stammers out a less than convincing victory speech and some perfunctory Obama bashing and then disappears into the night.  What a scene…!

The two of them tag-teamed Obama today after Barack gave Ryan and his cockamamie and monumentally regressive budget a few crisp verbal back-hands.  Ryan accused him of choosing “tired and cynical political attacks as he focuses on his own re-election." 

Wow, Paul, that’s hurtful…Mitt took a turn as well, chirping, “Instead of standing up and saying his policies haven’t worked, this president is unwilling to take responsibility”, his eyes wide with surprise.  Both of them acted as if it is unnatural for the sitting president, running for re-election, to tout his accomplishments and attack his opponents, who produced this grotesque budget and practically teed it up and handed him his driver.   Meanwhile Mitt’s more enthusiastic supporters, like Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, spew incomprehensible gobble-de-gook like, “I’ve spoken to Mitt; I totally believe he is committed to saving America”, once again turning policy differences into full blown insurrection-worthy crises. 

And we should probably get used to his jabbering spokes-person, Andrea Saul, who chimed in with a fetid blast of utter nonsense, saying Obama had done more to devastate the middle class than anyone since…well, Nero, and calling Romney a “job creator”. 

The GOP stable of hatchet men and take-down artists is running full blast these days, as a Romney candidacy seems ever more certain and their choice of issues ever smaller.  Can they attack Obama on foreign policy or, better yet, tout the candidate’s foreign policy expertise?  Not really.  Progressives may be unhappy with Obama’s performance in this domain but there are no make-or-break issues percolating there and Romney is not exactly known for his intimate grasp of foreign policy issues.  Can you imagine him confronting Iran and Amahdinejad?  “Why we’ll just sail the sloop right on up there and give him a proper talking to…”  Romney thinks the biggest threat to the US is Russia, an idea whose expiration date was 10 years ago.  Bin Laden is dead, Ghadafi is dead, we’re out of Iraq, on the way out, (albeit, ever so slowly), from Afghanistan, working through nuclear disarmament with the scary Russians and – despite the jingoistic screeches of John McCain and his ilk, showing admirable and adult restraint in dealing with Syria. 

 Plus the electorate doesn’t give a shit about that at this point in any case.  Strange as it may seem to the republican gentry, people want jobs.  They want to be able to go to Walmart and fill one of those big ass shopping carts with all manner of cheap things they don’t really need – it’s as good as sex without all the messy bodily fluids, shame and remorse.

It’s on the domestic economy that the desperate republicans are pinning their hopes.  What is the battle cry?  “It’s not as good as it could be”, seems to be about the best they can muster.   They seek to combine this idea with the royalist-friendly budget of the little ferret, Paul Ryan, and make one last attempt to convince voters that the deficit should be their biggest fear, that lower taxes for Wall Street money-changers and swells like Romney are the path to overall prosperity, that oil companies know best how to fix the economy and if we just kill all of the old people and poor people and sick people we could have that shopping cart full of stuff and everyone would be happy.

There is a scene in the movie, Trading Places, when Eddie Murphy is talking about pork belly traders and says, “They panickin’ out there; I can feel it”  That’s what’s happening now with the GOP.  When you stick Sarah Palin on the Today Show to drop steaming non-sequitars like, “Anyone but that socialist, Obama” into a discussion of Oprah, it stinks of fear.   When the personification of the dream of America is reduced to Mitt Romney, that fear is justified. 

I thought that somewhere along the line the delusional but somehow popular Rick Santorum would get some traction, raise some money, and hump Mitt’s leg all the way to Tampa, causing chaos and disruption and the mad-cap theater of an open convention.  Alas, it’s seems it’s not to be.  Wiser heads have prevailed; out of a haze of Cuban cigar smoke and the delicate aroma of 20 year old scotch, the word came down to all of the Kings’ men to clear the stage of the clowns and let their robot give it a try.  It is still a puzzlement that these are the guys they ran with.  It doesn’t make sense.  Maybe they were so cocky at the time that they loaded up the clown car, they thought it didn’t matter; that anyone could take Obama down.  And maybe at some recent point that thought made sense.  But today, in 2012, asking the public to buy into Stiff Mitt the Savior; that’s just not going to work. 

Is it wrong to be sick of the health care debate...?

I’ve spent this week trying to wrap my head around the whole health care reform / Affordable Care Act / this is the best guy available to be Solicitor General? drama as it was breathlessly covered by the relentless media which – for the most part – seems to fundamentally misunderstand it.  My due diligence took a few rewinds of the tape to sort through it all.  Here’s my take away;

Health care is stunningly expensive; that much is pretty clear to anyone unfortunate enough to get seriously sick.  Drugs are expensive, visits to your primary care physician are expensive and lord knows the high tech treatments are expensive.  I recently paid $578 dollars for a 90 day supply of a prescription medication that I have no choice but to take every day.   Every aspect of care is expensive. 

At the same time, the percentage of Americans who can reliably get insurance coverage through their employer is shrinking fast, right along with unions and the quaint notions of employment for life and a pension for anything other than a government job.  Lots of Americans can’t afford it and don’t buy it, period.  Many of those same Americans, however, get sick.  When they do they either go to the emergency room, turning those places into one more modern portal to hell – like the DMV -or if they don’t or can’t get their treatment from the emergency room, many of them end up in hospitals undergoing increasingly expensive treatments, none of which they are able to pay for. 

Since many hospitals are quasi-public or outright public, guess who pays?  One way or another, we all do.  To fix this vexing problem the Affordable Care Act – among many other things – requires everybody to pony up for some kind of insurance.  It doesn’t say who you have to buy it from; just that you have to be covered to some basic extent.  If you choose not to do that, you pay what is currently called a penalty – a strategic blunder of monumental proportions – but which is really a tax that’s collected to put into the reserve pool to help make up the difference and, more importantly, provide enough juice in the system so that insurance companies have to cover everyone.  The howling over this “individual mandate” has almost entirely drowned out the rest of the debate.

 When Antonin Scalia – charming as always – asked, “Can the government force you to buy broccoli because it will make you healthier?” and when Donald Verilli, the current Solicitor General went all mush-mouth trying to answer that question, the media pounced and declared the signature achievement of the Obama administration – and the hair-ball in the throat of republicans everywhere for some reason – dead in the water.  That remains to be seen.

My confusion comes from the fact that, if I get on a motorcycle the government requires me to put on a helmet.  Why?  Because if I lay the bike down or otherwise crack my noggin in an accident, I may very well become a brain-damaged ward of the state and that would cost everyone and burden society unfairly, as the majority of us don’t ride motorcycles.  We all would pay a cost associated with that admittedly stupid decision.  Likewise, in most states I have to wear a seat belt when driving my car because a serious accident could injury me and cause me to become a drain on the resources of the state – of all of us.  So “click it or ticket” is the law of the land.  I can no longer hold a cell phone to my ear while driving for the same reason; to prevent accidents which injure people and cost money.

 So how come what appears to be a majority of Americans are against this law?  It allows kids to stay insured on their parents’ policies until they’re 26, it compels insurance companies to insure little kids, even when they are found to have some condition that previously, it…well hell, this is right out of our favorite Wiki:

·         will require insurers to offer the same premium to all applicants of the same age and geographical location without regard to most pre-existing conditions (excluding tobacco use).

• A shared responsibility requirement, commonly called an individual mandate, requires that all persons not covered by an employer sponsored health plan, Medicaid, Medicare or other public insurance programs, purchase and comply with an approved private insurance policy or pay a penalty, unless the applicable individual is a member of a recognized religious sect exempted by the Internal Revenue Service, or waived in cases of financial hardship.^[23]
• Medicaid eligibility is expanded to include all individuals and families with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level.
•  Health insurance exchanges will commence operation in each state, offering a marketplace where individuals and small businesses can compare policies and premiums, and buy insurance (with a government subsidy if eligible).
•  Low income persons and families above the Medicaid level and up to 400% of the federal poverty level will receive federal subsidies^[27] on a sliding scale if they choose to purchase insurance via an exchange (persons at 150% of the poverty level would be subsidized such that their premium cost would be of 2% of income or $50 a month for a family of 4).
• Minimum standards for health insurance policies are to be established and annual and lifetime coverage caps will be banned.
•  Firms employing 50 or more people but not offering health insurance will also pay a shared responsibility requirement if the government has had to subsidize an employee's health care.
•  Very small businesses will be able to get subsidies if they purchase insurance through an exchange.
• Co-payments, co-insurance, and deductibles are to be eliminated for select health care insurance benefits considered to be part of an "essential benefits package"^[34] for Level A or Level B preventive care.
• Changes are enacted that allow a restructuring of Medicare reimbursement from "fee-for-service" to "bundled payments."
•  Additional support is provided for medical research and the National Institutes of Health.

What is it exactly again that has people so pissed off?  Cause I don’t see it.  It allows everybody to go to the doctor regularly – preventive care – and if you get sick you don’t go broke.  And for this someone at 150% of the poverty level pays 2% of their income or $50 bucks a month.   Check me if I’m missing something but isn’t this a hell of a lot better than the ridiculous system we’re using now, where one serious illness – cancer, heart disease, etc. – essentially drives families straight to a living hell? 

Do the tea party knuckleheads really understand what they’re shouting about?  The conservatives – are you listening, Paul Ryan – want to fix Medicare and their idea of how to do that is to take it away.  Doesn’t this seem like a better idea?  Is the right so full of blind hatred and fury about Obama that they can’t see straight? 

Somebody – and I’m serious – tell me what the problem is with this and what is the better idea.