Cable Observations
Thursday, June 7, 2012 at 03:37AM Well one thing is for sure, watching the Ed Show on MSNBC is a lot more fun since Tuesday’s drubbing of public unions in Wisconsin. The host’s yelping about progressives being out spent missed the part about the money spent trying to discredit Governor Walker ever since the day he was elected.
There was the occupation of the State House, abandonment of elected office by Democrats bent on stopping Walker reforms, doctors giving people medical excuses to attend anti-Walker rallies, that liberal Supreme Court candidate election failure, the failed attempt at taking over the State Senate, and endless friendly media attacks on Walker. But still – progressives had their posteriors handed to them.
Now these same left wing activists have, in all probability, cost Obama Wisconsin in November. What a pricy Alinsky plan gone bad in slow motion - for a full year.
Oh, and a woman slaps Walker opponent Mayor Barrett for conceding after his lost race and we hear about the slap but not who the woman might be – a teacher maybe?
Bill O’Reilly really is a pin head.
The other night I heard him say that the national anti-tobacco campaign put on for the last 50 years was “brilliant.” He was relating the tobacco demonization to the current attempt by Mayor Bloomberg to criminalize “Big Soda.”
Of coarse O’Reilly thinks the national anti-tobacco effort was “brilliant.” It opens the door to banning certain food, behavior, language, and opinions not favored by our progressive elites.
That is pure O’Reilly, who by the way is as liberal as he thinks he can get away with and still sell his shameless self-promotion hour on Fox. (Ever notice, folks, O’Reilly can NEVER make a point, no matter how silly, without repeating it three times? And he can not let a guest speak for more than seven seconds without butting in with a comment?)
Bill Clinton smells a power vacuum left hanging in the air by a hapless, out of touch, in over his Harvard head Obama and has stepped in with some media visits and back-stabbing dressed as sage “advice” for his friend. I love that part about crazy Bill.
Hmmmm, liberals say they want equal pay for women, all in the name of fairness and equality, but not equal pay or pensions for private sector or non-union employees?
Exit polls showed the Wisconsin race too close to call and Obama with comfortable lead over Romney?
I was in Madison, Wisconsin back in May at an Applebee’s. Bumper stickers showed Barrett winning.
Ah, politics.
Reader Comments (14)
– C. dog waves banner for heroes to arise
So instead of getting together to improve the pay and pension for everyone, it makes more sense to tear down the people who were smart enough to organize? I'll never understand you people. You bitch and bitch about "union thugs" getting their 2.5% raise and how outragous that is in these times. But then Forbes magazines says the average pay for the CEO's of the top 500 companies in the USA went up 16% in 2011 and all you hear is the chirpping of crickets. If you'd just stop to think about it, you'd realize it's not the $12,000 dollar a year average retirement for state workers that is screwing the economy. Keep listening to the 1% of the people who took 93% of the economic gains in 2010 because they certainly have your best interests at heart (sarcasm in case you didn't get it).
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottdecarlo/2012/04/04/americas-highest-paid-ceos/
http://www.afscme3657.org/docs/Pension%20Facts%20NH%20September%202011.pdf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/in-2010-93-percent-of-income-gains-went-to-the-top-1-percent/2011/08/25/gIQA0qxhsR_blog.html
I wonder if bitching about 1% ers and trying to tear them down isn't the same as what I am accused of by some of the soon to be super minority union excusers?
Liberals are so predictable.
– C. dog imagines massive paradigm movements, not subtle shifts
Like I said before, I will never understand how you people can be hosed over and then cheer for more of it. No matter what you dream, you will never be one of the haves. The deck is too far stack against us. The best hope is that we start getting treated like people again and not cattle to be herded to the slaughterhouse for maximum profits.
The Democrats offer up his kind of economy as soon as they had the votes in New Hampshire and ran up a $800 million dollar tab for us serfs to pay.
Along comes Speaker O'Brien and the Republican hordes using simple budgeting tools and they eliminated all the progressives "fairness."
Boooo Hooooo
Lucky Lynch and his liberals couldn't print money
Private contractors are likely the workers closest to freedom as they don't have some wanker Nanny or Neanderthal hovering over their work-a-day lives. They chose how they barter the product of their work, the fruits of their labor, the inspirations of their adult manifestations! What could be more free? Based on your scrawlings, you wish to perpetuate these archaic master/child like relations: labour vs. management, capital-less vs. capitalists. Seems stupid to me, but then again, what do I know.
– C. dog rolls over only of his own accord and agreed upon remunerations
Progressives are trying to find a new voice now that their government/religion idea has not panned out.
Expect all kinds of goofy trial balloons, Jesus was a Socialist, government spending helps the economy, borrowing and printing money has no bad side effects., unions will save society from the rich, bla, bla, bla.
Thus, in the real world, we are left with two unsavory (for some) choices. The first choice is unionizing and then forcing the corporations to help subsidize health benefits. Of course, then you end up negotiating with management about how much money your life is worth and whether it is in THEIR interest to pay. Not a comforting thought. The other answer is much simpler and much less wastful. I'm speaking, of course, of a single payer system I.e. Universal Health Care. If everyone could go to the doctors and have some basic coverage for those vists then I could see the contractor system working. Without those protections in place, it just becomes another revenue stream for the corporations and we are left holding the short end of the stick. Again.
Of couse, there is a third option. That's to just do without any kind of coverage and roll the dice. Maybe you'll stay healthy and win the healthcare lottery. Maybe you won't and then you'll stick everyone else with the bill. That's similar to the system we have now with uninsured people using the emergency room for basic heathcare and look how great that works for us now.
Healthcare should be a right not a benefit. Until we change that in this country, your idyllic "I'm the master of my own destiny" scenario will forever remain a pipedream.
(1) http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/is-employer-based-health-insurance-worth-saving/
– C. dog pierces Grate State trial balloons with endless needling
Union thugs do not gleefully give up thier lavish pensions.
Former shop steward for IBEW 126 Norristown, Pa.
Wunder how behavior would change if people who took the risks also bore the risks? Say you like to eat a 20" pizza with your half-gallon ice cream? Or you like a 6-pack with your cig pack every day? Or you like to go hang gliding or schuss down Cannon fodders? What, ya mean people would actually have to start paying for their decisions?! The lunacy of it all.
By the way, why shouldn't people pick up the tab for their unhealth insurance, instead of some Corporate amorphous entity? And why aren't they allowed to pick from a menu of choices in a free exchange with those willing to insure such menu items? Seems like you're a nit pickin' Nanny that knows better how to run our lives. Welcome to America!
– C. dog chooses his own path
The problem of assigning the cost of medical insurance based solely on the risks is that you have millions of people who will need high dollar care through no fault of their own. What do you do about the kid who is diabetic (type 1 not type 2)? It's "god's will" that he be this way and yet you advocate punishing him for it? Plus, how do you differentiate between the guy who's liver is bad due to drinking and the guy who simply has bad luck? Will they be required to submit to invasive procedures and have some nanny keeping track of all their bad decisions?
It seems like your method is much more intrusive than the current system. I can understand what you are advocating and I'm not necessarily against it, I just don't see how it can be accomplished without someone standing over all of us and watching. I'd think that was something you would be very much against.
The reason that people cannot not be expected to pay for their own insurance has to do with risk pooling. Going back to my first example, the parents of little Johnny get a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Suddenly, the private insurance would say "Holy cow, little Johnny is going to cost us a fortune. You need to double or triple your payments." That's the danger of a single subscriber policy. Any little hiccup and the rates become unsustainable. You can't just throw little Johnny away because you can no longer afford to care for him so the government steps in and pays for his care. Wouldn't it just be easier if the government pooled ALL of us together thus creating a giant risk pool to spread the pain around?
As to the health exchange, I think that's a good idea. The more competition you have for your health care dollars, the better off you'll be. In New Hampshire, small businesses, health insurers and patient advocates supported a state-run exchange. Unfortunately,the New Hampshire legislature passed HB1297 which specifically rules out setting up health care exchanges. Instead of doing what is right for the people of New Hampshire, they decided that politiking was more important. That was disappointing.
P.S. Thanks Ed for allowing my posts to come through. I appreciate a chance to discuss this with you all and I'll try to keep the unhinging to a bare minimum LOL.
My system – it's called freedom in some circles – is incredibly non-intrusive. No intrusive inquiries required, just exchanges among unshackled people to engage in acts of commerce ... or not.
Now let's look at your scheme. BFA Nanny comes to the nominal citizen of a free country, say the USA, and knocks on the door every payday, replete with guns and other pointy things (perhaps a pen to sign away one's property?) to collect shakedown tithings for any number of things, including this week's special on unhealth insurance. That's right folks, go out and eat as much as you want, drink yourself into a stupor, smoke your crack-adled brain into oblivion, sit on the couch all day – it's all on Uncle Sam and Nanny Ninny! That is until they go broke, then watch for the anal probes as they dissect your slovenly ways into a million pieces, starting with Big Gulps in Manhattan, and face-sized slices of 'za in the North End.
Enjoy your freedom, it only cost you your liberty!
– C. dog opts out of Troll's dystopian fraud