The American Dream On Life Support . . .

The Gadfly would like to share a bit of personal history with you the reader.  In early 2009 The Gadfly suffered a sudden, life-threatening medical condition which required emergency surgery to rectify.  Fortunately, The Gadfly survived this affliction and is here today to share his dirty fucking hippie views of his experience with the "greatest" healthcare system in the world with knowledge seekers far and wide.

Why is The Gadfly imparting this information?

Education my friends - education.

The Gadfly came across this in-depth article in Time Magazine by journalist/lawyer/advocate Steven Brill called "Bitter Pill:  Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us."

The Gadfly postulates that until you have read this article and fully understood it's core message, you have no clue whatsoever as to how utterly corrupt, arbitrary and ultimately immoral the for-profit healthcare industry is in this country.

Getting back briefly to The Gadfly's personal experience - the event which truly opened The Gadfly's eyes to what the actual priorities of the healthcare industry are came when The Gadfly was barely 4 hours out of major surgery and while still anesthetized found himself face to face with a very kindly, soothe voiced lady hospital official at his bedside.  The matronly, soft spoken hospital lady proceeded to methodically inform The Gadfly precisely what expenses related to his surgery and hospital stay that his employer provided health insurance paid for and what it didn't.  And as for the care not covered under said policy, the still anesthesia woozy Gadfly was asked to sign a promissory note promising to pay the out of pocket hospitalization expenses (somewhere in the range of $5-6k if The Gadfly's memory is accurate).  The Gadfly blissfully signed the document, for in his narcotic induced state, he could have been signing a confession to the Lindbergh kidnapping for all he knew.

And sure enough - a few weeks after being released from the hospital, The Gadfly received a nice little, itemized bill in the mail.  While the word "itemized" is used to describe this bill, The Gadfly is certain it was written in some form of alien code that only certain bean counting hospital staff members, who have received some form of top secret training, could decipher.  Fortunately for The Gadfly he was gainfully employed and was able to pay off the out of pocket bill (with interest of course) over several years time.

Here is the bottom line - Steven Brill has dared to expose, in this Time article, the dirty not-so-secret secret which the corporate elites and our elected officials are either too afraid or too compromised through the political money machine to speak truthfully to Americans about.

Brill's Time article is quite long (around 30 or so pages) and it is pay subscription (for $4.99 you can get a free week of access and all of Time's archives - including this article) but believe me - it is well worth your time if you want to educate yourself on this wholly unique American travesty.

If you would like a condensed version, here is a video of Charlie Rose interviewing Mr. Brill on his PBS show:  http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/12792

The specific words from Mr. Brill in that Charlie Rose interview which really blew The Gadfly's mind were - "health care (in America today) is not a marketplace . . . there is nothing free about that market."  Those devastating words were meant to shove a big fat fist down the throats of the "free market" shills and their perpetually wrong visions of sugar plums and free market fairies who take care of and fix everything all of the time.

That being said, and more than anything, the thing that is truly fucking infuriating to The Gadfly about this horrible, yet totally preventable, health care crisis is that according to a 2009 study from the American Journal of Public Health, approximately 45,000 American citizens needlessly die every year for the sole reason of lack of basic, affordable health care.  Think about that - that is the equivalent death count of nearly 1 and a half 9/11 terror attacks every month of the year all year long.  That also equates to, if you care to do the additional math, since 9/11, 2001 -- 540,000 U.S. lives lost because of our high-priced, inaccessible (for too many) health care system.  That is more casualties than the U.S. suffered in WWI, WWII and the Korean War combined!  The Gadfly cannot even wrap his dirty fucking hippie mind around the sorrowful reality of this inhumanity and it truly makes him question whether America has the right anymore to claim the moral high ground on any issue as it pertains to human rights and human dignity.

Suffice to say that until the people of this country grow a collective spine and stop buying in to the lies and bullshit spoon fed to them from the likes of our current crop of bought and paid for politicians and the corporate scum and demand change or else -- things will go on as they are and eventually the whole house of cards will crumble in on itself.  And if folks think we're in a world of shit now, you haven't seen anything yet.

Read Brill's article and share it.  Educate yourself and then speak out.


----TFG

Funny Shit The Gadfly Couldn't Possibly Make Up Even After Ingesting a Handful of Magic Mushrooms . . .

The Gadfly wryly observes that there are simply times when the conservanut's own actions unilaterally write the comedy material with which comedians much superior to The Gadfly employ gleefully to mock them with.

Observe:

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — A panel at the Conservative Political Action Committee on Republican minority outreach exploded into controversy on Friday afternoon, after an audience member defended slavery as good for African-Americans.

The exchange occurred after an audience member from North Carolina, 30-year-old Scott Terry, asked whether Republicans could endorse races remaining separate but equal. After the presenter, K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans, answered by referencing a letter by Frederick Douglass forgiving his former master, the audience member said “For what? For feeding him and housing him?” Several people in the audience cheered and applauded Terry’s outburst.

After the exchange, Terry muttered under his breath, “why can’t we just have segregation?”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/15/1729331/cpac-slavery-minority-outreach/

Keep in mind that this nasty little fracas occurred at a TeaBagger (Tea Party Patriots) sponsored session where the goal was to educate conservative activists on how to court more black voters to their cause.

 Doh! . . . . . (as The Gadfly awaits you the reader's guffawing to subside) . . . .  Yep - overt racism on full display at a conference aimed at getting more minority (specifically black) voters to support conservatism and it's policies.

The unfunny part of this episode though is that this does not shock The Gadfly in the least.  The Gadfly has recognized the seedy undercurrent of bigotry in the Tea Party movement from the day they appeared on the national scene, which not so coincidentally, coincides with the days shortly after America's first African American President was elected to the Presidency of this great nation.

But at least they are beginning to admit openly now what one of the core tenets of their movement is and The Gadfly for one hopes they keep doing so - for the more that mainstream America sees up close and personal what these assholes are truly all about, the quicker they can be made irrelevant and the rest of the country can get on with the business with doing what's best for the national interest as a whole.


----TFG

Things That Make The Gadfly Want to Ram Kabob Skewers Through His Eyeballs . . .

The mortifying idiocy just never stops with these people:

March 08, 2013 12:00 am  •  Associated Press(60) Comments

PHOENIX - Religious organizations would qualify for new property tax exemptions under legislation being considered by the Arizona House of Representatives.

The measure would allow churches to avoid taxes on property used for activities other than religious worship.

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Justin Olson, said the current religious-exemption law has resulted in many lawsuits because county property assessors don't have clear guidance on which organizations qualify for the exemptions.

Proponents say the proposed overhaul will allow churches to avoid property taxes on vacant lots that could eventually be turned into worship centers.

But critics say the proposed expansion could result in tax fraud because it would allow any religious organization to claim exemptions on property not used for worship.

The measure would remove worship as the central criteria for religious groups qualifying for property-tax exemptions. Under the expansion, religious associations or institutions would be protected from property taxes so long as the property isn't used for profit. Student dormitories, staff housing and shelters would be spared from taxation.

Critics say the measure would allow groups posing as religious organizations to expand their for-profit land holdings on the cheap. Under the measure, any group that calls itself religious could sit on undeveloped lots for years without paying taxes.

http://azstarnet.com/business/local/proposed-law-gives-churches-tax-break/article_dd6f13d0-5ed9-5fa3-8722-316ccb995dc2.html


The Gadfly is not surprised in the least that it is a conservative Republican lawmaker who's flogging this wholly insipid measure to coddle the religionist crowd even more than they already are.

Can anyone coherently explain to The Gadfly how allowing any group who fancies themselves a "religious organization" to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes is not an unconstitutional slap in the face to other non-profit organizations who don't claim a religious charter, yet must pay taxes on their property holdings?

The Gadfly believes that if laws like these are allowed to exist then everyone and their proverbial mother will be organizing small groups and claiming that they are "religious organizations" to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

The Gadfly has long, long, long advocated for taxing all religious organizations as businesses.  And taxing them fairly.  Religion pulls in big money and they are the only ones not held accountable for demonstrating what they are doing with that money.

TAX RELIGION.  TAX THEM FAIR.  TAX THEM NOW!



----TFG

Things That Make The Gadfly Want To Rip Out His Own Intestines With A Fondue Fork . . .

The Gadfly, while channel surfing his local vast wasteland today, discovered irrefutable proof that America's news media truly has thrown in the towel on it's duty to inform and report news that is important to the long term survival of democratic principles in this country.

Take a look at this picture and note the CNN time slot at 6:00pm highlighted in yellow:

Upon CNN's inception in the early days, a time when The Gadfly actually had some respect for Ted Turner's vision of a 24 hour cable NEWS network, the channel's signature slogan has been "The Worldwide Leader In News!"

As you can see by the photo of The Gadfly's cable lineup from earlier today, CNN has come a long, long way from being a pioneering stalwart of the fourth estate to joining the putrid ranks of the rest of the vast wasteland by dedicating a whole hour on it's channel and giving a name to that hour program to an accused murderer, Jodi Arias.  The Arias murder trial case is nothing special, except for the fact that is full of lurid details - everything from the victim being a Mormon LDS member to relationship betrayal, to possibly forced anal sex to eventually a violently bloody murder.

Yes indeed ladies and gentlemen -- IT'S THE JODI ARIAS SHOW -- ON CNN! -- cha, cha, cha!!

Gather the children around the TV set after dinner folks and find out the latest on this fascinating human interest story!  A story that is more important to American's lives than the political chicanery and treachery in Congress that could potentially destroy a shaky economic recovery from a multi-year recession that has devastated many family's financial futures in this country and left Wall Street and Banking criminals off the hook to laugh their way all the way to their own banks and back.  A story more important than getting to the bottom of the truth as to why America was lied in to one unnecessary war and while that one was beginning to fall apart went and started another unnecessary war.  A story more important than a crushing majority of the world's foremost climate scientists giving ominous warnings to governments around the world of the accelerating effects of man's industrial activities on the earth's fragile eco-system and it's now near-term prognostications of how these effects will not only upset the delicate balance of the world's natural order, but also will have mortal consequences for the human race on whole.

Oh Yes - tune in folks to THE JODI ARIAS SHOW -- ON CNN! because "The Worldwide Leader In News!" believes murder mixed with lurid sex is what passes for news these days and as long as they have enough hollow-eyed, slack-jawed human slugs to push up the peg counts in The Nielsen ratings, life is just fucking dandy.

So let's get that fondue pot a cookin' shall we --- whaddya' say hmmmm?

----TFG

STOP PAYING FOR YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE! Don't You Silly Americans Know You Can Get Free Care at Your Local Hospital ER?? Duhhhh!! . . .

The Gadfly did not need a prominent progressive blog to tell him that medical services rendered via a hospital's emergency room are ridiculously costly and much more so than if an individual had a robust health insurance plan that actually was designed to do what it is supposed to do:

The rising cost of medical services is driving up the price of health care throughout the industry. There’s perhaps no better illustration of that phenomenon than hospitals’ emergency departments, since ER trips are the most expensive type of health care delivery. In fact, a new NIH-funded study finds the average cost for an ER visit was over $2,000 — about 40 percent more than most people spend on their rent each month.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/01/1659021/average-er-trip/


But then again that is what Republicans have been flogging as a feasible health care plan repeatedly over the past few years as they try to destroy the fledgling (PPACA) Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) before even the most cost saving provisions kick in in 2014.

Prominent GOP'ers such as Rep. Paul Broun and Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant are on the record as stating that "all" Americans have health care because they can just show up at their nearest hospital emergency room and be attended to:




Hell - even failed (thankfully) 2012 Republican Presidential nominee Willard Romney was touting this idiocy in his effort to defeat Barack Obama:

WASHINGTON -- Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured.

"Well, we do provide care for people who don't have insurance," he said in an interview with Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night. "If someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/mitt-romney-60-minutes-health-care_n_1908129.html


That's one of those "bold" new leadership ideas that the conservanuts tried to foist upon America in the last election.  Fortunately a majority of Americans rejected it outright.

But The Gadfly wonders exactly what are we to make of this foolishness when one of the major political parties in the country is so fucking insane and radical in their thinking where their view that exorbitant care dished out on the fly in hospital emergency/trauma rooms is a viable form of "health care?"  How is it that we as a nation are not just simply laughing these ignorant and uncaring morons out of the national discussion on the critical issue of the very real health care crisis that exists and is worsening in this country?

While The Gadfly feels that the PPACA falls far short of the benefits that a single-payer or national health care plan would provide Americans, there is no doubt, except in the feeble brains of these neanderthals on the right, that at the blind rate that we are going with our present bloated and costly for profit system, it is just a matter of time before the whole house of cards that it is implodes in upon itself.

So The Gadfly begs those of you who are sane enough to understand this stuff - the next time you hear some right winger mindlessly bashing Obamacare, ask them what their solution is - and if it is anything like the solution that the Paul Brouns and the Phil Bryants and the Willard Romneys of the world are advocating - just laugh out loud in their faces - let some spittle fly to underscore your scorn.  Perhaps collectively humiliating these cretins on a regular basis and denying them a seat at the table of the national discussion on the issue will result in some progress on solving the health care nightmare that all too many Americans have faced, are facing or at some point in their lives will undoubtedly face.


----TFG

We Got Your Fucking Sequester Right Here Beyotch!!

The Gadfly strongly urges anyone who is sincerely interested in the recovery of the American economy and the return to prosperity and vitality that has made us the most powerful democracy and capitalist engine in the world to read this piece by Robert Borosage.

It is absolutely the clearest and most accurate analysis of what this whole fucked up situation, known as "the sequester" is all about.

Pay particular attention to the part where Borosage methodically ticks off the list of "unsustainable imbalances" that have contributed directly to our nation's current Great Recession.  It goes without saying that the preponderance of the blame in Borosage's view (and The Gadfly adamantly concurs) lies squarely at the feet of the whack job GOP and their lunatic wing - The Tea Party.

To put this in some form of coherent, layman's perspective, The Gadfly will state this for the record.  The Gadfly is more than willing to concede the obvious - that President Obama shoulders his own share of blame for this sequester clusterfuckery.  Having said that, The Gadfly sees the situation as such - - think of the sequester as a stick of dynamite.  Obama, in his never ending haggling with the intransigent, reactionary Republicans, pulled the stick of dynamite out of his pocket and waved it in warning under their noses.  And the Republicans have now done the unthinkable - they have purposely lit the fuse of the stick of dynamite, snatched it from Obama's hands, and tossed it through an open window into the American people's house, which one can view as the equivalent of the slowly but surely growing national economic recovery.

Poll after national poll indicates the American people are much more distrusting of the Republican party to manage this country's economic affairs and implement policies that result in doing the most good for the most people.  If the wingnuts are truly of the belief that blowing up the fragile recovery and sending the economy back into the deep recesses of a second recession is a fantastic and wonderful idea, than all The Gadfly can say is that he hopes the fallout becomes the worst case scenario.  The Gadfly actually hopes that not just a return to recession but the beginning of a full blown depression will be triggered.  For if anything is going to teach the hard headed American people a fucking unforgettable and painful lesson as to who's side the modern day Republican party is on and actually gives a shit about, there's nothing like a 1920's style depression, a stock market crash and 30% national unemployment rate to get such a point across.  For the most important outcome of such a period of national pain and misery would be the permanent destruction of right wing conservatism - particularly the virulent strain which permeates and dominates the mindset of the modern day GOP.  That outcome, in and of itself, would be the saving grace for the long term perseverance of this Great American democratic experiment.

Therefore, in conflict with his most inner feelings of humanity and hope, The Gadfly implores the GOP -- GO FOR IT!  JUMP YOU FUCKERS!!


----TFG

Got a Bead on him JimBob??? FIRE!

From the 'You can't make this shit up files.'

Officials in Texas announced on Thursday that State Troopers would no longer be allowed to open fire on suspects from helicopters after the recent killing of two immigrants.

"Why Rhett I do declare!"  "That's mighty fucking white of you boys!!"

The Gadfly is not surprised that prior to this new legislation, Texas was the only state in the union that allowed law enforcement officers to shoot fleeing immigrants from a helicopter.  Big game is big game right?  An immigrant's head blown off is the same as a nice set of antlers right?

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/22/texas-bans-shooting-immigrants-from-helicopters/


The Gadfly knows that there are a great many good people in the south - and yes - even in Texas.  Hopefully they will multiply and at some soon future time the good people will outnumber the fucking hateful assholes and this country can get on with the business of being a model democracy that the rest of the world aspires to emulate.



----TFG

Republican-to-be in training . . .

The Gadfly rarely states 100% certainty about anything, but in this case it is simply a no-brainer.

The Gadfly most definitely sees a bright future as a GOP politician, or just as likely - a Fox News pundit, in this cute little bugger's future:






----TFG

Birth of the Aper Movement . . .

Priceless!

The Gadfly cannot express his thankfulness deeply enough to comedian Bill Maher for his relentless crusade to publicly humiliate one of the biggest assholes and most smug pricks to ever disgrace the face of the planet - Donald Trump.

Watch the beauty of seeing The Donald quartered and drawn and then his torso less head hoisted on a pike by Maher - - and marvel at the skill with which it is done:



BADA BING! BADA BOOM!!



----TFG

America - Teach Your Children Well . . . For Democracy's Sake

The Gadfly is in no way surprised by this and in fact, along with other observers who saw the writing on the wall years ago, more or less predicted it:

The charter school movement gained a foothold in American education two decades ago partly by asserting that independently run, publicly financed schools would outperform traditional public schools if they were exempted from onerous regulations. The charter advocates also promised that unlike traditional schools, which were allowed to fail without consequence, charter schools would be rigorously reviewed and shut down when they failed to perform.

With thousands of charter schools now operating in 40 states, and more coming online every day, neither of these promises has been kept. Despite a growing number of studies showing that charter schools are generally no better — and often are worse — than their traditional counterparts, the state and local agencies and organizations that grant the charters have been increasingly hesitant to shut down schools, even those that continue to perform abysmally for years on end.

If the movement is to maintain its credibility, the charter authorizers must shut down failed schools quickly and limit new charters to the most credible applicants, including operators who have a demonstrated record of success.

That is the clear message of continuing analysis from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, which tracks student performance in 25 states. In 2009, its large-scale study showed that only 17 percent of charter schools provided a better education than traditional schools, and 37 percent actually offered children a worse education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/opinion/more-lessons-about-charter-schools.html?_r=0

The Gadfly always saw the push for the privatization of education as nothing more than an ideological attack from the right wing on the constitutional mandate of a secular (no religious interference) taxpayer funded education system.

The right wing fundamentalist crowd are not satisfied with the idea of a secular public education system having a say in teaching America's children.  Ironic considering that they do have the choice of enrolling their children in religious institutions of their choice or home schooling them.  But since their goal is to proselytize every aspect of American culture and society to conform to their own right wing Christian world view, secular education in their eyes is a monstrosity that must be destroyed and thus the rapid rise of the privatization profiteers in the arena of K-12 education.

One look at the backgrounds of the people at the core of the movement to privatize K-12 education will reveal an unsurprising amalgamation of fundamentalist religious organizations and corporate entities, who not wanting to miss out on a chance to snatch up government (state and federal) subsidies that are (wrongly) being handed out like candy, have snuggled up to the religious right with the vision of dollar signs dancing in their heads - yet with nary a concern for the quality of education being provided to the children being funneled into these schools.

Unfortunately many Americans, convinced by the hackneyed religious nuts and the hucksters in the right wing media that the bad old public educators are reeling in $100k salaries and living high off the union hog, have uncritically and unthinkingly bought into the lies and the privatizing schemes hook, line and sinker.  The problem is - and one need not be a rocket scientist to arrive at this conclusion - that if the statistics borne out in this study have any degree of accuracy to them, it does not bode well for the long term economic prospects of the dumbed-down alumni that are being churned in an assembly line manner out of these severely deficient "learning" academies - which in turn does not bode well for an expanding American economy trying to compete on an intellectual level with up and coming economic powers like China and Europe in the global economic arena.

The Gadfly believes the solution is two-fold and straightforward - if the privateers want to keep their schools as viable alternatives to public education institutions that is fine, however, they then must be held to the same rigorous testing and and performance standards as public schools are.  The privateers need to demonstrate their seriousness in this area by quickly identifying the failing schools under their purvey and either correcting the problems at those schools or closing them down quickly.

In addition - on the public education side of the coin - adequate funding of public education must take precedent in our national spending priorities.  Take some of that tax payer money that is being gambled away on unnecessary wars, corporate welfare, and wasteful defense spending and shift those funds to shoring up the foundation of our free public education infrastructure as well as streamlining and standardizing testing and performance goals nationwide.

If the leaders of this country believe that the wholesale destruction of one of the crown jewels of the greatest democracy experiment in the history of mankind -free public education - and the privatization of that noble enterprise - is going to allow America to continue competing at the top of the ladder among other emerging economic powerhouses around the world -- they better pull their collective noodle heads out of their asses and start talking to people who do not have a for profit self interest in such matters -- such as public educators and people at high levels of American enterprise who are products of our, admittedly flawed, but overall very successful public education system.


----TFG