Change and . . . . Hope? . . . Whatever . . . .

Dear readers - no doubt you'll notice a change in the layout of The Gadfly's shitty little blog.  Lest it ever be stated that The Gadfly is monotonously set in his ways and on the verge of stale conformity.

Translation:  The Gadfly likes change on occasion.  Keeps things interesting and fresh.

If you don't like the new look, The Gadfly does not give a rat's ass.  Go get your own shitty little blog if you want to be an art or blog aesthetics critic.

And if you do like it - your taste is to be commended.

And with that said -- Onward ho!! . . . . .



----TFG

$33,000 To Change the Bed Sheet on an Ambulance Gurney . . . . That's Your Health Care System America . . . .

Not like The Gadfly required any additional evidence supporting one of his numerous charges in the previous post that conservatives have been miserably fucking wrong about the state of America's health care system, but you truly need to read this article dear readers --- to gain a clear understanding of exactly how much more worse it is than any of you realize:

Before any X-ray was taken, any blood collected, any medicine delivered to his broken body, crash victim Eric Leonhard was charged $32,767 just to pass through the doors of a Fort Pierce trauma center. • The bill was not for the surgery Leonhard needed to piece together his shattered pelvis. In fact, after exactly 40 minutes, doctors decided to transfer him because they didn't have the right specialist for the job. So they loaded Leonhard onto a helicopter and sent him to another hospital on Florida's east coast. • Lawnwood Regional Medical Center still charged Leonhard, an uninsured tour boat captain, nearly $1,000 for every minute he spent with the medical team that couldn't fix him. • Every day in Florida, injured people face the same kind of outrageous entry fees because they are taken to a state-designated trauma center. • With virtually no government oversight, these specialized hospitals can charge what they want, when they want, with little chance of being flagged for profiteering. • Patients have no clue about the fees until they get their bill. • In 2002, a national committee lobbied by the industry authorized hospitals to charge a "trauma response fee" — essentially a cover charge — when a patient goes to a trauma center. Hospitals set their fees, which are supposed to help offset the high costs of specialists and specialized equipment needed to save the most critically injured. •But a yearlong Tampa Bay Times investigation has found that hospitals are exploiting the fee, charging large sums even to patients whose injuries require little more than first aid.

The Times analyzed more than 10 million patient billing records, examined extensive court records and interviewed dozens of patients.

The analysis — the first of its kind — found that, since 2006, Florida trauma centers have charged at least 120,000 patients the trauma fee. The average fee today tops $10,000; the most expensive hospital regularly charges $33,000.

The Times found that it didn't matter if a patient had a minor cut or a severed leg.

A cyclist with road rash was charged $12,500 in Palm Beach County. After a car crash, a teenage girl who spent two hours in a Gainesville hospital with back pain was charged $9,835. An uninsured Pasco County woman was charged $33,000 even though she only needed someone to treat superficial cuts.

All of these patients — and thousands more like them — were charged more in trauma fees than for their actual medical care.

The collective cost is staggering. Since 2010, patients have been charged more than half a billion dollars in trauma fees, enough to pay the average hospital charges of more than 4,500 gunshot victims or to give every Floridian a flu shot.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/florida-trauma-centers-charge-outrageous-fees-the-moment-you-come-through/2169148?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter


The Gadfly is seriously trying to wrap his old hippie brain around this madness.  So the way The Gadfly understands this deal in Florida - if you experience an "act of God" catastrophe in your life, such as an automobile accident, and you are unlucky enough to be carted in to one of these unregulated, for profit trauma centers, you can be charged $33,000 dollars by simply laying on a gurney in their emergency room until you are shipped off to another hospital for care?

Call The Gadfly crazy if you must dear readers, but if this article is true, then The Gadfly firmly believes some motherfuckers ought to be sitting in and rotting away in federal prison cells for this.  This is beyond outrageous.  It is immoral.  It is monstrous.  And it most certainly should be criminal.  And yet this is the system that conservatives keep telling us is wonderful and shouldn't be tinkered with.

All The Gadfly can say is that after reading this article, if you are still of the belief that the legacy, conservative favored health care system from which the abominable stories in this article were spawned from, is the greatest system in the world -- please, for the sake of your family and yourself -- seek out urgent mental health treatment -- for you are simply much too delusional to be walking around the streets unsupervised.



----TFG

Where Being Right Equates to Perennially Being Wrong . . . .

Another case of - "Have the conservatives ever been right about fucking anything?"

Observe:

When Washington residents voted in 1998 to raise the state’s minimum wage and link it to the cost of living, opponents warned the measure would be a job-killer. The prediction hasn’t been borne out.

In the 15 years that followed, the state’s minimum wage climbed to $9.32 -- the highest in the country. Meanwhile job growth continued at an average 0.8 percent annual pace, 0.3 percentage point above the national rate. Payrolls at Washington’s restaurants and bars, portrayed as particularly vulnerable to higher wage costs, expanded by 21 percent. Poverty has trailed the U.S. level for at least seven years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-05/washington-shows-highest-minimum-wage-state-beats-u-s-with-jobs.html



Hmmm -- so you mean that modest increases in the minimum wage, and which are linked to the cost of living index, do not kill jobs - and in fact actually enhance the overall health of the economy?  But the right wing conservatives and the Fox "News" people keep telling The Gadfly that ANY increase in the minimum wage is going to destroy the economy and decimate job creation.

They couldn't possibly be wrong - could they?

The Gadfly is truly tiring of this routine.  Time after time, after time again, conservative economic policies are blown to pieces by this strange concept that The Gadfly likes to call ---- FUCKING REALITY!  And yet, it seems that no matter how often the right's policies are proven to be unsubstantiated by anything resembling facts or evidence, they just dismiss it out of hand and move on to the next policy issue for which they also likely will be proven wrong about.

And frankly, if it were only economic policies for which they are colossal failures at, The Gadfly might be inclined to be a bit less pissy about it all.

But the truth of the matter is that for the last 40 years, these unrepentant assholes have been miserably fucking wrong about nearly everything.  Wrong about Saint Reagan's trickle-down economics.  Wrong about de-regulation benefiting consumers.  Wrong about trading arms to the Iranians to fund secret Central American wars.  Wrong about supporting the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, thus giving rise to The Taliban.  They were miserably and tragically fucking wrong about rejecting recommendations to focus on Osama Bin Laden in favor of planning an Iraq invasion.  They were miserably fucking wrong about lying to the American people about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's (non-existent) role in 9/11.  They were wrong about escalating the Afghanistan conflict instead of getting out after defeating the Taliban.  They were wrong about how the world would respond to America torturing prisoners of war.  They were wrong about the American health care system being just fine the way it is.  They were wrong about the deficit which skyrocketed on their watch.  They were wrong about Politicization of the Justice Department.  They were wrong about their approach in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath.  They were wrong about believing that a long-term national energy policy should be based almost exclusively on oil, gas and coal.  They were wrong about allowing investment banks and Wall Street police themselves.  They were wrong about bailing the investment banks and Wall Street out after their criminal activities tanked the world economy and initiated a world-wide recession.  They were wrong about Sarah fucking Palin.  They were wrong about Thurston Romney Howell III and Paul Granny Starver Ryan.  They were wrong about believing the Tea Party was a true grass roots movement and not a bunch of recycled John Birchers and cynical political tools funded by right wing billionaire industrialists like the Koch Brothers and their ilk.

The Gadfly could provide supporting links for every one of those charges of being wrong, but they are so numerous, he simply does not have the inclination to spend the next hour doing so.

The Gadfly really dislikes compiling lists, but in this case, he wanted to effectively point out exactly what kind of abject failures that American right wing conservatives have been over the past four decades, and for which a predominant share of the blame can be assigned to for our nation's present day circumstances.

Let's face it -- if The Gadfly were a casino gambler and had consistently placed his money on the conservatives being on the winning side of each of those issues listed above, The Gadfly would be a destitute bum, roaming the back alleys of the Vegas strip, dumpster diving for his next meal.

Wake up folks!  If you are a conservative, it really is time for a bit of inward looking honesty and to ask yourself why it is that you keep backing such chronic and pathetic losers.

Raise the minimum wage to $10 or more an hour.  Then watch while America prospers and the conservatives scramble to find yet another progressive championed policy issue to be miserably fucking wrong about.



----TFG

Hellish . . . .

Well, The Gadfly had an eventful Sunday evening dear readers - one which will stick in his memory for some time to come.

The Gadfly's next-door neighbor's home caught fire and burned to the ground.  Thankfully there were no lives lost, but it was a tragedy for the family and they are dealing as best they can with the aftermath today.

The Gadfly was the first on scene upon hearing desperate cries for help, however the fire was so intense and spreading so rapidly that The Gadfly's little home fire extinguisher and water hose were no match and we all were all pretty much left standing and watching the place burn down while waiting for the local FD to arrive.  It's an experience that truly leaves a shitty feeling in the pit of your stomach and one which The Gadfly is not eager to experience again any time soon.

But the family, whose home it was, seems in good spirits today as they count their blessings that nobody was harmed, and are diligently picking through their scorched belongings in an attempt to salvage what they can.

It really does underscore the fact that yeah, pretty bad shit happens in life, and some times it happens so quickly that there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

Here's the during and after pics.

The Gadfly isn't a praying man, but for those of you who are, feel free to kick one in for these folks with hopes of a quick recovery.



----TFG

What an Unmitigated, Abject Fucking Embarrassment This Horrifying Woman is to This Country . . .

The Gadfly was going to put up a post about Caribou Barbie's event closing speech at the conservative's Monkey Poo Flingathon, er . . . The Gadfly means CPAC convention, in Washington today, however since Esquire's Charlie Pierce was live blogging from ground zero of Monkey Land, The Gadfly will allow him the honor of reporting on, what The Gadfly can only describe as, one of the most embarrassingly ugly, sneering, juvenile and intellectually and spiritually bankrupt political speeches to ever be considered culturally relevant by the mainstream media.  And of course - the conservative hyenas in attendance fell in love all over again with the failed Vice Presidential contender, failed Governor, failed reality television star and failed human being - Princess Dumbass of the Northwoods.

Take it away Charlie Pierce (printed in it's entirety for your reading pleasure dear readers):

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- By now, and by god, it should have settled permanently in the consciousness of the nation what a huge and untoward gamble with the country John McCain and his campaign took in 2008 when they elevated Sarah Palin from her rightful place on the tundra to the political celebrity she currently enjoys. McCain should pay a heavy price for unleashing this ignorant, two-wheeled bilewagon on the country's politics. If you think she's a legitimate political leader, you're an idiot and a sucker and I feel sorry for you.

Yesterday she gave a wildly received speech to ring down the curtain at CPAC. The applause, as far as I know, may still be going on. It was as singularly embarrassing a public address as any allegedly sentient primate ever has delivered. It was a disgrace to politics, to rhetoric, to the English language, and to seventh-grade slam books everywhere.  

This ambulatiory bag of rank resentment pulled out all the tricks. The cheap shots; "Aw, John, why the long face?" to the Secretary of State. The sneering, wheedling playground taunting -- "You can't make a phone call without Michelle Obama knowing, 'This is the third time this week you dialed Pizza Hut Delivery'" -- and a full panoply of funny voices that are the trademark of dipshit comics in every two-drink minimum club in America. We got "hope and channng-ey," and how "some members" of the GOP establishment are saying to us, "Hush, America. Go to sleep, little lambs." And, in what is being celebrated as thepiece de resistance , she turned Green Eggs And Ham into an extended taunt.

"I do not like this spyin' man, I do not like ‘Oh, yes we can,' I do not like this kind of hope, and we won't take it nope, nope, nope."

(Dr. Seuss, a noted progressive, was having dry heaves in the Void.)

If you laughed, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

"There is no free birth control. There is no free phone. There is no free health care. There are no free Fritos. There is no free lunch."

Says a woman who's been on the grift full time for five years now, and who did, in fact, manage to work in a plug for her next inevitably cancelled television show, citing "the places where most of the people who do the working and tax-paying live...and that's where you'll find... AMAZING AMERICA!" The folks at the Very Big Fish Channel or whatever it is must be thrilled.

We even got the inevitable gloat. Back five years ago, somebody wrote down on a little card for her that allowing the Russians to invade Georgia -- as though there was anything we could have done about that -- would embolden Vladimir Putin to move on Ukraine. She dutifully read it in public and now, of course, she is the smartest geopolitical mind in the country.

"After all, who could have seen this one coming?"  

In 2008, we should remember, she wasn't sure how many Koreas there were, thought Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, and was unclear whether or not Africa was a country.  So, in an act of Christian charity, I will grant that some anonymous staffer, who very likely has only now recovered from the serious heroin habit he developed while working with Palin on foreign policy in 2008, was slightly clairvoyant about the intentions of the Putin government. Well done, unsung hero. If you respect her knowledge of anything beyond where her next speaking fee is coming from, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

A friend bailed on the speech, making the very plausible case that Palin is simply another political celebrity freakshow, like Donald Trump. I can see the point there but, with Palin, and watching the hysterical reception her puerile screed received, there is something more serious going on. She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country's reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children. If you applauded, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/sarah-palin-cpac-2014-030814


As Charlie observed - every thing one needs to know about just how shallow, how spiteful, how contemptuous, how mealy-mouthed and how arrogant these right wing Teabaggers are could be deduced from watching Palin's cackling ode to absurd philistinism today.  Lord help this country should these intemperate jackals ever gain full political power over this nation's governing affairs.



----TFG

What? The Blackface Barbershop Quartet Wasn't Available for Entertainment? Well There's The Problem Right There . . . . .

Take a wild guess at identifying where and what the following photo is all about dear readers:

[ click to enlarge ]

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/gop-threw-minority-outreach-party-cpac

That is the meeting hall at the CPAC convention in Washington, DC today and there is actually a conference/seminar going on at the moment that photo was taken.

Care to venture what the subject matter was of this seminar?

If you're drinking any hot liquids - please swallow them now so as not to snort it out your nostrils amidst howls of laughter as The Gadfly reveals the answer . . . . . . . . . .

That photo dear readers is of the meeting hall where the GOP was holding a conference on how the Republicans and Tea Party can extend their outreach to American minority voters.

Lol.

Rumor has it that Ted Nugent and George Zimmerman were the headlining keynote speakers.




----TFG

Sigh . . . . Maybe We'll Get Lucky The Next Trip Around . . . . . .

Opportunities squandered!  Damn!

By Adam Poulisse, Pasadena Star-News
POSTED: 03/07/14, 7:30 PM PST | UPDATED: 1 HR AGO

Whether they’re whizzing by in one piece, or breaking into several small parts past Mars, asteroids have been a source of fascination for astronomers over the last few months thanks to advancing technology.

Scientists noticed three asteroids of various sizes glide past Earth this week, and are still learning about an asteroid that inexplicably broke apart over the last few months.

On Wednesday, a 100-foot-wide and a 25-foot-wide asteroid zipped by Earth. On Thursday, another asteroid, also about 25 feet wide, skirted by the bottom of the Earth. All three were within the distance of the moon, according to Paul Chodas, senior scientist in the Near-Earth Object program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“It was a flurry of close approaches within a couple of days,” he said.

The three asteroids are not in the same orbit and are unrelated.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/science/20140307/three-asteroids-zoom-by-earth-this-week


Three completely random asteroids flit by our planet in the same week, and not one of them has the courtesy to fall on top of Tea Party Headquarters?

The Gadfly may have to re-evaluate his previously rock solid support for the sciences.



----TFG

** NOTICE & DISCLAIMER **

Some of you dear readers who might be frequent visitors to this shitty little blog, may have noticed the shiny new PayPal Donate button at the top of the right hand column of the blog.

Allow The Gadfly to explain.

First off -- rest assured that The Gadfly does not need your money to subsist.  Even though his personal finances are probably just as much of a train wreck as any other harried American, he emphatically states that he is not, in any sense, staring into the abyss of economic destitution.

The Gadfly added the button there for anyone who is of the sincere belief that the time and effort that The Gadfly puts in to this shitty little blog, for whatever it is worth and for what he is attempting to do with it, is even marginally important, and might possibly be worth at least the cost of your daily Yum Yum donut and cup of coffee.

That is the sum totality of the motive - nothing more, nothing less.

The only promise that The Gadfly will make is that, with or without donations, he will continue to ferret out the stories worth posting about - and especially those stories where the opportunity exists to expose the right wing conservatives for the extremists and democracy haters that they are.

So go ahead, click and donate if it tickles your fancy (Hint: you do not need a PayPal account to do so - if using credit card - and if you want to sign up for a PayPal account, it's free).

Having said what he needed to say -- if you simply think that The Gadfly is just whoring his self out for weekend booze money, that's your prerogative, and quite frankly The Gadfly wouldn't blame you for thinking such a thing considering the amount of flim-flammery that permeates the intertoobz these days.  Regardless, he hopes you at least keep coming back to visit and continue sharing the postings.

And that is about all that The Gadfly has to say on this sordid matter.




----TFG

One Tin Soldier Rides Away . . . . . .

The progressive blogging world has lost a giant.

Bartcop, who was one of the original (and best) liberal bloggers, died today.

This is the end of an era. Bartcop, one of the original liberal bloggers, died this morning of flu, pneumonia and leukemia. He inspired many of us, and left a legacy of hard hitting yet humorous funny as hell attacks on Republicans. I'm still stunned by the news, but the one thing that sticks out is, he was the first (and maybe the best) blogger for running Photoshop memes.

God, I loved him.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/03/last-word-bartcop


When The Gadfly first became aware of what the Republicans were trying to do with their Clinton impeachment chicanery, The Gadfly became fairly enraged and so he began using this fairly new thing called the internet to see if he could find out more information and to also see if other people out there were just as disgusted as The Gadfly was about what was going on.  In his searching, The Gadfly stumbled across Bartcop's blog, long before The Gadfly even knew what the fuck a "blog" was.

The guy was just devastatingly funny in his posts, most especially when he was responding to the hate-filled, right-wing e-mails (a reoccurring bit he called "Monkey Mail") that he would constantly get and which he would publish on his page, with point-by-point retorts.  Some of those exchanges were so outrageously hilarious, that they would have The Gadfly practically falling out of his executive office chair, doubled up in gut wrenching laughter as he read them.

The Gadfly instantly fell in love with the guy's blog and it inspired him one day, years later, to even start up his own shitty little rant page.

Anyhow - RIP Bart.  The Gadfly knows there will be many, including his self, who will pick up your hammer and keep swinging away at the insidiousness of right wing extremism.

**UPDATE:  blogger TBogg at Raw Story has a nice farewell tribute to Bart:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/07/r-i-p-bartcop-the-passing-of-a-modem-a-smart-mouth-and-the-truth/




----TFG

Sure Hope He is Wearing His Simian Feces Repellent Trench Coat . . . .

Apparently Charlie Pierce is actually in Washington DC attending the Monkey-Poo Flingathon, er - The Gadfly means - the conservative's CPAC convention.

And you just know he would have something to say about the zombie-eyed Granny starver from Wisconsin Paul Ryan and his oafish attempt today to demonize school lunches for America's poor kids.  The Gadfly feels it is worth publishing Pierce's observation of Ryan's smarmy snake-oil peddling in it's entirety right here on the pages of his own shitty little blog.

Enjoy:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from Wisconsin, and First Runner-up in our most recent Vice Presidential Pageant, has left a trail of cheap tricks behind him here. In his speech yesterday, Ryan told a charming story, which he said he'd heard from an aide to Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin. It was about a little boy who turned down a free school lunch because he wanted one in a paper bag because that, according to Paul Ryan and his brimming big baby blues, would mean that someone cared for him.

"She once met a young boy from a very poor family, and every day at school, he would get a free lunch from a government program," Ryan said. "He told Eloise he didn't want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids," he continued. "He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand."

There was not a lick of truth in anything Ryan said.

The author of "An Invisible Thread," Laurie Schroff, spoke with the Huffington Post about Ryan's CPAC remarks and the origins of Anderson's anecdote. She asserted that her book was not "political" and disagreed with Ryan's "full stomach and an empty soul" comment. "I want people to think about what they can do to make the world a kinder world," Schroff said. "I don't care about Republicans and Democrats. But we are talking about children that need to be fed. Cutting school lunch programs doesn't accomplish that."

Biggest. Fake. Alive.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-brown-bag-cpac-story-030714

"Biggest.  Fake.  Alive."

Which is precisely what attracted Mitt Romney to him to begin with.  Because charlatans, like birds of a feather, do flock together.

[ click to enlarge ]

----TFG