brainiac conspiracy

They Really Should Mint That Coin

Because the crazy people are going to vote to shut down the government unless Team Democrat acts preemptively to shut down the debate here and now. Constitutional crisis? Perhaps. But if the President is willing to risk sparking one with Congress over unlimited spying powers, why not take the same tack to defend the government's credit rating? Yes, the crazy people will foam at the mouth and take to the Twittersphere to call for impeachment-by-hashtag, and the VSPs will fret why Obama can't compromise with Republicans over the deficit which is our Worst Crisis Ever---but most people outside of Washington will simply go on with their lives as though nothing had happened. That's because most people don't understand how this fiscal shit works, and they don't care to know so long as their 401(k)s are making money, their pensions are sound, the interest on their mortgage stays low, and their jobs are reasonably secure. What people care about, in other words, isn't process but outcomes. And minting the coin achieves the outcome that most people desire, i.e., stability. If the crazies still want to destabilize things, that's their problem, and Team Democrat needs to stop two-stepping with them in search of bipartisan unicorns. There ain't gonna be any grand bargains anymore.

Also too, confirm some judges already. You have the votes---try using them for a change.

---Baron V

Anal Intercourse

Got your attention, no? Okay, the point of this post is that there's nothing inherently demeaning or degrading about the act; there are plenty of people--homo and hetero--- who really like it! But the fact that people like this guy think it is an act of humiliation by default . . . well, he's certainly not alone in his little corner of the universe, but the point is that people with such warped and distorted views of human sexuality used to be called, rightly, "perverts". But that was in a more innocent time. Thanks to publications like the Post, we can now accurately refer to them "credible news sources".

---Baron V

Still Too Damn Expensive II

There is no justifiable reason for any of this to be happening:

Deirdre Yapalater’s recent colonoscopy at a surgical center near her home here on Long Island went smoothly: she was whisked from pre-op to an operating room where a gastroenterologist, assisted by an anesthesiologist and a nurse, performed the routine cancer screening procedure in less than an hour. The test, which found nothing worrisome, racked up what is likely her most expensive medical bill of the year: $6,385.

That is fairly typical: in Keene, N.H., Matt Meyer’s colonoscopy was billed at $7,563.56. Maggie Christ of Chappaqua, N.Y., received $9,142.84 in bills for the procedure. In Durham, N.C., the charges for Curtiss Devereux came to $19,438, which included a polyp removal. While their insurers negotiated down the price, the final tab for each test was more than $3,500.

“Could that be right?” said Ms. Yapalater, stunned by charges on the statement on her dining room table.

It costs $900 in the UK, $650 in Switzerland, and $350 in Costa Rica. And you know what Affordable Care Act does about this? Not a goddamn thing.

I learned this little lesson the hard way, too. I underwent the same procedure late last year---in fact, I'd intentionally put it off for a couple of years waiting to see if the Affordable Care Act would be upheld in the courts since, after all, colonoscopies are free of charge under the terms of the law. Anyway, a few weeks later I got a bill for $3,900 from the physician who performed the procedure. Thinking this must have been a mistake, I contacted my insurance company, wondering why they hadn't paid for the procedure as required by law.

"We did pay for it," the insurance rep told me. "That bill from your doctor was for the polyp removal and biopsy." Now, I already knew that insurance didn't cover this part of the procedure, and I was expecting to be billed something in the ballpark of $800. I know a few other people my age who've had biopsies performed, and that was, on average, what they ended up paying out of pocket. But nearly $4 grand? At the time, I thought this was outrageous---but as this story proves, guess I'm not alone.

Long story short, a few months have passed and I still haven't paid the bill, at this point wondering if it might be smarter just to sit and wait for the collection agency to call and try to bargain a lower price from them. But end of the day, the health care in this country is just too damned expensive. Doctors are allowed to gouge their patients, pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers are allowed to gouge their customers, and insurance companies are allowed to gouge their policyholders. Because. They. Can. You wanna make health care more affordable, do something about that.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

The iMac finally died today. It had been giving me fits for the last few weeks with endless kaleidoscopic death spirals, failing to launch at startup, etc. Finally had to resort to starting it up with the OS install disk, and this morning, even that failed, so now posting with the MacBook Pro instead. Processing speed's faster, but I hate the keyboard, and of course I miss the big box's 27-inch screen. At least I have backups for everything so I didn't lose any files, but does anybody know someone in L.A who does good-but-cheap iMac repair?

---Baron V

Crazy Ideas

They have a funny way of spreading.

Less snarkfully, your humble blogger has been writing about this scenario for years, and the only thing that has truly surprised me is that they haven't already called for an impeachment vote (I thought Fast & Furious would've turned the trick). Either way, it only underscores the futility in indulging the crazy people with dinner dates and rounds of golf because in our current political-media culture, there is little price to pay, and much political capital to be gained, by acting and sounding, well, crazy. Exhibit A can be found right here just about every day of the week.

---Baron V

Got an Easy Answer For That

I wouldn't wager the kids' tuition money on it.

Yes, it's true that Rusty's been hemorrhaging advertisers, but so have the other right-wing yakkers, and it's not simply because they're toxic little shits, it's because they're losing their audience. (Funny how market forces work sometimes, eh?) Anyway, this was predictable to a great degree considering how old and Caucasian their listener demographic is, and while we can pray and hope that they've passed their cultural high-water mark, we should remind ourselves that many of the awful policies they've shilled for over the years---low-tax/low-wage economies, deregulated markets, endless union-bashing, exploitation of labor, drowning the baby in the bathtub, etc.---have been thoroughly mainstreamed in American political discourse. So in a way, Rusty has already accomplished what his corporate paymasters hired him to do---make America safe for the oligarchs, and banish New Deal liberalism to the political margins.

---Baron V

We Still Have Serious Problems With Unemployment, Health Care, Education, Infrastructure, Income Inequality and Climate Change

But Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi.

Our political culture is not the only thing in Washington that's broken. The people charged with explaining politics and policy to us can no longer distinguish the difference between news and nonsense. Why don't we just dispense with the formalities and proceed to the impeachment vote?

---Baron V

Ring Bell, Dog Salivates

It's like the 1990s never happened:

Increasingly---Republicans, including House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)---are training their fire on former Secretary of State and potential 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Our goal in this investigation is to get answers,” Issa said in opening remarks.

“I think the dam is about to break on Benghazi,” Graham wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday. “We’re going to find a system failure before, during, and after the attacks. We’re going to find political manipulation seven weeks before an election. We’re going to find people asleep at the switch when it comes to the State Department, including Hillary Clinton” [...]

Democrats contended that the hearing was purely political and not actually aimed at obtaining information. For their part, the Pentagon and the State Department have denied accusations that there were unnecessary delays in sending aid.

Of course, Democrats also contended that Vince Foster wasn't murdered by Hillary, that the Clintons weren't running an Arkansas coke-smuggling operation, and that the Clintons really weren't mass murderers. But we can never really know unless we weigh the contending claims, now, can we?

Meanwhile, contending claims.

---Baron V

Back on The Grid

My generous paymasters have been taken care of for the day. What did I miss? Anything good?

---Baron V

The Company They Keep

We should insist our leaders tear down this building, or at least defenestrate it. Because:

During the war, Belorussian John Avdzej had been installed as the Nazis' puppet mayor of the Niasvizh district in western Belorussia, once part of Poland. His first mayoral job was to rid his district of all Poles. As a first step, he gave the Gestapo a list of 120 Polish intelligentsia that included journalists, professors, priests, and former military officers, according to recently declassified intelligence files. Then he took part in their execution, as well as in the murder of thousands of Jews under his political jurisdiction.

The Polish Home Army condemned him to death in absentia. The United States was responsible for bringing Avdzej to America. Hoover snapped him up and protected him until 1984, when OSI charged him with visa fraud. Facing trial and possible extradition for war crimes, Avdzej voluntarily left the United States for West Germany, where he died a free man in 1998.

Laszlo Agh was a wartime member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross, an anti-Semitic group of fascists responsible for the murder of 10,000 to 15,000 Hungarian Jews and the deportation to Auschwitz of another 80,000. According to 12 eyewitnesses, Agh had personally rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and killed hundreds of Hungarian Jews. The torture included forced calisthenics to the point of unconsciousness, burial in the ground up to the neck until dead, and orders to jump on ground studded with partially buried bayonets.

Agh intrigued Hoover. A bitterly anticommunist leader had fallen into his lap and Hoover quickly recruited him as an unofficial informant. When the INS began to investigate Agh, the FBI refused to cooperate. As a result, Agh was never tried for visa fraud. Like Avdzej, he died a free man.

Russian Vladimir Sokolov (aka Vladimir Samarin) was a senior editor and writer for Rech (Speech), a German-controlled, anti-Semitic Russian newspaper. He entered the United States in July 1951. Sokolov penned articles calling for the extermination of Russian Jews as enemies of the people. Jews advised Stalin, he wrote, started the German-Soviet war, and controlled the White House. Only Germany and its allies had the wisdom to understand the international Jewish conspiracy and the courage to fight “the Kikes of the world.” After the war, Moscow placed Sokolov on its most-wanted list, claiming it had concrete proof that he had worked with the Gestapo as a propagandist and had personally identified Jews for execution. The FBI, on the other hand, considered Sokolov a “sincere, outspoken anti-Communist [and] a potential source.”

At one point, he even taught Russian language and literature at Yale University. “How a man with no high academic credentials suddenly procured such a prestigious position is a mystery,” wrote historian Norman Goda. “It is clear that the FBI used him as an informant while at Yale, possibly to report on Russian students.”

Been plowing through this book for the last month or so (highly recommended, by the way), and a couple of the things that really stand out in it are (1) how much seemingly-endless spare time Hoover and his minions at the bureau had to devote to these witch hunts; (2) his utter disregard for any constitutional constraints to his pursuits; and (3) how so many of the bureau's anti-Communist operations weren't aimed at rooting out Communist Party members at all but at suppressing liberal political views---which, in Hoover's mind, were essentially synonymous. The fact that he also recruited these monsters to assist him in his crusade should be sufficient to permanently dishonor and discredit him and, frankly, just about anything he ever did or said in the course of his official duties. I've long thought that Dick Cheney was likely the most awful human being to ever be entrusted with the levers of government in this country, but the legacy of J. Edgar gives him a good run for his money.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Afternoon

Going to see a man about a horse. Actually, someone wants to see me about some paying work, so I'm revising the résumé and my crappy portfolio. Go abuse a decorated veteran while I'm away.

---Baron V

Unrigged Elections

Like many of you, I'm sure, I fully expected a purloined election two weeks ago, or at least a sporting attempt at it. What didn't cross my mind at the time (though it makes perfect sense) was the obvious fact that elections that can be rigged via computers can also just as easily be unrigged using same. Now, I have no idea how seriously we should take the claim, but it's at least plausible, and it would help to explain why certain on-air TV personalities acted as though they'd been snookered on election night. Perhaps because they were.

---Baron V

If at First

A few more posts like this, and they're bound to win back the ladies in 2014:

According to her Wikipedia page, Broadwell remained an Army reserve officer while she was knocking boots with the CIA director and was only recently elevated to the rank of lieutenant colonel, a promotion she never would have gotten had her illicit affair been exposed earlier. And it appears the slut was very cunning in her seduction [...]

There is something seriously wrong with these people. I mean, it's one thing to denounce adultery, but the "slutty" way they typically frame the argument, and the lurid and graphic language they use to depict it---well, it's hard to read something like this and not imagine the writer ejaculating all over himself at his desk while posting it. Then again, it's really not so much about the sex with these guys---it's really about power and control and domination, and the threats to their masculinity that strong-willed, self-empowered women everywhere represent to them. I know we lefties are supposed to be courteous and respectful to them because elitism, but honestly, a lot of these people are badly in need of intensive psychiatric care.

---Baron V

Mirror Mirror

Should go without saying, but it's probably good to remind ourselves on occasion that if it seems that our national news media types seem particularly solicitous of the mouth-foaming madness of the crazy white males, it could indeed be due---as mentioned previously---to a sincere desire to immunize themselves against charges of "liberal bias." But it could also be simply a reflection of the fact the media types themselves are overwhelmingly white. And overwhelmingly male. Just making an observation here.

(Via.)

---Baron V

Friendly Persuasion

It appears to be the latest morale-building strategy of our most illustrious job creators, and if you happen to be caught in a work environment like that, it presents you with some dicey ethical choices. A couple of years ago, I had a similar circumstance at a former job, where the employer was interested in pushing a particular ideological agenda-in-everything-but-name to the company's clients in order to drive sales of a particular product line, and the workforce was "strongly urged"---not necessarily "ordered", see---to comply. The agenda in this case was of the fear-based, black-helicopter, Obama's-coming-for-your-guns variety, which is why you can see how it posed such a moral challenge to someone like me. (The company's management pool, as you might guess, was heavily populated with right-wing dittoheads, and this was the principal reason I started blogging anonymously. Because I'm still loosely associated with the industry, I prefer to remain faceless.)

Now, at the time it was never stated that failure to toe the company line would result in reprimands, firings or whatever, because it didn't need to be stated. It was simply understood, and I'm certain that some of the employees of these other companies are wrestling with the same issues that I did: do you speak up and risk being thrown out in the street, or keep your mouth shut so the paychecks keep coming every two weeks?

Me? Naturally, I chickened out and did what I was told. I hated doing it, but (like most people, I imagine) I saw a greater utility in staying gainfully employed in the middle of a deep recession than in living a life of principled destitution.

So much for that stratagem: less than a year after this happened, I was laid off. No good deed, etc.!

At least the story had a happy ending: the black-helicopter marketing pitch turned out to be a public-relations disaster. The company lost a big chunk of business, and for the rest of my tenure there, such an initiative was never discussed again. Could the same fate befall the rich assholes who are currently squeezing the hired help to vote for Team Republican? At the very least, it's possible. I've seen it for myself.

---Baron V

Nightmare Scenario

The President wins a majority of the Electoral College while losing a majority of the popular vote.

Why a nightmare? Let's review:

1. Your vote, technically speaking, is not for either Obama or Romney but for a slate of electors, appointed by the legislatures of each state, who are pledged but not legally bound to cast their vote for either Obama or Romney.

2. Then, the election results are certified by the Secretaries of State, and the winning slate of electors is assigned to represent the state when the Electoral College convenes.

3. The electors in each state vote, certify their results, and send the results to Washington, where the President of the Senate (i.e., Vice President) reads each state's vote count in front of the full Congress. The candidate with a majority of electoral votes is declared the winner. If neither candidate has a majority of electoral votes, or in the event of a tie, the House of Representatives chooses the President immediately, with each state allocated one vote.

4. In that scenario, the first candidate to get 26 votes wins the Presidency. The GOP currently controls 33 state delegations in the House. See where I'm going here?

But here's where it get interesting: Article 3 of the Federal Code allows Congress to challenge electors on the grounds that they were not "lawfully certified" and/or not certified "under and in pursuance of the laws" in each state. This has happened before, and it's relatively simple to trigger: One senator and one House member must make the challenge, and each House of Congress must debate for two hours. A simple majority is all that's needed to uphold the challenge. Now do you see where I am going here?

Now flash forward some ten weeks or so, and imagine: a Teabilly Congress returns to Washington in January having won a majority of the popular vote: The righteousness of conservatism vindicated yet again! But if that's the case, and it always is with these people, then how could on earth could they have lost the Electoral College? What do you think their answer will be?

Forget about court challenges in the weeks after the election---if the election results in states like Wisconsin or Iowa or Colorado are especially tight, and a Republican majority still controls either house of Congress next year, I wouldn't put it past them to simply move to disqualify whole slates of state electors on charges of rampant Democrat voter fraud. It won't matter if each state's voting results have been certified by their respective Secretaries of State---any group of people who can convince themselves that the President and the United Nations are conspiring to confiscate their guns and their golf courses in a second Obama administration can convince themselves of anything, and official state-government seals be damned.

It gets better: If the GOP should end up controlling both houses of Congress next January, they can vote to keep disqualifying enough Democrat-pledged electors until neither candidate has a majority of them. Then proceed to step 4 outlined above, and swear in Vice President Ryan.

I wish I could say this is beyond the realm of possibility, but, well, crazy people will do crazy things. Granted, they could pull the same stunt if they lose a majority of the popular vote, too, but I think it would at least make a few of them think twice before pulling the trigger. Bet we're in for interesting times either way!

---Baron V

Light Blogging, Obviously

Had routine medical stuff to attend to earlier, paying work assignments later, and also feeling a little grouse-deficient for now. But you can be certain this Era of Good Feeling won't last long, because it never does. So consider this an open thread, and feel free to share your own grumps in the comments.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Afternoon

The call came this morning: More work, more money. Money good! So since I haven't become a tycoon of the Interwebs quite yet, off I go to labor. Celebrate the death of objective reality while I'm away.

---Baron V

Could Write This Same Post Every Day

Come to think of it, I already have!

A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney’s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a Ron Brownstein story outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt Romney probably needs to win at least 61 percent of the white vote---a figure exceeding what George H.W. Bush commanded over Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Republican strategist told Brownstein, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this”---“this” being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election.

This again presumes that the party is safely in the hands of rational actors who see the suicidal path they are on. Would be nice if we had some evidence of this! But alas, if you have ever spent any time visiting one of their favored news sources, you will know that this is not the slightest case. Already the reasons for their defeat---if indeed they lose--have been adjudicated:

1. Actually, we won, but ACORN.
2. We only lost because Romney not true conservative.
3. Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed! RYAN/RUBIO 2016!!!

And when the whistle sounds, off they'll go down the dog track for another four years. Personally, I think you'd have better odds negotiating a nuclear-power agreement with the mullahs in Tehran than trying to convince the Emerging Teabilly Majority that, in fact, they really aren't.

My best guess is, the only thing that's ever going to is some horrendous thrashing at the polls, when they wake up one morning---four years from now or eight years from now, or 12 years from now---to find that they've only garnered 27 percent of the national vote; when any and all signs of their party's influence has evaporated beyond the boundaries of the rural Confederacy and the Mormon West; when they're confronted by Democratic supermajorities in both Houses of Congress and a Democratic President who (this time!) doesn't give a shit about bipartisanship; and when a wiser, smarter national news media that's grown weary of their rantings decides at long last to routinely ignore them. Don't know when, or even if, it will ever happen, but thinking that these people will substantially shift their collective ideological trajectory just because they lose another 52-48 Presidential election---well, it's hard to see that happening.

Put it this way: One of the hallmarks of conservative thought in our time has been the practice of a kind-of Politics of Humiliation, where simply disproving or defeating one's political opponents is not sufficient to consecrate a governing agenda; it's a type of politics that requires the total demonization and denigration of anyone who strays outside the realm of party doctrine to legitimize and uplift the claims of the believer. It takes many forms---much of it sexual---and you can hear examples of it on just about any episode of the Limbaugh show. Think "Sandra Fluke," and you'll see what I'm getting at.

Now there are all sorts of reasons why some people in general, and conservatives in particular, feel the need to humiliate others to establish their superiority, and entire volumes have been written on the subject. Sometimes, this urge originates in actual pain, e.g., abuse suffered in childhood; other times, however, it's just a sign of bratty overindulged narcissism, of privileged white people feeling sorry for themselves because they have to share their toys with the other kids in the sandbox (like, paying taxes and stuff), and the only way to slap a little courtesy and common sense into them is, well, to give them a reminder of what real humiliation looks and feels like. Losing another 53-47 election won't cut it, but losing a 67-27 election and control of 37 state houses just might. Either way, it's difficult to see how Team GOP with its current roster ever decides to veer from the crazy path until it wakes up to the stark realization that everyone, but everyone, in the country---with the singular exception of rural white males---simply despises it and wishes it gone.

---Vitelius

Light Blogging Day

Not my fault this time---the host server (Typepad) was down for most of the morning. Regularly scheduled gripes and grouses will resume shortly.

---Vitelius