Steel wheels keep on rollin'

Wednesday October 14, 2009

. . . . .If you've not ordered it yet or gone to the bookstore for it, pick up James Ellroy's Blood's A Rover, the third novel in his Underworld U.S.A. trilogy. Ellroy, the author of such books as L.A. Confidential and is a master of the modern noir novel, and more so, works on a subconscious level at writing the narrative of the American landscape and sweeping looks at culture, politics, crime and corruption. This book, and the trilogy itself are a cinematic look at the American landscape from the '60's on up to today through the eyes of Ellroy's tough guys, forgotten people and fringe dwellers, and his women are some of the strongest protagonists in that genre of fiction. I like Ellroy's personal muse and driver, which he has said in interviews is looking at the "private tragedies and histories caused by public policy."

. . . . .Playlist has changed up a little bit, I'm continuing to feature cuts from the 10 best CD's this year of music you should be listening to but probably aren't. Check out the posts below for that particular listing, and you're listening to it now, that is if you're in the external site. If you're reading this one the Facebook notes page, go to the external site, The Desolation Angel -An Idiot's Ravings and you can catch the soundtrack for your day there.

. . . .There are two follow-ups from yesterday's posting devoted to and about the current feral pig turd of a chairman's mark-up that Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, delivered on Tuesday and specifically around the small item at the bottom of the post where I noted one of my constant bitches about this entire process all along, that being the health care insurance companies cartel and their anti-trust exemption, the only anti-trust exemption in existence other than major league baseball; Bob Cesca chimed in on this with a couple of pieces and contributed to this building meme in the public consciousness as to what poison it is that the insurance cartels even exist and the fact that the health care insurance companies threatened publicly to raise rates in response to a health care reform bill passing and that there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

. . . .Cesca's piece 1:

The health insurance cartel tipped its hand this week, and, for that, they deserve to have it chopped off.

If there was any lingering doubt about the ethical bankruptcy of the cartel, we now have incontrovertible evidence in the form of a new report commissioned by the health insurance lobby. Among other things, the report threatens that if health care reform passes (presumably unchanged from the Finance Committee version of bill), the cartel will raise premiums by 111 percent.

What the cartel didn't mention, however, was the obvious: if health care reform doesn't pass, they'll raise premiums anyway -- and if history is any indication, premiums will rise by roughly the same amount. In fact, if nothing is done to regulate the cartel, the average family's annual payout to health insurance premiums will skyrocket from $13,000 to $24,000 by 2019.

They didn't mention that at all.

Good people.

They're not even shy about it anymore -- their naked extortion and fraud. It's that scene torn from an action-adventure movie in which the villain convinces a hostage to acquiesce to a demand, only to shoot the hostage anyway.

What makes the whole thing especially despicable is the fact that the independent research firm that was commissioned to perform the study revealed yesterday that AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans -- the cartel's lobbyist wing) didn't provide them with all of the details of the Finance Committee bill. Consequently, PricewaterhouseCoopers only evaluated the impact of parts of the bill.

This admission only amplifies the otherwise patently false and misleading conclusions of the study. But, predictably, none of this prevented the Republican members of the Finance Committee from quoting the report during yesterday's pre-vote session, nor did it stop AHIP from referencing the report in their statement following the Finance vote.

So not unlike the coercive give us your money or die business model of the cartel itself, the health insurance lobby is using verifiably false information and outright threats against members of Congress, the White House and, not to mention, you and me, in order to stop health care reform from becoming law. They're playing with our lives here. And, as Keith Olbermann pointed out last week, they're exploiting our natural will to live, while also exploiting the darker political instincts of our elected representatives as a means to preserve their status as a largely unregulated cosa nostra (the real cosa nostra at least has RICO to keep them in line).

Oh, and by the way, it's worth repeating that the Finance bill is still mostly crap. So throw in the fact that they've made us have to temporarily defend the Baucus plan as another line item on the cartel's lengthy syllabus of trespasses. . . . .

. . . . .

The next several weeks will very likely see new levels of stupid from both Congress and the establishment media. Much of this stupid will revolve around the public option and how exactly the cartel ought to be regulated. As we look forward to violently bashing our heads against our keyboards every time Politico posts another anonymous quote from an intern stationed in the White House basement's steam pipe distribution venue, it'll be crucial to remind our elected representatives about how, in the past, America has risen up to confront enemies both foreign and domestic.

Remind them that we're Americans, and Americans don't easily suffer threats and thuggery, especially when it comes to matters of life and death. Here and now, we refuse to be pushed around and gouged and coerced and, in some cases, killed for the sake of insurance industry profit-margins and executive bonuses, and we expect the politicians who are tasked with serving us to hold accountable the corporate criminals responsible for it.

. . . . Entire piece here.

. . . .Cesca post #2:

Attacking the Cartel Where It Hurts

I'd love to learn more about how the health insurance cartel managed to be excluded from anti-trust laws. Nevertheless, Senators Schumer and Leahy are making a serious attempt to strip the cartel of their exemption status, which means -- gasp! -- they'll have to compete in a broader market (which we hope will include a public insurance plan).

BULLETIN -- POLITICO’s Carrie Budoff Brown: This morning, Senator Schumer is going to say, in light of the insurance industry report warning premiums will rise under reform, Dems should push to revoke the health insurance industry's antitrust exemption as a floor amendment. This will be at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Majority Leader Reid is also testifying." 10 a.m., Dirksen 226, "Prohibiting Price Fixing and Other Anticompetitive Conduct in the Health Insurance Industry."

Schumer says there's a solid chance his amendment will pass. Fingers crossed!

. . . Now, onto some other fast news, and we'll go more into it tomorrow, but the Dow broke 10,000 today, first time since Oct. 2008; last time it broke through was 10 years ago, March of 1999. Now the funny part is, it was the financials, with Goldman-Sachs leading the way; a complete study in contrasts. While the rest of America goes broke, while 17 million people are out of work and now this new report that employers are cutting pay and hours for those still on the job surfacing in the New York Times today.
. . . . .Contrast that with Goldman-Sachs leading the way today on Wall Street pay along with JP Morgan Chase vs. what I mentioned in the above paragraph. Goldman-Sachs reported a $3.6 billion dollar profit for the quarter. That'd be using our money to do it with, but hey, who cares, they'll give themselves bonuses for being such geniuses, and having the smarts, the wherewithal, and of course, Paulson, Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and the President on their payroll so they can be sure to hold both the top and bottom end of the bubble.

. . . .That's (the little piece above) why I laugh so hard I almost pee my pants when the wingnuts and whackjobs want to start yelling "socialist" and "communist". This President is the ultimate corporatist, capitalist tool.

. . . .Andrew Sullivan providing a link to an article that fully supports what I tried explaining to you all last week about the Libertarian (read that true conservative, old time Eishenhower and Goldwater style) view of what's occurred with our Republican "conservative" (my ass) Presidents over the last 30 years. For those of you wo don't get it, a little simple explanation of supply-side vs. Keynesian economics:

Bruce Bartlett marks the release of his new book "The New American Economy: The Failure Of Reaganomics And A New Way Forward" with a must-read post. His courage in confronting "conservative" dogma is rare and inspiring. If conservatism means a practical adjustment to events, with the intention of keeping the whole show on the road as coherently as possible, Bruce is dead-on. Well, you know what I think by now. Read his book. He wants Supply Side Economics to declare victory and go home:

Many of my friends believe I have abandoned supply side economics and become a Keynesian. (Among conservatives there are few insults more damning than to be labeled a "Keynesian.") But as I try to explain in my book, my views haven't changed at all; it's circumstances that have changed. I believe that my friends are still stuck in the 1970s when tax rates were considerably higher and excessive demand (i.e., inflation) was our biggest economic problem. Today, tax rates are much lower and a lack of demand (i.e., deflation) is the central problem. I really don't understand why conservatives insist on a one-size-fits-all economic policy consisting of more and bigger tax cuts no matter what the economic circumstances are; it's simply become dogma totally disconnected from reality.

Nor do I understand the conservative antipathy for Keynes, who was in fact deeply conservative. He developed his theories primarily for the purpose of saving capitalism from some form of socialism. Same goes for Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose biggest economic mistake, I believe, was not that he ran big budget deficits, as all conservatives believe, but that he didn't run deficits nearly large enough until the war forced his hand. (I discuss these points in columns here and here.)

Read the whole thing.

. . . . . .So, on the serious side, the rest of the week, we'll go into more on the overall state of the economy and the next completely scrumpdillyicious serving of stupid as the House Finance Committee opens up it's chairman's hearing on Financial reform, more health care and the widening gulf between two distinct classes here in America.

. . . .Before we leave the serious side of things, I'd like to let you listen to Dylan Ratigan take apart the head of the Chamber of Commerce for their very vocal and active opposition to any kind of financial reform, regulation or consumer protection, finallhy telling him "you talk nonsense". Ratigan, as the host of Morning Meeting on MSNBC is turning into a no bullshit, no quit, no mercy populist, but like I say, he's a reformed conservative like me too.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

. . . .But first of all, and always to finish up my whacko of the day, let's go back a couple of days to my favorite unmedicated, drooling, gibbering wingnut, Glenn Beck, who now has the twisted mentality to compare himself, (now this is coming from a far-right Mormon extremist, mind you), his compatriots and Fox News to the Jews during the Holocaust. You know what, I don't even want to live on the same planet as people who think this man offers rational, reasonable, logical discourse. Becksters, please leave the planet.



. . . .. . . .And that's the way it is:

. . . . .. . . .We can salvage this shipwreck of a Nation. It will take all of us working together. It will take all of us understanding the concepts of the Great American Experiment, the political process of the Republic. It's amazing, I don't see eye-to-eye on every issue with my friends, but we respect one another's opinion, share information, share facts, and we don't talk over one another or at one another, we talk with one another. It's amazing what happens when a group of people who share the common goal of leaving a better country for their children and grandchildren can do when they sit down with one another as human beings, and realize that we each have power, and together, we are unstoppable.

. . . .I'm going to ask this of you for the next 30 days. Turn your TV off, turn your radio off. Start to use that beautiful mind that your Creator gave you, that your underpaid, underappreciated High School teachers tried to develop. If you hear something, if you read something, if someone sends you an e-mail that says "this bill will do this", or "this politician says this", I'm asking you to check it out. Check it out this way, use some of the following fact-based sites, who exist solely for the purpose of data and fact-checking.
- If whatever you've heard or read concerns a bill in Congress, use the following -
- Open Congress, it's non-partisan and devoted to a complete tracking of every bill in Congress, both houses. How a bill is developed, who is sponsoring it, what the riders are, what the discussion around it is.
- GovTrack, again non-partisan, non-commercial and open source; devoted to the same things, tracking Congress.
- Open Secrets, one of the most important ones, it tracks the lobbying money and campaign contributions flowing to your congressperson, and most of the time is a pretty good predictor of how they'll vote.
- Political Party Time, non-partisan, devoted to solely tracking political fundraisers, and letting you know exactly what parties your Representative and Senators are throwing for fundraisers and who is attending and how much money they're throwing at them to gain influence.

. . . .If someone sends something to you saying "this is so" or "that is so" or "the President/Senator/Representative said this" use the following:
- Fact Check, non-partisan, designed to separate fact from bullshit and fiction
- Snopes, devoted to the same thing.
- Politifact, devoted to getting to the truth, and separating out the lies that are spread.


. . . .I keep doing this not because I don't have faith, but because I do have faith. I have faith in the ultimate triumph of the spirit, intellect and heart of the American people. I have faith that the people I know want to leave something better for future generations, and know that something is terribly wrong, and want to do something about it. I do it because Paine and Jefferson were brilliant, unique singularities and were right.

. . . .I keep doing this because I don't believe in big imaginary friends for adults, I don't believe in alien conspiracies running the Government, I don't believe the Roswell bodies are at Wright-Patterson, I don't believe that a big portal will open up on Dec. 21, 2012, I don't believe that the spaceships will show up.

. . . I do believe that the people who have fucked everything up are greedy, avaricious human beings who have been able to steal from the American people, to harm them, who have run unchecked because no one calls it out for what it is. I believe that if we shine the light of day on it, if the people of this country have had enough, we can change it, and change it for the better.

. . . . I keep doing this because I do believe that people, human beings, unchecked will continue to do what they've done throughout history, and throughout the history of this country. Together, they will find the solutions and provide better for their children and grandchildren.

. . . .I believe in us, I believe in people. I believe in the beauty, power and grace of the individual.

. . . .I do this for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of knowing what they do, what they believe, what they know is right. I do it for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of faith, hope, love, hate, justice, war and peace.

. . . .I do it because I believe in justice, in all it's forms.

. . . .I do this everyday for the people and kids who are tattoed, pierced and inked and keep getting told to get "into the mainstream". I do this everyday for those guys who wear black that you don't understand, you just know there's something about them, and that when the chips are down, when you have to walk down a dark alley somewhere, and you know what's waiting for you at the end of it, and you can only take one person with you, that's who you want walking with you, because you know you'll come back out alive, and that guy doesn't care what it costs him.

. . . .I do this everyday for the outcasts, the misfits, the ones who don't fit and who will turn their back on you and walk away when you try to make them fit into a mold. I do it everyday for everyone who does it their way, knows that they're paying a high price for it, but the freedom is worth the cost.

. . . . I do this everyday for outlaws, cowboys, renegades, pirates and fallen angels. I do it everyday for the people who understand that rock and roll can save their soul, that redemption can be found in a 3-chord lick from a vintage Les Paul. I do it for the men and women who aren't afraid to turn it all the way up, who keep looking for an 11 setting on a volume knob that only goes to 10, who know that rock and roll's got nothing to do with age.


. . . .If right now, you're doing something you don't want to do, stop it. If you've surrounded yourself with people who want you to do or be something other than who you are, walk away. If you've got people around you who actually let it slip out that they think you "should be doing (fill in the blank here)" and it involves your life, your future, your existence as an individual, walk away, right now, and don't look back. You don't owe anyone anything. Live fearlessly. If the people around you can't accept it, can't accept you as you are, really are, they aren't and weren't friends anyhow.

. . . .Don't march to anyone else's drumbeat, don't drink the Kool-Aid, anyone's. Right, Left, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan. Use your own mind, that's why you were given one. Examine, question, do what's right for you first, everything else will fall in place from there, quit looking for the path, you're already on it.

. . . .Come out of the gate each morning with both barrels blazing, pedal-to-metal, full-tilt boogie, all-in and balls-out, what's stopping you? Do you want to live forever? That'd be boring.

. . . .Got your back. somewhere out there in the night

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This ain't no dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right fucking here, right fucking now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. What have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now.

The Desolation Angel
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell

You know someone like me, there's still a few of us left. If we have to, we'll stand at the gates of Hell and hold the last train home for you.. . . . . .