Category Archives: current events

Pack the churches for Easter, yo!

With a president whose strategy for dominating the world is dominating the news, fake and otherwise, during a pandemic or on any other day, it’s not surprising he’d call for packed churches on Easter Sunday.   Why Easter Sunday, of all days?   Oh, thanks for the reminder, Don!   Nobody would ever accuse you of being subtle, you rascal!

It’s easy to forget, when thinking of those 63,000,000 votes he allegedly got in 2016, that many millions were cast by America’s most organized, religiously fervent Protestants, the Evangelicals.   The pastors of these mega-churches were mostly all in on MAGA.   As long as Trump meant a government that comports with Christ’s message that no fetus ever be executed by the state and things of that nature, they urged their credulous followers to go to the polls and make it happen.  

In the noisier Trump world of white racists and corrupt super-greedy super-wealthy folks, it is easy enough to overlook the millions of true believers who came out to vote for the flawed vessel of Christ’s will, Donald Trump, in 2016.  Without the Evangelical voting block, no President Trump.

As you wait out the plague hoax, and get ready to rush out to pack the churches, take a moment to read this excellent opinion piece The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling Our Coronavirus Response.

It seems unfair, perhaps, to blame decent men and women of unshakeable faith for the acts of many of their leaders.   The Intercept put together a collage of Evangelical pastors telling their flocks that faith would protect them from this overblown new illness.  One of these pastors, naturally, promised that “God is going to purge a lot of sin” with this novel disease.   

I have a personal story about Evangelicals.   By Evangelicals I refer specifically  to faithful believers in whatever God-revealed truth their charismatic preacher tells them is true,  obedience to an authority-based belief system being their highest duty to God and man.   

My parents, toward the end of their lives, befriended a young Evangelical couple whose daughter my mother was trying to teach to read.   My mother reported that the girl was very sweet, and that she really enjoyed working with her, but that the child seemed unable to grasp the first thing about letters, sounds, the mysterious elements of reading.  

My parents soon became friends with the family, the young parents, having become fervent Evangelicals, were estranged from their own families.  They really took to these old Jews.   The theological and political arguments (the couple and everyone in their church had voted for Born-Again Dubya and the aptly named Dick Cheney), though bitter, were always tinged with love.

When my father was dying they came to the hospital, with a group of their co-religionists.   They loved him and wanted to make sure he got into heaven, so they held a prayer vigil around his bed and asked him to accept Christ.  My father was beyond giving a shit about anything at that point (this was a day before he died) and probably nodded at some point to get them to leave him alone.  They blessed him and left.  He died.  None of these religious lovers of Christ ever called his widow, ever.

Had I been there when these fanatics held hands and asked Jesus to save this old Jew from hell,  I’d have done my Christ with the money changers imitation.  You want to see a righteous Jew, you misguided fucking soul-saving Evangelicals?   Leave the poor bastard alone, particularly if you intend to abandon his widow in her time of grief.

But I digress.   Evangelicals look forward to the End Times, the Rapture, the blessed day when the earth with all its wickedness will be destroyed, as it is foretold, and the righteous will be spared, and taken up directly to Jesus’s ever-merciful bosom, while the wicked will be cast into eternal hell-fire.  My father, I’m glad to say, will presumably be among the blessed saved, his head on his saviors breast.  Although a Jew, these good Christians saved him from hell.   Me and most of my friends and loved ones?  Big party in the hot place, yo.   Do you think science will save you from religious fanatics and the beliefs that make them impervious to heresy?

After all, what is “science,” my friends, but a set of organized alternate alternate facts, vainglorious “theories” “proven” by unenlightened atheists who heed not the voice of the Lamb, nor do they tremble before the might of the Holy One, blessed be He.   Can I get an amen, you ignorant fucking dumbasses?   Hallelujah!

A cynical friend thinks it’s a great idea to pack the mega-churches on Easter Sunday during plague time.  Let them put their powerful beliefs to the test that religious zealots have always selflessly submitted themselves to.  Only, make them stay in the churches for two weeks afterwards, that their souls may be purified.   And as should be done with all the so-called Libertarians who revere individual liberty above all else, and recognize no role for organized people governing themselves to protect everyone, deny them entry to those despised, coercive halls of science where the arrogant pretend to know more than the righteous about the best way to treat a deadly, highly infectious disease created by the All Mighty.

 

“We’ve done one hell of a job,”

“nobody’s done the job that we’ve done.”

The president is right.   His words to a nasty reporter the other day need to be remembered.   We’re now number one, worldwide, in Coronavirus cases.  USA!  USA!!!

Nobody does it better.

In fairness to the president, admitting he was slow to react to the looming pandemic, denied it for crucial weeks, called it a Democratic Hoax, and dismissed it as no worse than the flu, all those things might hurt his chances of reelection.  So, basically, he has to pat himself on the back for the hell of a job he did, literally.

Plus, look, he’s over 50% in approval polls for the first time in his life as the most unfairly attacked president in history.  Constantly exonerated, constantly attacked by wealthy elite enemies.  Jesus himself must wonder how the man can take it.

 

 

Useful information about the pandemic

One thing we all suffer from, with extremist zealots in charge of staying in power, rather than providing useful information, testing, medical expertise, financial help or anything else, is a lack of good information.    I provide a few links I found very useful — they come from a publication called Axios, an organization I know virtually nothing about. (here is what they say about themselves)

One thing that jumped out at me when I saw these numbers (points 1 and 2) last night was the extremely low recovery rate, and the extremely high death rate, in the United States relative to the global numbers.  Globally we see recoveries exceeding deaths by a better than 5:1 ratio.   Here in the US those numbers are almost reversed, with a 3:1 death to recovery ratio. 

In fairness to America, we have no idea of the actual number of cases.  Only millionaires (and very sick people) can currently be tested at will.  We are developing our own exceptional tests here, while other countries rely on the World Health Organization test, a test that will not do for red blooded Americans or the private companies that stand to make a killing from a great, highly reliable test.   Same goes for masks and other needed equipment.   USA, yo.

Anyway, there is some excellent information here, particularly at the last four links.    Good luck, everybody.  Wash your hands, don’t get too close to people, get enough sleep, eat well, exercise, do what you can to reduce stress.  Hope to see everyone again soon.

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 2 p.m. ET: 367,457 — Total deaths: 16,113 — Total recoveries: 100,879.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 2 p.m. ET: 41,511 — Total deaths: 499 — Total recoveries: 178.
  3. Federal government latest: A procedural vote on Senate Republicans’ $1.8 trillion “phase three” stimulus package failed for the second time in less than 24 hours.
  4. Business latest: FDA eases rules to expand ventilator production for automakers, parts suppliers and other industrial companies that have offered to lend their manufacturing expertise.
  5. States latest: New York is the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak as reports of positive cases surged by nearly 40% in 24 hours — Michigan issues stay-at-home order
  6. World update: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has tested negative.
  7. What should I do? Answers about the virus from Axios experts — What to know about social distancing.
  8. Other resources: CDC on how to avoid the virus, what to do if you get it.

A few words in defense of our country

We would all do well now to take a few moments to listen to one of our great American songwriters reminding us about the greatness of America.   Randy Newman wrote this song (the lyrics were published as a New York Times op ed way back in 2007) when the leaders he sang about were unrepentant war criminals and bunglers who many of us now think of kindly, in light of this epically churlish two-year old we have up there now.   Here the inimitable Mr. Newman sings these excellent lyrics.

I’d like to say
A few words
In defense of our country
Whose people aren’t bad
Nor are they mean
Now, the leaders we have
While they’re the worst that we’ve had
Are hardly the worst
This poor world has seen

Let’s turn history’s pages, shall we?

Take the Caesars, for example
Why, with the first few of them
They were sleeping with their sister, stashing little boys in swimming pools, and burning down the city
And one of ’em, one of ’em appointed his own horse to be Counsel of the Empire
That’s like vice president or something
That’s not a very good example right now, is it?
But here’s one:
Spanish Inquisition
That’s a good one
Put people in a terrible position
I don’t even like to think about it
Well, sometimes I like to think about it

Just a few words
In defense of our country
Whose time at the top
Could be coming to an end
Now, we don’t want their love
And respect at this point’s pretty much out of the question
But in times like these
We sure could use a friend

Hitler
Stalin
Men who need no introduction

King Leopold of Belgium, that’s right
Everyone thinks he’s so great
Well, he owned the Congo
He tore it up too
Took the diamonds
Took the silver
Took the gold
You know what he left ’em with?

Malaria

You know, a president once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic, in fact
Color-coded
What we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

You know, it pisses me off a little that this Supreme Court’s gonna outlive me
Couple young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now too
But I defy you, anywhere in the world, to find me two Italians as tight ass as the two Italians we got
And as for the brother
Well, Pluto’s not a planet anymore either

The end of an empire
Is messy at best
And this empire’s ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada
Adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free

Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

Good Analysis of Government Priorities during the Plague

Janine Jackson, criticized for her often snarky tone by the friend who recommended her excellent podcast to me, lays out an insightful analysis of the scope of America’s larger problem– conflating the financial health of the corporate “persons” who control the nation and the actual health of the actual human citizens of the nation–here.

You have the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, urging his workers to altruistically give up accrued sick days for their ailing low-paid colleagues in his operations.   Massive no-strings bailouts to the very corporations that are destroying the planet (fossil fuel, fracking, airlines) to ensure their economic health while ordinary citizens must content themselves with incoherent platitudes and partisan drivel.   There are no plans to safeguard the millions who are incarcerated, including the thousands in privatized immigration cages, of course.

You have the incoherent, angry president having his Secretary of State announce the tightening of sanctions on Iran, even as Iran is an epicenter of Coronavirus.   

Jackson correctly describes the situation as a crime scene.   Which is, of course, only true if you consider the rights of ordinary humans as important as the rights of the legal fictions that actually run our country and the world.   Here she is, and here is the transcript of this informative episode, with a side order of appropriate snarkiness:

The coronavirus is highlighting existing faults and fissures in US society.  Stark evidence of government priorities and their impact is coming fast and furious: $1.5 trillion is available instantly for loans to banks, but there’s no plan to protect incarcerated people, in jails, prisons or migrant detention centers. Congress can’t seem to act on assistance that reaches all the people who need it, and Jeff Bezos—the one with $111 billion—wants Whole Foods workers to share their sick leave.  Immediate tests for celebrities without symptoms—yes; reconsideration of devastating sanctions on Iran and Venezuela—absolutely not.  It’s a crime scene that’s setting up social economic justice work for the next many years, and calling for dogged, humanistic reporting that doesn’t “ask what questions this all raises,” but instead demands better answers.

the rest of the episode

Transparency — Life and Death Edition

I tend to brood about our need for basic truth — and how often we are deliberately denied it.   We truly can’t make intelligent decisions about anything without having the basic facts to weigh.  Basic facts themselves are under attack in our “alternative fact” world.   In a time of global plague, when thousands are contracting a novel disease that, as Obama said of torture, kills some folks, transparency actually translates directly into lives saved.    

This we know:  try to stay at least six feet from people if you go out in public, wash your hands often, if you cough or sneeze do it into a tissue or into your elbow.  We also know that because of a shortage of tests for this new virus, we really don’t have much meaningful data on infection or death rates relative to infection in the US yet.  Without data it’s impossible to predict the rate of spread or the death rate if you catch this serious and infectious bug.

Trevor Noah made a great point the other day.  If you have the facts beforehand you are better prepared not to freak out when the scary thing is happening.   He describes a pilot addressing a plane about to go into turbulence.   The pilot explains that the plane is about to fly through a pressure system that should last up to thirty minutes, seat belt lights will go on, he will climb to a higher altitude to try to find a smoother path and so forth.   When the plane begins to buck, everyone is ready and somewhat reassured to know what’s going on and how long its likely to last.   He contrasts this with the insane pilot who says nothing beforehand, then, as people are thrown around and the vomiting starts,  gets on the speakers and tells the passengers that everything is fine and that the ride couldn’t be smoother.

Clearly, a belligerent and defensive leader who can’t help snarling and lying is not the ideal leader in a time of pandemic.   Many excellent pieces are being written daily about a president who snaps with open hostility at reasonable questions from the “fake media” instead of answering questions the nervous public needs to have answered.  I won’t waste a word on that compulsively lying fuck, beyond linking you to a very well-done opinion piece on the subject that might make you feel a little bit better.  

I am thinking of the frequent difficulty in getting ANY information in a corporate culture.  It is as if the citizen has no right to know even the laws that protect her.   The provisions of the New York State law that protects patients from illegal termination of their health insurance, for example, are carefully guarded secrets.   How can this be?   It simply is.   Need to know, motherfucker.

I have been trying to find out, for two months now today, what law Healthfirst clearly violated in terminating my insurance, which was then restored two business days later amid apologies for its “mistake”.   The corporation would not have changed its “unappealable” decision without being confronted with the exact provision of the law that it had violated.  The citizen’s right to know this law?   That is left up to a bitter troll assigned to the “case” at the New York State Department of Financial Services.    Here we go, the month I’ve been dealing with this particular asshole (the only person in NYS with access to this law, according to NYS government)  in our emails:

2-20-20   All inquiries are assigned promptly and responses are issued in a timely manner to the very best of our ability given the nature of the inquiry, the research involved and the volume of correspondence received.

then:

I surmise that you are eligible under the Affordable Care Act for Medicaid coverage; had purchased an individual health insurance poli9cy through New York State of Health;  that the insurer had cancelled the policy for non-payment of premiums, after you had missed the contractual grace period; and that the policy was reinstated through the intervention of the New York State Department of Financial Services.  Correct?   You inquire about appli8cable statutes and regulations.

me:  
Pretty much correct.   I had the one-in-a-lifetime luck of having my NYSOH-purchased insurance (“Essential Plan”) restored within a couple of business days after the DFS complaint.   It’s still hard to believe health insurance can be cancelled without notice of the once-a-year  ten-day “contractual grace period.”   That the “contract” requires no notification of the harsh consequences of not paying by a certain date.  I’d like to see the applicable statutes and regulations.

reply:
 What is not correct?.  If it is in the contract, how can you assert no notice?Please furnish DFS CAU file #. 

me:

file number. OGC-2020-252309 
Only correction, Essential, rather than straight Medicaid, plan.

 

To my mind, the provision being likely contained in a contract (nobody has asserted this to me) I received a year or two ago is not the same as actual, effective notice to a consumer of the dire consequence for missing a short “grace period”. Thousands of consumers are subjected to this termination for failing to meet a “contractual  obligation”  an obligation that can easily be noted on an invoice.  It does not seem unduly  burdensome to require companies to print a warning on their first annual invoice. I’m looking for the black letter law on this.

reply:

In preparation for researching your question, I have to understand the past.  Review of the CAU file seems the most efficient method.

me (after two weeks):

Any progress locating the provision of NYS law pertaining to ACA health plans that allowed Healthfirst to terminate my insurance, then reconsider, pursuant to a DFS complaint, and call to tell me my insurance had never been terminated?

reply:

Raft being reviewed

me (after four weeks, still thinking “raft?”):

Any progress?   I am still trying to find the section of the law that Healthfirst reconsidered when reversing its unappealable decision to terminate my health insurance.   I’m also trying to confirm that the DFS complaint triggered Healthfirst’s reversal of its cancellation.  

reply:

Patience.  You are reinstated.  State offices are closed.

me:
Pardon my impatience.   It comes from the extreme difficulty of accessing (even by State government experts) the provision of the patient protection law that protected me from the apparently illegal “mistake” that resulted in the loss of my health insurance.    The illegal practice no doubt affects many other low-income New Yorkers every year, perhaps thousands, and I’d like to do what I can to publicize the unknown patient protection law that health insurance companies freely violate.

True, I had the luck to find the DFS on-line complaint, which immediately fixed the problem, in my case. Countless other low income New Yorkers did not have the luck I did.  The obstacle to that luck is great when the law itself is secret: nobody at any city, state or federal agency is  able to point those affected to the provision of the law that caused Healthfirst to reconsider its “unappealable” decision to terminate my health insurance.   A law that nobody can find is not really a law, even if, in the rare case, it can cause a corporation to immediately reverse itself.

I want to alert every state and city office I contacted to the exact legal provision that caused Healthfirst to reverse their determination.   If the law requires notice before terminating a health plan, as appears to be the case, that should be known by every department and nonprofit in the state that deals with ACA healthcare.

I know it has only been eight weeks or so (and barely a month in the case of DFS) that I am seeking this black and white legal provision, and it may seem churlish of me to ask for an update during a pandemic, but I’d like to update the various enforcement offices and advocacy groups I spoke to and complete my letter to the editor with a correct citation to the law so that others can hopefully be spared the ordeal I went through.  

Nobody should be subjected to that kind of sudden, unnecessary stress; everybody should be informed of their rights under the law.   You’d feel the same way if it happened to you, or someone close to you.   I’m attempting to do a public service and I’d greatly appreciate your eventual assistance.

reply:

First, State offices are closed.

Second, Insurer admitted a mistake.  Why do think  that insurer is “screwing” others?

me: 

It cited an ironclad right to terminate my insurance, claiming it was done lawfully, according to the “guidelines” that entitled it to terminate without warning for failure to pay during a once a year 10-day January grace period.    It told me there was no appeal, beyond an internal one that I lost.  It immediately changed its “mistaken” determination only after receiving my DFS complaint.   I am certain many others were similarly, illegally, denied health insurance.  I’m looking for the elusive law they violated.   

We can lose the quotation marks around screwing, though it’s the politest way to describe it for those who don’t get lucky and find the DFS form/remedy. Insurance companies have every incentive, and no disincentive, to cull low-cost customers during this one time a year period.   Violate the unknowable law, get caught, admit mistake, no harm, no foul.  America?   Democracy?   Not what they used to teach in Civics.

Silence was the last reply from this particular troll, gatekeeper of secret NYS laws pertaining to health insurance companies.  I suppose I’ll contact the little dickhead again in a couple of weeks, but, seriously, folks, what the fuck?  Does anybody really need to know the law that will cause a corporation to reverse an illegal decision?   You got yours, man, what are you whining about?  

Stay healthy, stay safe.

 

 

The Best You Chumps Can Hope For in our Corporate Democracy

Can former Vice-President O’Biden defeat Donald Trump in November 2020?  We will see, it appears.   He recently urged voters to go out, wait on long lines and cast votes for him in primaries held during nationwide public closures to slow the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.   Biden and the DNC want to sew the Biden nomination up and end the debate and disunity among Democrats, plague be damned!   If you’re healthy, Biden idiotically tweeted, you have nothing to fear.   Go out and vote!

We are four months from the Democratic National Convention in July, twice as far from the actual presidential election.   What is the rush to anoint the chosen opponent to Trump without hearing the details of his actual policy positions?   No matter.  Would you rather have Biden or that Hitler-wannabe Trump?   No brainer! Shut this puppy down, say Biden’s surrogates, in the name of uniting to defeat Trump, the People have spoken!  

My fear is that this deeply flawed candidate with a compromising and anti-progressive policy record on many things [1] and a tendency to smoothly peddle untruths [2] will lose to an even more shamelessly proficient lying sack of shit.

This tweet summed up a lot in a few words:

Screen shot 2020-03-18 at 3.16.23 PM.png

On the other hand, like the oppressive and one-sided contracts we are all required to agree to when using any product or service (thank you, John Roberts), this substandard crap is the best we are fucking entitled to.   Get used to it, because well-paid people who know much better will always decide what is best for us in a corporately controlled democracy.  

That’d said, when the time comes, obviously, we all have to hold our noses and vote to support whichever corporately sponsored candidate runs against Trump.

If Trump winds up beating Biden like a drum next November, or even ekes out a surgical 10,000 vote, Facebook-algorithm-assisted Electoral College mandate, you may begin to think of history differently.   A brutal loop, that, with small variations, plays forever in favor of the most ruthless among us.    

The beauty part?   There is nothing you can do about it, we are told over and over again, except be very afraid and vote for another, less toxic, idiot in hopes of safely returning to politics as usual.

 

[1]  Biden’s consistent pro-corporate work on bankruptcy, predatory credit card practices, support for the Saudi war in Yemen (world’s current number one humanitarian crisis– but good for American munitions makers and their shareholders), mass incarceration, The Crime Bill, Welfare Reform, taking repeated positions for freezing or cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.  

In addition, as a friend put it nicely, Biden is “dumb as a bag of rocks”.

20200316_181635.jpg

[2] a short list of recent Biden lies:  his claim to have graduated in the top of his class in law school, 76th out of 85 — pretty close;  his repeated untrue story about being arrested in South Africa while visiting Mandela; his claim during the recent debate with Sanders that he can name all nine of Sanders’s Super PACs– when challenged by Sanders to do so he snorted “come on!” — he tends to laugh off direct, uncomfortable questions with that winning, affable bullshit artist smile of his.

 

Dr. Bandy Lee on the American Psychiatric Association’s 2017 gag order on shrinks commenting about Trump’s fitness for office

As for the fitness of this particular ignorant, opinionated, lying, braying jackass to be the president, I think this short video lays out an excellent case, with some bracing details about the recent “tightening” of the old Goldwater Rule [1] that psychiatrists can’t venture a diagnosis of a public figure unless they’ve examined him and he agrees to the disclosure of his psychiatric diagnosis.  Right after Trump took office the American Psychiatric Association made the rule much more restrictive, in effect a gag order.  Take a look.

There is also a transcription of the entire presentation below the video (click the “more” tab).  It’s a quick read, here’s a pertinent section:

The rule was changed to cover not just diagnosis, but any aspect that anyone can observe from the outside, such as speech, affect and behavior. None of that could be commented on as a professional. That was a change that was made in March 2017.

It reinterpreted the rule into something that an ethical rule never has been before.

The timing of this change by the American Psychiatric Association shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, as well as the APA’s dependance on federal funding and pharmaceutical industry support, require consideration.

Now, news programs regularly give the Goldwater rule as a reason for not covering both mental health experts and non experts. This way, professional opinion is made the same as any opinion, the way facts are made the same as alternative facts.

Many psychiatrists call the new rule a gag order, and many distinguished APA members, including officers, resigned as result, according to an informal poll. A large majority of psychiatrists disagree with the rule and believe it should be changed.

Why is this important with a new silencing of professionals? The public may have been deprived of critical information at a critical time to be able to protect itself, since knowledge is power. Suppressing knowledge is a form of control and an essential ingredient to tyranny.

We can see this from the general silencing of whistleblowers and journalists.

Given that Mr. Trump’s probable mental incapacity and dangerousness were a near consensus among mental health professionals, it might have been important for the public to know about.

This behavior is not random and dangerous behavior is often recurrent.

Above all, the public seemed to need to hear that mental impairment is real and not just a fabrication or an insult for those who already saw the signs.

 

[1] “… A psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”

A snapshot of history

In the US government’s bungled response to the Coronavirus we see several generations of chickens coming home to roost, the predictable results of starving and shrinking government so that it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”   This widely held conclusion that democratic government is the enemy has become a mantra of millions  of our fellow citizens at the end of forty years of concerted effort by our most important citizens to permanently enshrine their privilege at the expense of the rest of the citizens.

Ronald Reagan is often seen as the tip of the spear of this movement, his “idea” that citizens of a free nation owe nothing to each other but personal success is the lasting legacy of his time in office.  Many believe that his movie star head should be carved into Mount Rushmore (I guess you take Teddy Roosevelt out of there, why should he be there over Reagan?)   Reagan famously broke the strike by Air Traffic Controllers (the only union that supported his presidential run — they went on strike for safer working conditions, not a raise– he fired them all) ushering in decades of anti-union action.  

Reagan wittily told Americans (as president) that the nine scariest words in the English language are “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”   The “Great Communicator” also said “the right to life ends at birth” — we protect the fetus vigilantly but once the kid is born he’d better quickly pull himself up by his own diaper straps.   This is America, y’all.   Reagan was the often incoherent moral forerunner of this sick fuck we have now, standing at podiums babbling angrily and incoherently.  In Reagan’s defense, he suffered from documented dementia while serving as the president.

I found a yellowing International Herald Tribune (published with the New York Times and Washington Post) dated “Zurich, Friday, December 18, 1981.   It contained this front-page article about the end of the first session of the 97th Congress that beautifully summed up Reagan’s core beliefs, beliefs that have animated the Republican party’s wild forty year swing to the lunatic right:  

20200316_172649.jpg

The “crusade” identified in the first paragraph:  cut taxes, strengthen the military and reverse a half-century of growth in social welfare programs has been steady and ongoing as the corporate persons and hereditarily entitled “philanthropist” motherfuckers who put Reagan into office have remained increasingly dead set on paying little or no tax, spending trillions on the military (good for the old stock portfolio) and slashing the New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society programs — popular safety net programs that benefit only “takers” at the expense of the “makers”.

According to these liberty loving extremists, who revere ballsy guys like Reagan, we don’t need a social safety net.  We don’t need public health policies, or pubic hospitals or public agencies to deal specifically with uniquely challenging things like pandemics.  Those are the hallmarks of an unfree society, a coercive “nanny state” that robs us of liberty while purporting to take care of those too weak to survive on what they inherited from their parents.  

If you drink, or dispense, this toxic kool-aid, you deserve to die from it.

Unfortunately, many others, who do not benefit at all from this toxic swindle, will die too.  Speaking of beneficiaries of a toxic swindle, it turns out it was the great patriot John Bolton who ordered the dismantling of Obama’s agency to deal with pandemics.  The bullying ass-licker did this back in 2018 when he was still in the insane, unqualified president’s good graces.  Oopsie daisy!

As for the fitness of this particular ignorant, opinionated, lying, braying jackass to be the president, I think this short video lays out an excellent case, with some bracing details about the recent “tightening” of the old Goldwater Rule [1] that psychiatrists can’t venture a diagnosis of a public figure unless they’ve examined him and he agrees to the disclosure of his psychiatric diagnosis.  Right after Trump took office the American Psychiatric Association made the rule much more restrictive, in effect a gag order.  Take a look.

There is also a transcription of the entire presentation below the video (click the “more” tab).  It’s a quick read, here’s a pertinent section:

The rule was changed to cover not just diagnosis, but any aspect that anyone can observe from the outside, such as speech, affect and behavior. None of that could be commented on as a professional. That was a change that was made in March 2017.

It reinterpreted the rule into something that an ethical rule never has been before.

The timing of this change by the American Psychiatric Association shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration, as well as the APA’s dependance on federal funding and pharmaceutical industry support, require consideration.

Now, news programs regularly give the Goldwater rule as a reason for not covering both mental health experts and non experts. This way, professional opinion is made the same as any opinion, the way facts are made the same as alternative facts.

Many psychiatrists call the new rule a gag order, and many distinguished APA members, including officers, resigned as result, according to an informal poll. A large majority of psychiatrists disagree with the rule and believe it should be changed.

Why is this important with a new silencing of professionals? The public may have been deprived of critical information at a critical time to be able to protect itself, since knowledge is power. Suppressing knowledge is a form of control and an essential ingredient to tyranny.

We can see this from the general silencing of whistleblowers and journalists.

Given that Mr. Trump’s probable mental incapacity and dangerousness were a near consensus among mental health professionals, it might have been important for the public to know about.

This behavior is not random and dangerous behavior is often recurrent.

Above all, the public seemed to need to hear that mental impairment is real and not just a fabrication or an insult for those who already saw the signs.

 

[1] “… A psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”

Correction about Biden’s prior presidential runs

Biden did not run, as I mistakenly wrote a week or two ago, for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, though one delegate loved him so much that a vote was cast for him at the 1984 convention.  In 1988 Biden “inadvertently” plagiarized a very fine speech by a British Labor Party politician (he wished afterwards that he’d simply added the guy’s name before passing off his quotes as his own).   He dropped out after the story broke, but got almost 1% of the delegates at the convention.

The Electable Mr. Biden’s 2008 run (from Wikipedia):

During the campaign, Biden focused on his plan to achieve political success in the Iraq War through a system of federalization. He touted his record in the Senate as the head of several congressional committees and experience in foreign policy. Despite a few notable endorsements, Biden failed to garner significant support in opinion polls, and was marred by controversial comments made while campaigning. He ultimately dropped out of the race on January 3, 2008, after coming in fifth place and capturing less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus.[4]

Of course, this is not 2008.  This is Germany in the fall of 1932.   Unlike the current president, Mr.Biden has given no indication that if he could, he would become Hitler.  Biden has not openly expressed hatred of any ethnic or religious group.   He is famous for his public affability, in stark contrast to the snarling psychopath who, during a frightening pandemic, is busily tweeting about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Benghazi, and his renewed determination to finally get to the truth about the most dangerous woman in America, outside of Rosie O’Donnell.    

Of course, we could do worse than Biden (Trump).   We also deserve better (any one of several of the other Democratic candidates).  The time will come, because the scales are heavily weighted in favor of corporate interests, whose voices speak infinitely louder than everybody else’s combined, when we will have to hold our noses and vote for this seemingly pleasant chap who has also authored and supported some hateful laws and policies (Crime Bill,  Welfare Reform, War in Iraq, et al).   That time is not yet.   At the very least, Biden needs to be pushed as far as possible from his smiling cooperation with former segregationists, his draconian positions toward poor people, his generally vague policy positions, his inability to apologize for something as grotesque as his part, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in allowing Anita Hill to be publicly humiliated and her testimony dismissed.

To me, Biden’s inability to apologize for not protecting Hill during the Clarence Thomas “high tech lynching” is the single most despicable thing about this affable, smiling man whose best friend was the coolest black dude to ever inhabit the White House.   Joe’s ready to challenge critics to fist fights, as he did last week while campaigning in a factory when someone questioned his commitment to the sacred Second Amendment.  Saying to Hill “I wish there was more I could have done”– when he was chairman of the committee whose members did their best to publicly humiliate and discredit the woman who came forward to testify about her sexual harassment at the hands of the Black Klansman, merits a swift shot in the kisser.

Of course, most politicians are self-aggrandizing scumbags, many are outright psychopaths, no question.   Still.   We deserve better than this guy, though, obviously, even he is way, way better than this unredeemed sicko we have there now.  When the time comes hopefully two out of three Americans will hold their noses and click Biden, rather than the immature, churlish man who has made America so great, for the chosen few, these last few years.  If Biden wins by 15,000,000 votes, it will make a statement.   Even if Trump’s quants once again game the Electoral College, this time by a total of say 8,000 votes in three key states (as opposed to his whopping 78,000 vote Electoral College mandate in 2016).   

Remember, boys and girls, there was a very good reason the final say of who will be the president was left to the wealthiest citizens.  Left up to the majority, the right of the richest to employ slave labor might have been in trouble decades before the Civil War!