Category Archives: current events

Meet 29 year-old John McEntee, Trump’s new Czar of Loyalty to Trump

I sometimes joke, when posting a story from them, that Business Insider is a Communist front.   Maybe it is [1].   Business Insider seems to be the first search hit for many important stories about the Trump administration, income inequality (they broke the Bezos makes almost $9,000,000/hour story), investigations into Trump criminality and the like.  

Check out this Business Insider piece on John McEntee.   McEntee is Trump’s former “body man” and “bag man” (I dread to consider either of those things),  He was fired, briefly (and unfairly, according to him) by  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in 2018 for concern over financial problems including on-line gambling, tax reporting violations and for failing the background check for his security clearance.  Trump rehired him the next day for his 2020 campaign and in February named McEntee as his new director of the Presidential Personnel Office.   

McEntee is tasked with going through the hit lists of disloyal appointees compiled by, among others, Black Klansman Clarence Thomas’s right-wing superstar wife.  The new disloyalty Czar is seeking to root out not long-time “deep state” government workers who might not feel unquestioning personal loyalty to the president,  but possibly disloyal persons appointed by Trump himself. 

As a young college quarterback MCEntee produced a video showing off his eerily accurate passing ability, join 7,379,964 others and check it out.  

More about this new Czar of Loyalty, and a lot of sickening details about his current work, here in this article on Axios entitled Trump’s “Deep State” hit list.  Its author,  Jonathan Swan, was recently interviewed about this article by Terry Gross [2].    All unsurprising, but sickening and worth knowing about.

 

 

[1]  A tip-off is their spelling of “altar boy”:  alter boy.

[2] Terry plays a clip of Swan’s interview with Trump’s loyal son-in-law senior advisor Jared “Qualified because born rich, bitch” Kushner:

So here’s my guest Jonathan Swan with Jared Kushner in June of 2019.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “AXIOS”)

SWAN: Do you believe the Palestinian people deserve their own independent sovereign state with a capital in East Jerusalem?

JARED KUSHNER: There’s a difference between the technocrats, and there’s a difference between the people. The technocrats are focused on very technocratic things. And when I speak to Palestinian people, what they want is they want the opportunity to live a better life. They want the opportunity to pay their mortgage. They…

SWAN: You don’t think they want their own state, free from Israeli government and military?

KUSHNER: I think that they want an – look; they’ve been promised a lot of things for a lot of years, and they’ve been lied to. I think that they’ve been misled. And I think that a lot of the things that people have held out for them have just not come through, for one way or the other. And you can blame all different types of things. But I do think that they should have self-determination. I’m going to leave the details until we come out with the actual plan. But I think that what’s most important is that they have the opportunity to better their lives, live in peace with their neighbors and have the same opportunities that Israelis have.

SWAN: Well, that’s sovereignty.

KUSHNER: Well, we’re talking about the people, not about the actual…

SWAN: Well, here’s what I want to know – how do you know what the Palestinian people want? Like, I’ve heard you say that in interviews before. I mean, you’re not exactly walking on the streets of Ramallah every day. I mean, you’re sort of representing what the Palestinian people want. I mean, how do you, frankly, know?

KUSHNER: So we’ve been talking with a lot of people privately for two years now. I’ve spoken with a lot of people from the region. I’ve spoken with a lot of people from the Israeli side, a lot of people from – who’ve been involved with this in the past, a lot of people…

SWAN: It seems mostly Gulf people. Have you really spoken to that many Palestinians?

KUSHNER: Again, Jonathan, one thing about the way I’ve conducted myself is not a lot of people know who I’ve been talking to and what I’ve been talking about, and that protects people. I mean, the Palestinian people do live under a fairly authoritative regime today, and a lot of people are afraid to step out.

SWAN: Do you understand why the Palestinians don’t trust you?

KUSHNER: Look – I’m not here to be trusted; I’m here to you…

SWAN: Well, you are, frankly. I mean, to look at it from their point of view – and you’re a businessman; you always look at things from their view. You’ve got three Orthodox Jews on the negotiating team. Two of you have, at different points, funded settlements, Jewish settlements in the West Bank. You’ve got the actions you’ve taken so far, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. You’ve cut all aid to the Palestinians, including hospitals in East Jerusalem. And you’ve shut down the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington. I mean, can you not see why they might not want to talk to you and that they might not trust you?

KUSHNER: All right, so there’s a difference between the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people, OK?

SWAN: And you think the Palestinian people would be OK with all of those things that you guys have done?

KUSHNER: The actions we’ve taken were because – America’s aid is not an entitlement, right? If we make certain decisions, which we’re allowed to as a sovereign nation, to respect the rights of another sovereign nation and we get criticized by that government, the response of this president is not to say, oh, let me give you more aid. So again, that was as a result of decisions taken by the Palestinian leadership. With regards to the Palestinian people, I do believe that they want to have a better life, and I do think that they’re not going to judge…

SWAN: They don’t mind the aid being cut.

Electronic Democracy

Whew.   Electronic democracy is as big an oxymoron as saying “social media” to describe sitting alone pounding at keys to interact with your “friends”.   Let us count your votes for you, on our state of the art computers, nothing to worry about.   We’ll count everything fairly, we’re all in this together, no need for paper any more.

There continue to be many irregularities at electronic polling places, with Democratic voters being turned away yesterday when their names didn’t show up on electronic data bases.  In a dramatic, made for TV incident, the mayor of Kansas City was told he wasn’t eligible to vote at the polling place where he’s cast his ballot since 2009.  He had just produced a video encouraging his fellow citizens to vote.   Then he was turned away.  Computer said you’re not eligible, man.

Representative Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, urged the DNC to shut down the Sanders’ campaign, calling Biden the soon-to-be “prohibitive nominee”.   Dig it.   Clyburn, the Majority Whip, we learn, is the third most powerful Democrat in the House and the most powerful Black member.  His support of Biden played a large role in the popular gaffe machine’s Lazurus-like rise from the dead to take South Carolina, where Black voters were apparently swayed by Biden’s constant, loyal presence next to his best buddy,  our only African-American (more African than American, according to many haters) president. 

None of us can see the future, but it’s not hard to picture how well the emotional Biden will do in a debate against a brazen compulsive liar and bully who only has to refrain from openly masturbating or shitting on the debate stage in order to win.  It’s not hard to picture how well Biden will fare in a debate with Sanders.  It’s hard to picture the “prohibitive nominee” not blowing up or bursting out in tears, or both, when the bully president has him against the ropes, kicking him low,  using both knees to tenderize his kidneys and other parts, while repeatedly punching him in the face.  As the referees break for a commercial.

I watch Biden bumbling, I see Clyburn calling for an end to the Sanders campaign so Biden can focus on beating Trump like a drum, and I picture Zora Neale Hurston, looking down, shaking her head, mumbling “my people… my people…”

 

Red Baiting 101

Some tropes never go out of style.  If, for example, you in any way criticize the corrupt excesses of the largely unregulated “Free Market” and the political culture that enables them, most often you will be shouted down as a Communist, a Red, an apologist for the mass murders of Mao, Stalin, a defender of a failed ideology, an Un-American who hates our freedom.    It is an idiotically un-nuanced counter-attack to legitimate criticism of a power structure that openly favors the liberty of a few super-privileged individuals over the best interests, or even mere survival, of the vast majority of the earth’s population.   

You would think that an attack so simplistic, stupid and one-sided would simply stop working over time.  You’d be wrong to think that.   Some tropes never go out of style.   Check out Mike Bloomberg, a hideous modern-day avatar of the Eternal Jew of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for example.    As despots have proved over and over, if an argument is made continually in the mass media, spoken by everyone, even some dissenters, and repeated in endless variations, the argument itself need not be particularly coherent to find itself on everyone’s lips.

The argument, for example, that Bernie Sanders could never be elected in America because he represents a vicious and failed extremist ideology that America finally defeated once and for all,  is advanced in sometimes subtle ways.

Here’s a nice one two punch from yesterday’s New York Times, often cited as the even-handed journal of record:

Screenshot_20200310-054522_NYTimes

So, we can see now, reading the thoughtful, nuanced, authoritative account in the NY Times,  that really only desperate people, America’s biggest losers, cling to the appeal of this Democratic Socialist and his promises to continue fighting for greater justice for all.   Most reasonably successful people, of course, (and it goes without saying) will have a more nuanced view of what’s really  important in the upcoming existential battle to unseat President Caligula.   They all know that “moderation” is the only way to defeat an “immoderate” presdient.   

As for Sanders’ call for paid health care as a human right for all Americans (including those hopeless desperados who are his loyal base) ?  The New York Times has that one covered too — won’t happen, forget about it, losers:

Screenshot_20200310-054544_NYTimes

 

The great Jeremy Scahill lays out, with great clarity, how Red Baiting works and how it’s being used against the Sanders campaign, here   in less than ten minutes.   Very much worth taking in.

I would weep for my country, but I’m too busy creating new dance grooves on my tenor ukulele and channeling the spirit of the martyred saint of the fucking First Amendment ,Mr. Lenny Bruce… 

American Exceptionalism

Barr.jpeg

“And as the [Mueller] [R]eport acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that [ ] President [Trump] was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with [ ] Special Counsel[] [Mueller’s] investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims…”

Attorney General William Barr, press conference before releasing heavily redacted Mueller Report.

 

A federal judge, US District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton — no doubt (if you believe in such things) a secret Communist appointed to a lifetime seat by George W. Bush (the last bit is a matter of public record, Dubya did appoint him, as his father and Reagan had previously) — stated the obvious in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ruling, that Barr presented an intentionally misleading picture of the findings of Mueller’s investigation and that his redactions were not to be trusted without verifying their legal necessity.  

Walton wrote in his March 5 ruling that Barr’s actions “cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary.”

He ruled that the unredacted Mueller report must be released to him for FOIA review because he does not believe Barr’s redactions, and ongoing refusal to turn over evidence related to the investigation, were necessarily done in good faith. 

Walton’s legal analysis begins:

The Court has grave concerns about the objectivity of the process that preceded the public release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report and its impacts on the Department’s subsequent justifications that its redactions of the Mueller Report are authorized by the FOIA. For the reasons set forth below, the Court shares the plaintiffs’ concern that the Department “dubious[ly] handl[ed] [ ] the public release of the Mueller Report.” EPIC’s Mem. at 40; see also id. (“Attorney General[] [Barr’s] attempts to spin the findings and conclusions of the [Mueller] Report have been challenged publicly by the author of the [Mueller] Report. [ ] Attorney[] General[] [Barr’s] characterization of the [Mueller] [R]eport has also been contradicted directly by the content of the [Mueller] Report.”); Leopold Pls.’ Mem. at 9 (“[T]here have been serious and specific accusations by other government officials about improprieties in the [Department’s] handling and characterization of the [Mueller] Report[.]”).

Barr’s “summary” of Mueller’s report contained legalistic gems like this, cited by Judge Walton in his decision:

“But as noted above, [ ] Special Counsel [Mueller] did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”

Which leaves unexplained, of course, the many indictments and several convictions relating to this cooperation, or coordination, or collusion, between the Trump campaign and Russian agents. 

Also, unexplained by Barr, why Mueller found it necessary to open a second investigation into why he was only able to gather “insufficient evidence” of an actual “criminal conspiracy.”  He investigated, and reported on a shady pattern of actions that look very much like obstruction of justice by Trump and which kicked into high gear once Mueller was appointed to investigate the Trump-Putin connection.   Mueller explicitly did not exonerate Trump for obstruction of justice.

Judge Walton quotes Barr’s version of Mueller’s findings with respect to Trump’s impressively consistent pattern of obstruction of justice:

According to Attorney General Barr, “the [Mueller] [R]eport identifies no actions that, in [his] judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent[.]” Id., Ex. 5 (March 24, 2019 Letter) at 3. 

Judge Walton also references the lying Barr’s almost year-old claim (as further evidence of Barr’s lack of candor and credibility)

As my [March 24, 2019] letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the pubic provided, pending release of the [Mueller] [R]eport, a summary of its “principal conclusions”—that is, its bottom line. . . . Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own. I do not believe it would be in the public’s interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report or to release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.   [1]

Walton:

The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report—a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report.

Read the judge’s ruling HERE.

My hat is off to this man of principle who notes that the Freedom of Information Act of 1966 was passed “to pierce the veil of administrative secrecy and to open agency action to the light of public scrutiny,”

God bless America, y’all.

[1]  This shit, cited by Judge Walton, is perhaps Barr’s master turd in the Mueller investigation cover-up, this quotes one of Barr’s most infamous instances of bullshit:

[i]n assessing the President[] [Trump’s] actions discussed in the [Mueller] [R]eport, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as [p]resident, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President[] [Trump’s] personal culpability. Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the [Mueller] [R]eport acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that [ ] President [Trump] was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with [ ] Special Counsel[] [Mueller’s] investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, [ ] President [Trump] took no act that in fact deprived [ ] Special Counsel [Mueller] of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that [ ] President [Trump] had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.

On an IV of your favorite pleasure drug

I was thinking about the one percent again after hearing John Oliver cite experts for the proposition that 2% of vulnerable victims of Coronavirus, COVID19,  die of the disease.   A 2% death rate is not as bad as the 3.4% I heard just days ago, you have to like your odds of survival, but, still, you’re talking about millions of dead, potentially.   Even at a 1% death rate poor management of the crisis would, in ordinary times, be a death sentence to a political leader who grossly bungles the serious duty under the pressure of actual emergency events.   

Luckily for those in power, the vast majority of Americans, deadened by years of increasingly painful political malice and legislative deadlock, regard politics, even now, as a grim spectator sport they can keep track of on their phones.  They are desperate not to find themselves living in a dictatorship, they are merely realistic about their options for having any actual say in actually avoiding it.  They have no clue how to organize, how to militate, how to demand concessions from power by the sheer force of mass mobilization, power yielding nothing without a powerful demand [1].

The reasons authoritarians always rely on police power for social control is that when enough people are pushed to the point of desperation, anger builds. Dictators harness this anger and release it as police rage on fellow citizens.   Works for the ruling few, if not for the teeming masses.

The essential skill everyone of us needs to figure out is how to organize with fellow citizens, how to gather our forces and discuss the best way forward, speaking to the powerful in a clear, strong voice.    The only change worth fighting for is change worth fighting for, to state the obvious yet never stated.   Is it worth fighting for a legal end to involuntary servitude that will go into effect one hundred years in the future?   I think 1% would buy that idea.

Speaking of one percent, here’s a fun one.  Put one billion in your calculator. Assume the least sophisticated billionaire in history, on a full-time IV of his favorite pleasure drug, has his money in a series of FDIC insured bank accounts making 1% interest.  Tap those numbers in and you will see what even this drugged out idiot earns in simple interest in one year:  $10,000,000.   Almost a million a month, not bad for a complete dope!   Of course, at 5% the annual earning would be $50,000,000, a significant sum by any reckoning,  and at 10% a hefty and very livable $100,000,000 a year in interest, but, of course, those are just numbers.  No reason to get excited.

 

[1]  Frederick Douglass, genius and good twitter friend of @donaldjturnip

 

 

Mary and DonaldRump and DadTrump siblings

Biden Derangement Syndrome during a Pandemic

Would I rather have Joe Biden in the White House right now instead of Donald Trump?   Absolutely, you bet your life.  Biden believes in science, and funding things like the Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, he’d have agencies up and running full-steam ahead to deal with this possible pandemic in a way that someone who doesn’t believe in science, or facts, or anything else is incapable of.   

Trump right now has a 29 year-old vetting everyone in government for personal loyalty to Trump.   Trump recently appointed his loyal poodle, a religious extremist whose greatest previous achievement was trying to “cure” young people of homosexuality, as the man in charge of controlling the spread of a potentially mass killing disease.   Way to go, for a dictator in waiting, though few Americans seem reassured to have Mike Pence as the Pandemic Czar.

That said, would I rather have Joe Biden in the White House in 2020 than Elizabeth Warren, or Julian Castro, or Kamala Harris, or Bernie Sanders or Stacey Abrams or any number of other progressive Democrats?  Absolutely not.  Biden is the corporate candidate of the status quo, the smiling centrist deal-maker who worked closely with former segregationists and gets along with everybody.    Biden’s legacy is working cheerfully with the right, cooperating in hideous policies, like pushing for Cheney’s war in Iraq, like humiliating Anita Hill when he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (and having the gall to “apologize” to Hill decades later, telling her “I wish there was more I could have done…”).   

Where does the myth of Biden’s “electability” come from?   Recall that in his 1984 and 1988 presidential runs the famous gaffe machine totaled (combining 1984 and 1988 delegate numbers) less than one percent.  0.008%. to be exact.  And he’s more than thirty years older and even less nimble on his clumsy feet now.   Trump, who only has to refrain from actually shitting on the debate stage to “win”, will mop the floor with the confident moderate dotard who insists he will beat Trump “like a drum.”  Hey, Biden already proved he’s a winner, garnering almost one percent in those two primary runs…

Speaking of one percent, here’s a fun one.  Put one billion in your calculator. Assume the least sophisticated billionaire in history, on a full-time IV of his favorite pleasure drug, has his money in a series of FDIC insured bank accounts making 1% interest.  Tap those numbers in and you will see what even this idiot earns in simple interest in one year:  $10,000,000.   Almost a million a month, not bad for a complete dope!   Of course, at 5% the annual earning would be $50,000,000 and at 10% a neat $100,000,000, but, of course, those are just numbers.  No reason to get excited.

Well, that’s about it for me today.   Biden Derangement Syndrome has got me down, even as I’m very glad the smarter version of Trump is out of the race, only $500,000,000 down.  Of course, that piece of garbage, Mayor Mike, is now throwing his vast wealth behind Biden, and why wouldn’t he?   Biden will make everything like it was under the golden age of his black best friend Barack Obama — hopeful, and changey-ish, if you don’t look too closely at either of those things, and best for you if you are a very high roller.   

Democrats are one of two American corporately funded parties, bought and paid for by big donors.   The Democratic establishment is so terrified of what most Americans want that they will do anything to avoid having a candidate committed to long-overdue institutional change.  No reason to begin correcting fundamental injustice in our nation, no reason to highlight solving the escalating climate crisis that is already well underway.   

A “moderate” Democrat like Biden will make sure the big things stay the same, maximum privileges for the already privileged and whatever trickles down to the “takers,” the rest of us, who feel so entitled to the generous handouts we get from a government that needs to be restrained from viciously coercing the “makers”.   The corporate Democrats require a candidate who will not lead a discussion of what justice, public health, public safety, democracy, the rule of law, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness actually looks like.   

We are a nation of passive spectators, consumers, doomed to vote for whoever the corporations approve, whichever candidate is best branded, rebranded (in the case of Biden) and most expertly marketed. [1]   Not the way we were all taught about democracy, which is always a struggle.

 

[1]   Again, I was surprised and relieved that the best ad campaign $500,000,000 can buy didn’t convince many people to vote for the autocratic Mike Bloomberg, whose hideous leadership we already saw in action when he was NYC mayor, when he bent the law to maintain power for an illegal third term.   Good for that sad, ruthless fuck, and the good people of American Samoa, who voted him five delegates (more than Biden had in either 1984 or 1988).

The Corporate Brain

First thing to understand–  they’ve got the whole world, in their hands.   Corporations.   We live in a global corporatocracy [1], whatever else is also going on.

There are rules we must understand, living under the rule of “persons” accountable only to shareholder profits.  One is to know the kind of “person” a corporation is:  a psychopath — incapable of empathy, remorse, or moral reflection.  The corporate “person” has one legal interest: the bottom line, increasing stock value for its shareholders.   A corporate person will only do the right thing (like paying to remediate its own negligence, or even intentional defiance of existing laws) if targeted by law enforcement and, after exhausting every legal appeal, being ordered to comply by a court of law.   Since corporations spend a fortune on armies of lawyers and lobbyists to influence the drafting of every law that could have an impact on their profits, good luck there, Charlie.

Two is to understand the nature of the corporate brain — it is purposefully segmented into as many unrelated subdivisions as needed to shield the larger organism from harm.  This is a deliberate device to protect the corporation, in part by exhausting the consumer, who must often speak to many unrelated segments of the corporate brain to try to get a reasonable answer, or redress of any kind.  I provide two examples from my recent, ongoing experiences with two random corporations.

Brand new Dell computer does not perform an essential function, seeing my cellphone as a hotspot.   It sees other nearby hotspots and wireless networks, but it cannot find the only network I can use to connect to the internet.  The computer is under warranty so correcting this defect should not be a major problem.   

Except that Dell has compiled a legally unassailable list of specific exemptions from their limited warranty.  They have me run all the diagnostic tests on the brand new computer and, after an hour or so, tell me that there is no problem with the computer’s hardware, and that therefore the problem, which appears to be a software configuration error, is “out of warranty.”   Not to worry, they tell me, Dell has a paid service that can fix the problem for me.

As is typical in corporations, “Warranty” has no way of communicating with “Out of Warranty”, and therefore has no way of informing a customer that 3 years of “out of warranty” service costs $239, plus tax, a more limited version of this “premium” support goes for $169 and a one-time fix will set you back $129.  The customer can only learn these prices after another long wait on hold.   The customer must listen to a loop of ads for wonderful Dell products and services, while waiting to learn the price, and submit to being thanked over and over for how important their business is to Dell.

Enough reason never to deal with this particular corporate motherfucker ever again, but at the same time, Dell is merely on the vanguard of maximizing profits through express warranty limitations.  Corporations can make a lot more money by making customers pay to fix built in problems than by covering their repair for free.  They hire legal geniuses like now-Justice John Roberts, creator of the arbitration clause, to exclude the most expensive repairs, even of Dell’s own design flaws, from the limited warranty.   “What don’t you understand about the word ‘limited’, sir?   All of the limitations are explicitly set forth in the thousands of words of our warranty, which we will send you for free.”

The beauty is, there is nothing you can do.  It’s all legal and ironclad.  Put the computer back in the box, scrawl “FUCK DELL” on top and bring it back to the store.  (I would advise not scrawling “FUCK DELL” on top, it could void the return and force you to pay at least $129 to be able to use the brand new computer).  Caveat emptor, asshole.

Healthfirst, the corporation I pay for health insurance, told me, on January 22, and again on January 24 (after their internal “appeal”), that my insurance had been terminated for my failure to pay a “binder” payment during a once-a-year ten day “grace period.”   They also informed me that under the law they had no obligation to inform me of this “grace period” before terminating my policy.    Then, on January 28, another department in Healthfirst called to tell me that my insurance had never been terminated and apologized for their “mistake.”  

Since then I have been trying to find out what the law actually is.  No state or federal agency has any idea why I was cut off and why I was reinstated.  Nobody can point me to the section of the law that made Healthfirst reverse its unappealable termination.   None can confirm which of the various complaints I submitted resulted in the overturning of Healthfirst’s original determination.

Finding and publicizing the short answer would provide a valuable service for my fellow citizens, screwed by the thousands exactly as I was.   To put it simply: what protections against termination without notice do patients have under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare?   You know, the federal law the right wing has been rabidly trying to abolish since it went into effect? [2]

I finally got a letter of explanation from Healthfirst, in an envelope marked “Grievance and Appeals”.  It was entitled “Notice of Grievance Resolution”, as though on February 14 I had contested Healthfirst’s decision to restore my health insurance after terminating it weeks earlier.   The notice states that my insurance was properly terminated for my failure to pay the binder during the ten-day grace period.  It states that my insurance had never been terminated, as confirmed by the call I received on January 28 apologizing for Healthfirst’s “mistake”.

Why this corporate change of “heart”?   That, sir, is nobody’s goddamned business.  Please continue to hold, your business is very important to us.

 

 

[1]  Wikipedia:

Corporatocracy is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests. The concept has been used in explanations of bank bailouts, excessive pay for CEOs as well as complaints such as the exploitation of national treasuries, people and natural resources. Wikipedia

[2] The law itself is now finally under reconsideration by the Supreme Court, in light of a federal court striking down the “mandate” that was upheld by one vote when John Roberts found this requirement of Obamacare constitutional.  Keep your helmets on, my fellow hostages.

A Note on Joe Biden

With his impressive “firewall”, support from black voters in the South Carolina primary, Joe Biden won his first primary as a presidential candidate, by a large margin over second place finisher Bernie Sanders.   Moderates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg both dropped out of the race and threw their support to Biden, as did Beto O’Rourke and other high profile Democrats. [1]

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel noted last night that Biden’s South Carolina victory was his first primary win, ever.  I recall Biden had received scant support in his previous presidential runs, in 1984 and 1988.   I looked it up.

At the 1984 Democratic National Convention Biden got one delegate,  0.03% (three hundredths of a percent) of the necessary delegates.  

In 1988, Biden doubled the number of delegates to two,  0.05% (five hundredths of a percent) of the delegates he needed for the nomination.

Just sayin’…

I know everyone in the moderate, establishment wing of the Democratic Party is united in its determination to keep Bernie Sanders from being their candidate (that applies to a lesser extent to Elizabeth Warren, who I have always loved), because America, although on the brink of a second civil war, is considered not ready for bold changes and most Americans are said to hate Socialists of all kinds, and many don’t like Jews either, but… Biden?   Really, man?   Joe can’t even remember the deadpan punchline to “we hold these truths to be self-evident” … “that all men and women (as Biden added) are… you know the rest…”

Seriously?

 

[1] Meanwhile, billionaire Republican Mike Bloomberg has already outspent his remaining Democratic rivals 10:1 on advertising alone, passing the half billion dollar mark recently.  He is almost up to having spent 1% of his fortune to become the Democratic presidential candidate. He will probably spend up to 5% of his personal wealth ($3,400,000,000.00) for his dream job.

For the Love of God, America

After a funeral yesterday we all sat in a restaurant having lunch.   The gentle fellow across from me reported how easy it was to deal with Medicare, one simple statement, everything pretty straightforward.   I asked if he thought it a good idea to have a similar health care system for people before they reached sixty-five. He said he did, but how are we going to pay for it?  A second later he began excoriating Sanders and Warren and I saw that we were nearing the end of a real conversation. At this Sanders/Warren prompt there was a chorus of nearby voices stating how imperative it is we vote Trump out in 2020 (that chorus was joined by a Trump 2016 voter.)  

As far as the current health insurance regime for millions, Obamacare, my interlocutor agreed it was absurd to be given a menu without prices and to be billed six weeks later, as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allows providers and insurers to do.

The buffet most of us were having cost $49 per person, as the waitress readily told us.   Imagine if no price was given and our host simply had to wait six to eight weeks to be billed and learn that the price was $400 per person, and there was no recourse.  That’s the price, deadbeat.  If you have premium level buffet insurance, the price will be $49 per person, but, sadly, you did not take precautions.  Caveat emptor, bitches.

On January 8 I had the first of four endovenous ablations in my legs.  It had been deemed medically necessary and insurance had approved the procedures.   There was, of course, no way to know the price in advance, as per the impressively opaque 906 page Patient Protection Act.   On January 22 I was informed by Healthfirst, the company that I pay for my ACA insurance, that my insurance had been terminated.  This meant I’d be responsible for the full, non-insured price of the first treatment, whatever it turned out to be.  Several days later I managed, by very hard, stressful work and sheer luck, to get the unappealable termination of my insurance overturned.   Insurance would pay after all.

My sickening fight with the insurance company, with every state, local and federal agency, the stonewalling at every turn, another story for another day.   It is ongoing and seemingly will never have an end, until I arbitrarily give up.  The citizen has, according to everyone, no right to know the exact provision of the Patient Protection Act that protects him from the unappealable acts of a health insurance company that are later deemed “mistakes” regarding a wrongful termination of insurance.  OK, I guess that’s some form of democracy, if you’re lucky enough not to be violently sodomized by it. [1]

Anyway, the other day I got the Explanation of Benefits for the first of four ablation treatments.   The full, retail price: $5,460.    The Allowed Amount: $1,572.  My copayment, already paid: $25.   Multiply this hefty sum by four and you will understand that the insurance company had thousands of compelling reasons to terminate my policy, if given the chance.   Without insurance, the cauterization of those two leg veins would have cost over $21,000.   That’s why all Americans need health insurance, to be protected against bankruptcy if one survives the medical challenges themselves.

Which is why, of course, Mr. Trump, who promised better, cheaper, universal health care for all Americans back in 2016 has fought so hard to bring us Trumpcare. Cheaper, better, covering all Americans, brought to us all by Mr. Trump (born American and college graduate, unlike Obama!) and the incorruptible, unconquerable wall of Republican Senators and a vast army of lobbyists and “donors”.  USA!   USA!!!

 

 

[1]  I am always pointing out to the reps I am appealing to for help that I support the ACA, voted for Obama twice, realize Obamacare is a halting, but significant, step forward and that the tweaks needed to make it work better — like every other large government program got in its first few years of administration as problems were discovered–  were all prevented by a partisan lynch mob working with a klanlike zeal to prevent the n-word president from having a second term and then making sure he was able to accomplish nothing in his second term but the divisive election of a White Supremacist successor who would do his damnedest to wipe Obama’s record from history.   I get all that, but still.

CBS delivers free, powerful informercial to Trump 2020. USA! USA!!!!

The clips of Democratic candidates shouting over each other during their recent South Carolina debate, seemingly deranged, divided and unable to even listen to each other’s positions, was delivered by CBS to the Trump 2020 campaign.  That the live-TV fiasco was the failure of CBS to properly moderate the debate?   Whoopsie-daisy!    It’s not that we like Trump, don’t assume we like him, it’s just that he’s so goddamn good for our bottom line!

Les Moonves, forced to resign from his job as head of CBS when multiple sexual abuse allegations against led to the determination that he is a fucking pig, famously said the networks were not giving Trump all this free airtime because they liked him.  He raises ratings.   Advertisers like him because audiences love him, and that makes CBS coffers fatter.   “He may not be good for America, but he sure is good for our shareholders!” or something like that was Les’s comment.   A year or two later Les had to make due with a smaller exit package, as his $120,000,000 golden parachute was clawed back by CBS since Moonves was fired “for cause.”   (I was unable to find out what happened with his attempt to get it back through arbitration)

Meanwhile, CBS appears to have set no rules for its candidate debate, issued no warnings for repeated interruptions, did not cut the mic of anyone who persisted in shouting down and talking over somebody else>  The result: plenty of footage of unruly candidates, forced to jealously vie for air time, snapping at each other.   The footage provides a valuable free campaign bonanza for Mr. Trump’s billion dollar advertising, media and disinformation teams.

And God bless these United Shayssssh…