 Once again, the GOP noise machine and their slobbering mainstream media sycophants are fully revved-up about ObamaCare. Flush with their victories and newly gained majorities in Congress and the Senate, they are making yet another assault on a program that has signed up more than eight million people. That's eight million folks who for various reasons, wouldn't otherwise have access to health insurance. In our pay for play, everything for a buck system, that translates to eight million souls who wouldn't have access to any kind of meaningful health care.
Now if you think that from the tone of the previous paragraph, this is just another defend the Affordable Care Act article, you just might be wrong! Just because the GOP and many conservative sock puppet “organizations” (that are really thinly veiled operations financed by billionaires) have been making endless politically motivated attacks on ACA, it doesn't mean that the way ACA was “compromised” down from a potentially single-payer plan didn't create legal and ethical holes in it that invited those attacks! Although to his credit, President Obama is the first President to seriously address what amounts to a health care crisis in our nation and actually get a law passed covering people under sixty five, I resent that he made almost every aspect of it negotiable. The more he compromised, the more the GOP and those sock puppet organizations found fault with it and said so in endless TV propaganda ads. Which reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, “No good deed shall go unpunished.” Although ACA did some great things like preventing insurance corps from rejecting people for pre-existing conditions, the finished product was a compromised to death shadow of itself! Here's some of what's wrong with the Affordable Care Act from my perspective:
I could continue for pages but in the interest of brevity, I won't. Let's just end things by saying that if the purpose of health care reform is to actually provide health care for every person in our country, than we needed single-payer health care. If the purpose of health care reform is to really control the rising costs of health care, than we need to nationalize every aspect of health care and transform it from a big corporate business to a profession! As things now stand, ObamaCare is basically the health care version of trickle-down economics. It looks out for the interests of insurance corps. first by providing them with a mandated by law customer base and leaves those customers with ever increasing premiums! Come to think of it, didn't trickle-down also happen when Wall St. and the banksters were bailed out, while ordinary folks remained unemployed? Food for thought, huh?
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 Do you remember the good old days of broadcast news when real journalists weren't afraid to deal with real and big issues? The broadcast journalists of the late sixties and early seventies covered major news events with a semblance of fairness and integrity. Do you remember when the staff of news magazine shows did genuine investigative reporting about issues that had a direct bearing on our health, safety, well being, personal rights and freedom? I remember a slew of news magazine stories in the early 70's about employee pensions being in danger. Those stories helped protect pensions by causing public outrage. These days, the national news media just echoes right-wing shill organization attacks on Social Security, Medicare and employee pensions and news magazines tend to cover Hollywood gossip stories.
Now that I've complained about the sorry state of our national broadcast news media, let's take a look at local broadcast news. What passes for broadcast “journalism” in my part of the country, the Tampa Florida market, is sad indeed. I'm sure that it is representative of most other local markets. Local stations cover the usual crime stories that are part and parcel of the business. They do a great job on weather coverage, which is essential in our neck of the woods. Where they fall down is in the area of consumer and investigative stories. They seem to be waging a war of the roaches, with each station visiting restaurants that failed Health Department tests for cleanliness, etc. I have a suggestion for stations that call that consumer reporting, instead of playing count the roaches cover major consumer stories! How about a thorough and not superficial story on why the dropping price of oil that lowered the price of gas at the pump didn't lower the sharply rising cost of food in the Supermarkets? After all, food corporations used rising fuel prices as a rationale to help cause an increase in prices in the first place! How about suggesting a story to your national networks about rising costs versus Stagnant wages? National broadcast networks and local stations have to start serving the real needs of their viewers as opposed to their advertisers or other corporate special interest groups. If they continue along their current paths, alternative media people will be more than happy to fill the void and disseminate truthful and relevant newscasts, talk shows and news magazines.  The new symbol of both parties. I hate hypocrisy, especially in politics because in essence, it usually amounts to people who have sold you a false bill of goods just to get in office. When I see hypocrisy in action, it's probably the only time that I believe in taking a bipartisan approach and will call out hypocrites regardless of their party affiliation. In my last post (Are Centrist Dems. Democrats Or Demorats?) I called out 28 Democratic congressmen who voted with GOP congressmen to authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline. In this post, I'm going to take a look at the GOP vote in the Senate concerning Keystone to show their hypocrisy and illustrate why Democrats who side with the GOP, in light of what it represents aren't worthy of their office.
The Keystone XL was approved by the Senate and now goes to the President's desk, hopefully for a veto. Here's some of the GOP sausage making that went into it: Much activity took place on Senate bill S1, a bill to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Since the GOP has the majority in both houses, the Democrats tried to mitigate the damage that the bill causes by adding amendments. Sadly, there were some Demorats who voted with the GOP.
As I said in the beginning of this post, I hate hypocrisy. I hate it regardless of the source. That's why when I heard the President refer to people who oppose job killing “free” trade agreements as living in the past, I realized that his disingenuous theme of “income inequality” made his State Of The Union speech nothing more than an unhealthy helping of his baloney washed down with a cocktail of his supporters' denial! The people that the President mentioned are not living in the past, they have long memories and remember another period of history when Democrats joined hands with Republicans to sell out American workers by passing NAFTA! Folks, no matter which party spouts the hypocrisy, we are the ones who are betrayed. |
 AuthorHave you noticed that there's no one on Talk Radio who speaks for John and Jane Q. Public? I want to change that situation. When I go into the studio and get on the air, I say the things that you've always wanted to say. The big corporate interests have their lobbyists, I want to be your voice. Just think of me as your guy fighting for your interests. 
Proud To Be On:Proud To Carry:Headlines For 9/6/2017
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