Attention, American Women: “Republicans” Really, REALLY Want You to be Stupid.

Almost none of the women that this writer knows are stupid. In fact, a preponderance of them are smarter than, well, stupid old white guys like him. And thank the Gods for that. The world needs more smart people. But the GOP has a desperate need for the exact opposite: they need women to become stupid. Lots of women. In a big hurry. But only until they cast a ballot this November.

You see, Repubs know that their War On Women has pissed off a lot of women. So now they are trying to find a way to fool women into thinking that the GOPee really doesn’t hate them, so that they can get a few more votes. And the way they’re going about it?

By f***ing women out of getting their birth control covered by insurance, and pretending that it is a “benefit”. Here is a good piece on the matter. A few excerpts:

A string of Republican candidates for Senate are supporting an issue usually associated with Democrats: increased access to contraception.
They’re supporting it on the road and in ads, like this one from pro-life conservative Cory Gardner:In it, he says he believes “the pill ought to be available over the counter, round the clock, without a prescription.”

The catch? OVER-THE-COUNTER MEDS ARE ALMOST NEVER
COVERED BY INSURANCE, that’s the catch. It’s Hobby Lobby 2: another way to screw women out of equal access to health care. At a stroke, they would further fatten rich people’s wallets and discriminate against women. Not that Repubs are admitting it. But even NPR has cottoned on:

Calling for an over the counter pill allows Republicans to support access to birth control while also supporting the right of corporations to avoid covering it. Getting the pill at a pharmacy without a prescription leaves insurers and employers out of the picture altogether.

Got it, Gentle Reader? We’re talking maybe hundreds of dollars a year that women would have to cough up. It’s a cynical ploy, and an insulting one at that. Add to that sexist, unfair, and any number of other perjoratives. Republicans hate women and have indeed declared war on them. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t act towards females as Ray Rice does in elevators (Offended by the comparison? Well, OK, maybe it’s unfair. After all, the “Republican” party has injured LOTS more women than Mr. Rice has).

Women are not deserving of such blatant and systemic hostility and abusive action from anyone, be it individuals or an entire political party. We all owe it to ourselves to vote the scum out of office. AND cover everyone’s health care without caveats.

We’re ALL smart enough to know that it’s unfair for men to get their Woody Pills covered while women can’t get their reproductive prescriptions paid for as well. Let’s act like we’re that smart when we vote.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

It’s still the Health Insurers that are screwing you. Remember?

Lots of people are blaming ObamaCare for their health policy cancellations and premium increases. These people are either stupid or have no long-term memory functions. The health insurers have been screwing us and in some cases killing us, all so they can make obscene profits and live lives of luxury while we go bankrupt or worse. And they are still doing so. Note this well, Cranky Nation: the real enemy has not changed.

The reason policies are being cancelled and premiums jacked up is a business decision: to increase profits for the health insurance companies. It has nothing to do with Obama. Same with network limitations, co-pay increases, and the other impacts we are seeing. It is a way for the business to make money.

And that is what for-profit businesses do. They make money. They always have, and always will. In fact, that is the natural order of things.

Now, if the government ran the health care system, none of this would happen. You’d pay your taxes and get your health care, because governments don’t have to make a profit. In fact, they can’t. They are graded on how well or poorly they deliver services, not on how much money they make. So they will deliver better care. Look at every other industrial democracy if you don’t believe it.

But the same memory-challenged fools that are stupidly blaming Obama for raising their rates are in most cases also the same idiots who oppose national health care, so we should not be surprised when they say stupid s***. And we shouldn’t expect the media to report these stories accurately, or for the greedy motherf***ers who run for-profit health care companies to be honest.

But we SHOULD expect ourselves to remember that insurance companies have been f***ing us for many years now, and we should blame them first when they continue to f*** us. Otherwise, WE are the idiots, and deserve those painful, unhealthy reamings.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

While America was distracted by Snowden, You Likely Missed These Important Things

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has friends who do card tricks and carnival magic, and he knows the techniques they use: misdirection, sleight of hand, and so on. He also knows that our “representatives” and “news media” do much the same whenever they want to put one over on us. So it has been with the Snowden “scandal”.

While you were all aghast and agog at the NSA/PRISM/Verizon/Greenwald imbroglio, the following events also occurred, but you probably missed them:

The Supreme Court made it easier to deny your right to vote.

The Supreme Court also took away your right to remain silent and made it easier for your boss to abuse you on the job.

In Michigan, one unelected man is about to steal the pensions and other retirement bennies from retirees, and will also steal from investors .

In Ohio, extreme anti-woman legislation is being advanced along with a tax hike on everyone but the rich, who will get a tax cut. And these are just a few of the events that were being downplayed by the media while they hyped a series of BS scandals, each of which turned out to be nothing when they were looked at closely.

Get the picture, Cranky Nation? We. Are. Being. Conned. A load of cheap carnies and tricksters are getting us to “look over there” at these successive faux scandals while they screw the lot of us with their other hands. It’s time to stop paying attention to these con jobs, at least until we know if there is any fire beneath the smoke.

ALWAYS pay attention to the man behind the curtain. He’s hiding back there for a reason, after all. And if he asks you to look at something amazing, you’d be well advised to look at anything BUT what he’s trying to distract you with.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Health Care Companies Still Make Millions of Dollars. My Son is Still Dead.

Today, my son should have celebrated his 21st birthday. But he’s dead, killed in part by our profit-driven health care system.

When he needed help, he sometimes got it. But not often enough, and not for long enough. To our health insurance industry and providers, it made more business sense to let a young man die than to let their profit margins dip a tiny amount.

When Aetna had a choice between making more money, or providing care to one of their insured people, Aetna chose to deny care, thus helping to kill my son. May the people responsible for this burn in Hell. And if I wind up there too, may I be allowed to pitchfork more brimstone onto their fires.

We will never stop loving our son. And we will never forget, and never forgive, the profit-hungry motherfuckers who have helped to deny us his presence on what should have been a day of celebration.

The Hidden Threat of Religious Exemptions from the Health Care Law

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has written on the Constitutional aspects of religious entities cramming their beliefs down the gullets of their employees, the economic aspects of getting rid of the free riders from churches who hide behind their tax-exempt status, and so on. All good stuff, and important facts to know.

However, there is a very scary paradigm emerging amongst the Religious Right.  Example: Hobby Lobby tried to claim a religious exemption in order to undermine the care that their employees could get under the ACA. They said that the owners of the company had a religious objection to certain kinds of gynecological care, and so should be able to opt out of providing them to their workers. The courts have shot them down like bible-shaped skeet. So far.

Consider a more extreme (but highly probable) scenario: the First Church of Christ, Scientist. These people do not believe in medicine: they are faith-healers. So if your employers were Christian Scientists, they could deny you any and all health care coverage. You’d get nothing.  Except, perhaps, for a bunch of nimrods praying by your bedside as you died of appendicitis. This is a legal church, as legal as the Catholics, Babtists, Methodists and entitled to the same tax and legal benefits as any other religious entity.

If employers are allowed to use their personal beliefs to avoid paying for health care that they find objectionable, this writer submits that many tightwads will quickly “convert” to some sort of faith-healing sect in order to save money by denying their employees the care that that need. Soon, there would be few, if any, people covered by employer-based health care plans.

Think it couldn’t happen? Think again. In a society that rewards greed and glorifies ignorance, it is not only possible; it is predictable.

Mr. B & C

When Did the Media Turn Into Dumb, Useless Parrots?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky has noticed a disturbing trend (and he expects that you have, too) in media coverage of politicians: reporters simply repeat what the politico in question says verbatim, and almost never call “bullshit” on them, either during the event or during the stories that they later write.

A classic example came a few days ago, when Mitt Romney said that no one dies in America because they lack health insurance: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/11/health-care-called-choice.html

Lots of people (including this writer know better), and it took less than a minute to pull up a study proving the exact opposite:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917

One person every 12 minutes croaks because they don’t have health insurance. Surely reporters have smartphones and could have found the information during a press conference, and called Mitt on his statement. But nooooooo.

The majority of reporters have become nothing more than parrots: senselessly repeating whatever they have been trained to squawk in exchange for crackers, grubs, dung beetles, or whatever tasty treat they prefer. Frankly, if that is all they are going to do for their pay, we may as well fire the lot of them. Then we could just point microphones at the crooked scumbucket politicians and stream it live. We wouldn’t be any less informed that way.

Mr. B & C

Infamous Days, Indeed (Foreign Invasions = Women’s Health Care)

A few years back, terrorists attacked the United States of America (9/11); killing innocent civilians, traumatizing millions, destroying billions of dollars’ worth of property, and starting a set of wars, some of which rage on to this day.

A few more years back, a foreign empire attacked the United States of America (Pearl Harbor); killing soldiers and civilians alike, traumatizing millions, destroying billions of dollars’ worth of property and materials, and starting a war, the scars of which are still visible to this day.

Today, women across the nation will be able to get better insurance coverage for their breast exams, pap smears, screenings, birth control and other health care products (ObamNeycare); killing nobody, traumatizing only a few bigoted billionaires, creating millions of dollars of additional productivity and starting no wars whatsoever.

Yep. All three are pretty much the same. Yupyupyup. Sure thing.  At least they are if you ask “Representative” Mike Kelly (R-PA), who is hugely freaked out about this infamous day, on which employers and insurance companies  might have to cough up a few more shekels than they did yesterday. The horror, the horror.

Ask anybody who was in Hawaii on December 7^th, 1941; ask anybody who was in Manhattan on September 11^th. 2001; ask them if their blood runs as cold over the prospect of cheaper boobie exams as it does when they remember the horrific attacks that maimed our nation.

Mr. B & C

Mitt Romney, You Socialist Swine

Everyone knows that Mitt Romney pushed and pulled to enact universal health care in Massachusetts when he was The Guv there; everyone also knows that Barack Obama totally stole Romney’s plan and took it national (which is why Mssrs. Pawlenty, Blunt and Cranky et.al. have used the term “ObamNeycare”).

Since Mitt decided to run for the Presidency, he has shifted his stance somewhat (as in, the North Atlantic is somewhat salty, and a wee bit chilly & wet); he says that what was good public policy for a single state is Socialism for an entire nation. Hard to buy a line of hooey like that, but not impossible. So, we gave ol’ Willie the benefit of the doubt.

Until today, that is.  The Guv was in Israel, and he was loudly talking up their health care system: a system which looks one whole helluva lot like ObamNeycare. So it looks like Mitt is indeed a Socialist MoFo just like the Prexy, since he has now praised the same system at state AND national levels.

He must have just been funnin’ with us about not liking Obama’s heath care system. Or lying, so as to hide his Secret Socialist Society membership (do they give out decoder rings?). Yup, Mitt was a stinking Socialist all along, and tried to hide it: but now we see the truth.

Of course, it could be that the whole Obama/Romney/Israeli health care model is not Socialism at all, and is simply good public policy….naaah. Couldn’t be.

Mr. B & C