Health care PASSES!

I am once again proud to be a Democrat. For a minute (er, y'know, months), I didn't know where the party was going to wind up on this issue. Tonight, even after midnight eastern time, the excitement continues on in waves.

While confidence percolates throughout the country, and while many Democrats are touting this as a signature piece of legislation, we can hope that this bill is a huge blow to the manipulative and predatory practices from insurance companies.

I am, naturally, obliged to comment on the Republican perspective. I wish that I were surprised by their desire to allow people to go bankrupt, their desire to see insurance companies steamroll cancer patients, their desire to kick people out of the system because they have a bad kidney or a bad immune system. Let's be clear: many Republicans are willing to let people to die without insurance.

This bill will be debated for months... Republicans will be taking up the technical bits and talking to everyone from the Senate parliamentarian to the US Supreme Court to make sure that insurance companies are still able to gouge patients because they had a vasectomy eleven years ago. Shame on them.

Victory, and praise, to the Democrats. They got it done when it looked impossible just weeks ago. I am, for the first time in the same number of weeks, happy to have a "D" on my voter registration card.

We love you, Washington! Good night!

Health care reform is unfair to-- Big Medicine?!

So the big talking point of the day from Republicans is that competition for pharmaceudical and insurance companies is bad.

See, if they compete against each other, and refuse to cover those who need care, they win. But if they have to compete against the government-- and not just each other-- they lose. Why is this?

For starters, they don't want to have to cover sick people. Chew on this: most insurance companies won't take on a sick person if they've ever been sick with the same illness before. And why don't they have to? The government doesn't tell them they have to.

Most pharmaceudical companies also have no oversight on price or content. The government doesn't tell them they have to.

Nearly all doctors agree that the system is broken, but they don't want to fix it. The government doesn't tell them they have to.

The vast majority of Americans think of Big Medicine and Big Insurance as evil and undesirable. The government would give them a choice.

Now that the federal government wants to step in, Rebublicans and Big Medicine are all scared. Why? Because the government can provide some much-needed backlash and muscle against these fucking behemoths. Earlier this week, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell sneered that "the public doesn't want the same people who run the Department of Motor Vehicles" to run their health care. I seriously doubt that-- given 38% approval of the current system-- the public wants the status quo either.

Let's hope the bait-and-switch won't work anymore. Since the days of Reagan's cries of socialism, the pharmaceudical companies have taken to lobbying everyone... EVERYONE... in Washington (Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Harry Reid).

So, according to the Republicans, as long as Big Medicine, Big Pharma, and Big Insurance run Washington-- and not the other way around-- everything will be fine. Yeah fucking right.

Proposition 8 and the SCOTUS nominee

Just got word that Proposition 8 has been upheld, but the 18,000 marriages that were performed won't be overturned.

Little consolation to the gay and lesbian couples whose rights have been trampled on because of religious bigotry. Even the LA Times, in their article, cited that the opposition consisted of "many churches and religious organizations". Notably missing was any sort of egalitarian or civil rights group, i.e. Human Rights Watch or the ACLU.

Yes, it looks like churches apparently hold big sway in the Supreme Court. Which is interesting because Mike Huckabee (the entertaining and gaffing one-time presidential candidate of the GOP) issued a statement on nominee Sotomayor saying that she was an "activist" from the "far-left".

So let's pause a moment and clarify something: if a Supreme Court (state or federal) acts in a manner inconsistent with the "word of God", it is an activist stab at the heart of the Constitution and the Bible (two documents that are mostly indistinguishable, it would seem, to a large number of Americans). But if a Supreme Court or judge stamps out equality and human rights with religious fervor and deliberate malice, they aren't being activists, but are in fact upholding the constitution-- or the Bible, y'know, whichever one you like better.

Dick stands up

For once, I am happy with the trajectory of the Republicans.

Can you believe that Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney are now officially being sought after for their ADVICE on what the party should do?! The Republican faithful are apparently behind these fat old men lock-and-step. And even the ones who aren't apparently cannot come up with anything good.

I must assert that while I am not a fan of Dick Cheney, I do approve of his message: "Screw you, I'm preserving my own legacy." C'mon, you have to give this man, who is digging his political grave on Sunday morning talk shows, a little credit. Reagan's days of a "big tent" party are over, and Cheney is just bold-faced and stubborn enough to be out in front talking about it.

When your party has lost ground and relevance (think about the GOP's losing stances on health care, economic recovery, and torture), and you were primarily the one to blame, just OWN IT! What's the point of staying quiet, even though you've said virtually nothing for the last 8 years? What's the point of offering constructive criticism to the party that you just torpedoed? And what the hell is the point of talking about anything relevant, when your administration avoided any and everything relevant from Day One?

How much luckier can we get? Bush finally shuts up and exits the political arena, and his mean-as-fuck Number Two takes over the limelight!

So, Dick, my hat is off to you, and this Nero will fiddle as your party burns.

Christmas time

Despite my unwillingness, I am now fully surrounded by holiday cheer. I do not think of myself as a "Scrooge" per se, but my aversion to all things Christmas might seem a bit out of sync with the American tradition.

Hanging up Christmas décor seems not only like a waste of time, but a waste of space in a one-bedroom apartment that has precious little. It just seems so defeating to don my home with stuff that will only stay up for a month. And if I get lazy, and don't take them down until January 10, I will look positively stupid.

Besides, no one ever comes over anyway, except my boyfriend, who has agreed that we will not celebrate Christmas when we get married.

If I say any of these things to people in an attempt to explain why I don't like this time of year, they look at me as though they don't understand at all. "Why, Ryan, how come you don't like to put up a tree? Or hang lights?"

Because I don't think it's worth the hastle, that's why. If I'm going to redecorate or put up new things in my apartment, I want it to be legitimate. Maybe a sale at World Market or smoke damage would be better reasons to reassess how my apartment is decorated than the birth of a guy I'm not entirely convinced deserves all the fuss.

Is it over?

Is the election finally over now? If I open my eyes, will I see Barack Obama and his smiling family in the White House?

It looks more and more the case every day. Fortunately, every angle McCain and his shrill sidekick use these days seems to backfire-- trying to link him to terrorists, trying to associate him with the failures of the economy, trying to pin an image of classic Washington-liberalism (tax hikes, big government, "socialized medicine")-- none of it is working.

Hell, even what they don't do has been a telling subject as of late (failing to reign in a minister who introduced McCain and made an ass of himself in Davenport, Iowa, as well as allowing their supporters to seethe with racist and sinister ignorance).

So, has the McCain/Palin ticket finally gone bust? Me thinkest so. McCain's "town hall" format in the most recent debate, which was hyped endlessly by the media and his campaign, could only be described as "not a failure", rather than a "win", which he desperately needed.

Meanwhile, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, and Iowa have floated away from McCain, and stepped-up Obama efforts in New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana(!) are forcing him to spend more money (of which he has comparatively little).

For those of us who are rooting for Obama, there is much to celebrate. For those of us who are rooting against McCain, there is much to celebrate. In short, as of right now at least, it is over.

Media is impotent on judging conservatives

Anyone who watched Sarah Palin gaffe and stumble her way through Katie Couric's Q&A had to be horrified.

It was a cringe-inducing performance that went largely unnoticed in the mainstream media. Wolf Blitzer, when pressed by his angered and beloved colleague Jack Cafferty to "not make excuses" for Palin, said dryly "it wasn't her best interview."

Wasn't her best interview? Are you joking? I am an avowed Palin-hater and even I was uncomfortable, and I even *gasp* kind of felt sorry for her. She was sweating it out and could be seen looking down at least twice, trying to avoid the look of the whimsical, pitying face of Katie Couric who had to be wishing it was over even more than Palin.

But the mainstream media (except Cafferty and a brilliant SNL spoof) largely paid no attention to it. Even Chuck Todd, who many Republicans accuse of being "in the tank" for Obama, wouldn't come out and say the truth: That Sarah Palin looked, at best, terribly off the mark, and at worst, disqualified herself from the vice-presidency in a five-minute interview. Even George W. Bush has punched through more articulate and navigated responses!

In short, the media will not say that McCain played politics by wanting to bow out of the campaign and not debate, and the media will also continue to blindly refuse to acknowledge Palin's astonishing lack of understanding on any substantive issues. Period.