Category Archives: Pants on Fire

The War on Women and Health

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It’s not fought where you think.

Hillary Clinton takes pains to prove that she will faithfully continue the work Mr. Obama has done to destroy health care, women, and the nation. She calls herself “the best standard bearer for the president’s health care act.”

The Obama administration has admitted that premiums for plans under the Unaffordable Care Act known as Obamacare would soar by an average of 25% next year.

“I want us to defend and build on the Affordable Care Act and improve it,” Ms. Clinton said. “That is one of the greatest accomplishments of President Obama, of the Democratic Party and of our country.”

Greatest.

My new friend Diana Bauer, up where the air is thin in New Mexico, was forced onto a Bronze plan. “Last year my premium was $389 per month for covering practically nothing,” she said. “I’m afraid to go to the doctor.”

It gets worse.

“I got a little bonus at the end of last year and all of it and more was eaten at tax time because it bumped my premium for the entire year. With the new rates coming, I won’t be able to afford ‘Bronze-level’ coverage. I need ‘dirt-level’ coverage.”

16 million American women do not have health insurance despite the Obamacare juggernaut Ms. Clinton will defend. Without significant change, Ms. Bauer and many, many more will rejoin the ranks of uninsured next year.

Yeppers, that’s one of the great accomplishments of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party. There are more and Ms. Clinton will faithfully continue them.

“If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay [and raising the minimum wage] is playing the woman card, then deal me in,” Ms. Clinton says on the stump.

3.7 million more American women ive in poverty than when Mr.Obama took office. In 2015, there were 43.1 million people in poverty, up from 39.3 million in 2008. Even NPR admits that “there are somewhere in the neighborhood of six million more people in poverty now than there were before Obama took office.” There are 24.1 million women living in poverty now, up from 20.4 million in 2008.

Fighting for women.

Yeppers, that’s another of great accomplishment of Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party. Ms. Clinton, the self-proclaimed “women’s champion,” will faithfully continue that trend.

 

Burn the Bern

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Demorat and Repuglican hit team, too.

Demorats have poured millions of dollars into discrediting his ability to beat Hillary Clinton now and any Repuglican in November. Repugs chant “socialist,” and “communist,” and “unwashed masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Sanders, too?

He voted against the Iraq war. He rails against big business and the rich. One of his most popular quotes is that if a bank is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. He wants dump ObamaDon’tCare (say what?). Don’t worry, he’ll implement Medicare for everyone. Including US Congressmen. He’s Elizabeth Warren but louder. He strongly wants campaign reform. He calls himself “independent.”

Worse yet, people love Bernie Sanders.

The fact that Mr. Sanders has never actually passed a piece of legislation doesn’t seem to matter to anyone; he has his say!

The Demorats have it much easier than the Repuglicans.

They have 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders from ever happening.

If Mr. Sanders shows up at the convention with more delegates than Ms. Clinton, you can bet the marching orders are, “Burn the Bern.”

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio.)

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

Loose cannons Bernie Sanders on the far left and Donald Trump on the middle right. I hope you will vote for one or the other. Instead of burning the Bern, let’s burn the parties.

I wrote more about Derailing the Donald over here.

Who knows? With two “populists” running head to head in November, anything can happen.

 

Derail the Donald

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Repuglican and Demorat hit team in the universe.

Forget Occupy Wall Street. Today it’s Occupy Donald Trump.

Repuglicans have poured millions of dollars into a negative ad campaign to discredit his ability to beat Hillary Clinton in November. Demorats chant “hatred,” and “racism,” and “uneducated masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Trump?

“The Repubs are reaping the results of the misinformation, division, racism, and fear they have been feeding the public since Barack Obama took office,” my oh-so-liberal friend Fanny Guay said. That is the Demorat’s party line, but the reality is that the only people ever to play the division or race cards in politics are liberals.

And misinformation belongs to both parties.

Pundits and establishment Repuglicans alike pretend they have no idea what will come out of the Donald’s mouth next, but that’s not true either. We all know perfectly well what he’ll say and we think we know what he’ll do.

Establishment Repugs and Demorats alike know they won’t control a Trump administration they way they have controlled the process for decades.

The unholy triad of big government, big business, and big media reaps billions and they protect one another to keep it flowing. No one cares who sits in the White House as long as government keeps getting bigger, programs keep programming, and the money keeps flowing. It’s a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich. Everyone except thee and me. Everyone except We the Overtaxed People. We get ripped off.

The maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help so the Dems can’t control him either.

Worse, the radical Donald Trump may well prosecute the movers and shakers of that unholy triad, starting with Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton themselves and that keeps people up at night.

Even Bernie Sanders wouldn’t do what Mr. Trump could.

Hence the adjectives thrown around. “Toxic.” “Racist.” “Scam.”

Misinformation. It’s what they do.

Is Mr. Trump causing or simply riding the toxic atmosphere?

John Dickerson took Mr. Trump to task for the violence at his campaign rallies.

I call foul.

Mr. Sanders says “Donald Trump has been incredibly divisive…”

Interesting. It’s Mr. Trump’s fault when his supporters take a shot, but never the good guys who the first punch. Never, Mr. Sanders said. “Our campaign has never once organized any effort disrupt Mr. Trump’s rallies…”

In fact, every news report I’ve seen blames Mr. Trump for the increasing violence at his events and every news report I’ve seen fails to mention the Demoratic candidates the violent protestors represent. And no reporter would ever blame a Demoratic protestor for the rampages.

A Gallup poll last year found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Trust in the mass media has fallen even more sharply among those younger than 50.

I wonder why.

Mr. Trump has 460 delegates to Mr. Cruz’ 370, Mr. Rubio’s 163, and Mr. Kasich’s 63. Ms. Clinton has 771 pledged delegates plus probably 460 “superdelegates” vs. Mr. Sanders’ 576.

There are 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders who displeases the party insiders. Right now the Repugs are wishing they had superdelegates. Right now the Repugs are probably rewriting the convention rules so they do have superdelegates.

Americans also gave the GOP a 63% favorable rating and the Demorats 61% in 2015. This is the only time since Gallup began tracking the parties’ images in 1992 that neither party has achieved at least 40% favorability from the public.

I wonder why.

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio. Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all on the Republican side).

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

I wrote more about Burning the Bern over here.

Loose cannons Donald Trump on the middle right and Bernie Sanders on the far left. I hope you will vote for one or the other tomorrow. Instead of derailing the Donald, let’s derail the parties.

In any event, the only positive political ads on TV during the news are for Viagra and Cialis. Yeppers, we’re gonna get screwed.

 

Happy New Year – Here’s the Check

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SANDERS PLAN: RAISE (U.S.) TAXES!*
SANDERS BACKS GREECE’S ‘NO’ (NEW TAXES) VOTE!**

Feel the Bern but also Feel the Pain.

It’s a pain that will come no matter whom we elect this year.

“Things are going ‘so well’ with the truth of how our system works that we are bankrupting ourselves,” wrote a concerned citizen.

Every politician since the wicked Nimrod has lied to us. Oh, some told little white lies but they lied to us nonetheless. “We know how to fix it!” they all say.

“We are not Greece, we are not Portugal,” Mr. Obama said in 2011 as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s prepared to downgrade America’s top credit status.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

Liar, Liar, Pants on FireAccording to a new report by Kotlikoff and Michel, U.S. government debt stands at $210 trillion, not at the official $13.1 trillion nor the almost $18.9 trillion of the US Debt Clock nor the $86.8 trillion calculated by Cox and Archer.

Even using the make believe $13.1 trillion debt, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the debt will be well over 100% of GDP by 2039. When CBO incorporates its estimates of the impact of the continuing large federal deficits on the nation’s economy, it estimates that the accumulated debt held by the public will reach 180% of GDP by 2039.

For homework, try to find out if any member of Congress or the President has ever read these CBO reports.

The Feds will tell you every man, woman, and child of the 326,387,900 people now alive in the U.S. owes “only” $40,136.29 of that debt.

The reality is far different. The real debt load works out to $643,406.20 per person in the United States, 16 times higher than the current official level and 2-1/2 times our total net worth.

In 2014 the net worth of all U.S. citizens was pegged at $80.7 trillion. Wealth is commonly measured in terms of net worth, which is the quite simple sum of all assets (what you have in the bank, the market value of real estate, like your home, any stocks and stuff you own) minus what you owe on all of that. which accountants call “liabilities.”

(Including human capital such as skills, the United Nations estimated the total wealth of the United States in 2008 to be $118 trillion. The United Nations has never been good at accounting or science.)

$210 trillion in debt <==> $80 trillion in assets.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

Mr. Sanders isn’t the only financial nincompoop. He’s just the most obvious among the economic geniuses we’ve elected.

A record Federal Reserve “reverse repo” auction on the last day of business means credit markets and mutual funds are in trouble. Like the “credit swaps” and off-balance-sheet financing that caused the Great Recession, the financial markets are again playing with numbers none of the geniuses understands.

“It is government’s fault for offering a housing finance program without making an effort to maintain underwriting standards,” then-Rep. Barny Frank (D-MA) said of the Housing Crisis.

That would be the same Barny Frank who imposed “affordable housing” requirements on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Before he did that, the government lenders had been required to buy only prime mortgages. Mr. Frank forced Fannie and Freddie to meet a government quota for bad loans to borrowers who could never repay them.

Yeah, they fixed it alright.

The Dow fell 450 points this morning, on its way to the worst opening day in 84 years. The Fed figures it can’t head off or even contain the coming financial crises.

Meanwhile China’s government-managed stock market tanked again today, too. Looks like China’s politicians are about as good at this financial stuff as ours.

And none of this helps rein in the stampeding public debt.

The Demorat’s answer to the National Debt is “there is no national debt but we’ll raise taxes anyway so we can spend more.” The Repuglican’s answer to the National Debt is “there is some national debt so we need to raise taxes so we can spend more.”

“We know how to fix it!”

Yeah, they’ll fix us right up.

How to Avoid Bankruptcy — For Dummies tells us:

  • Get your financial house in order by spending less than you take in.
  • Sell your assets.
  • Take over a large foreign country with lots of natural resources and land.

OK, I added the last one but, hey! It worked for Genghis Khan, Rome, Great Britain, and Google, right?

* Let’s get specific. How high would Bernard Sanders go on tax rates?
“We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as … 90%.”

 

** “I applaud the people of Greece for saying ‘no’ to more austerity..
“In a world of massive wealth and income inequality, Europe must support Greece’s efforts” to loot the real European economies which create jobs and income.

 

Unaffordable Care Act Unaffordable

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And now an unseemly I told you so to end the year.

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study found the “Affordable Care Act” hasn’t made health care affordable.

Wotta surprise.

I’ve mentioned how bad this law is before.

The Unaffordable Care Act was passed based on per capita health care costs of $7,825 under the Bush Administration. Obamacare promised to save us money. So far, per capita health care has cost $8,054 in $2009, $8,299 in 2010, $8,553 in 2011, $8,845 in 2012, $9,146 in 2013, and it is expected to come in at $9,458 in 2014 and $9,800 in 2015, all under the Obama Administration.

Lib’ruls who can’t do math promised that when government runs this market your premiums would decrease. Mr. Obama promised a $2,500 a year drop.

How’d that work out for you?

And now the Unaffordable Care Act’s bait and switch has left consumers scrambling in 2016. Again.

I really really wish I had been wrong.

Check out our sampling of the ObamaDon’tCare Observations here.