MY ONLY POST ABOUT ELECTION 2012

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

No secret that I was not an Obama worshipper back in 2008.

But, I’m voting for him this time around.  There are other blogs out there who piously state that they don’t have a “dog in this race” to which I say…bullshit!

Do PUMAs really want the Supreme Court to go to the Rethugs? Do you really want your wives and daughters to lose all rights to make decisions about their own bodies?

Do you really want a “bishop” who asked a pregnant woman with blood clots that threatened her life why she “should have it  “easy” by choosing to abort?

Have you taken the time to peek out beyond your own noses to see how this country could deteriorate in so many ways?  Regardless of who wins, we’ll have continued hard economic times…but there’s more to life than economics.  Do you really want to elect a mob that apparently disrespects women, blacks, Hispanics and just about everybody who isn’t one of THEM?  Especially if you aren’t a  “Christian” THEM?

Recently, I’ve been listening to Mike Malloy again on my Kindle Fire via TuneIn.  Mike, a true progressive now sadly relegated to asking for donations to keep his show on the air, once held the view that a loss to the Republicans would create the final catalyst for change to the system if they finally screwed up.

Well, he’s changed his opinion.  He has come to the conclusion that at this juncture in time, to allow power to fall back into the hands of the GOP might finally quash any chance to win back our system.  They will be in a position crush the life out of the middle class and pave the way for the ultimate corporatization of this country.  Liberals won’t have a chance to breathe.

For Mike Malloy to come around to this position is a big deal.  Apparently, some lefty blogs don’t see it this way.  But, frankly, there is too much at stake to allow the GOP into power, regardless of what you think of Obama and the Democratic Party.  No matter what, they are about all we have at this point.

So, that’s it. If you really want to see the guy whose foreign policy advisers come from the Bush Administration get back into power (something like 17 out of 25 are former Bushites), go ahead and don’t vote.If you want this bully CEO to come in and follow right along with the likes of all those GOPers who think rape is not a big deal, who think women are sluts if they get birth control in their health plan, who is right in line with the party that now shoves vaginal probes at us for no medical reason...go ahead and don’t vote.

If Romney wins this election, what will you be saying then? Will you blame Obama…or yourselves?

Me? I’ll be blaming a lot of people who are still stuck in 2008 and refuse to face the reality of the political world we live in now.  It’s time to grow up…

Health Justice Predicts the Future of Healthcare…"Goodbye"

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Yesterday (Friday, March 19) I sent in my check for my Medicare Supplement insurance, a nice hefty sum well over $4,000.

Just to rub salt into the wound, the full-court press on the Obama Health Insurance Protection Act is in full swing and will be voted on this weekend.

It’s a pile of crap.

For many months I’ve been subscribed to the Health Justice newsletter and have sent my share of emails and faxes in support of a single-payer system.

Yesterday’s missive was entited “Goodbye“; it predicts the future path of health care in this country. Even if half comes true, it’s still disheartening to think about.

Visit Health Justice at the link below for moral support and lots of good material to cry over…

http://www.1payer.net/

Here’s the email:

Dear ……,

This is a requiem for the idea that all Health Care in America is a Human Right.  The likely passage of Obama’s health reform joke will mean that health care and money are powerfully bound together.  From now on, having money means being healthy and having less money means being less healthy and having no means — well, you get the idea.

You can also say goodbye to America as the world’s greatest power.  We won’t have the money to pay off our debts to the Chinese and we won’t be able to make the money because no one will be brave enough to go it alone — no job will equal no health care.

You can also say goodbye to the power of the vote.  From this point on, it will be received wisdom that money can buy anything, including the White House and the entire Congress.

So folks, say Goodbye.  Don’t look for a brighter future for your American-born kids.  It won’t happen.

What Will Happen to Health Care?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As even the more “liberal” Republicans recognize, the health insurance industry is dying.  There is no way that a family making 100,000 dollars in 2014 can pay a 25,000 premium for health insurance with a 25,000 deductible and a 30% copay.  So the health insurance industry will contract, indeed has even begun to do so.  Insurers will shed their individual policies and compete fiercely only for the largest and most well-heeled companies who can afford to stiff their workers on pay in return for providing what everyone wants but can’t have — health insurance.

At the same time, those who are younger or healthier or bolder will go without health insurance and pay the fine (or not), then will sign up for an expensive policy when they get sick.  Insurers will try every way possible to avoid signing these people up — usually by claiming that they were defrauded when the newly insured person didn’t include a cold that he had ten years before he applied.

As the price rises for health insurance, fewer and fewer people will buy it and more and more will take the bolder approach.  The price will rise faster.  The insurers will consolidate because only the biggest will survive.  Eventually there will be three health insurers nationwide who will only insure people that work for Microsoft or Google and will have figured out a way to avoid insuring anyone else.

Those on Medicare or Medicaid will not be able to find a specialist, although there will be plenty of impecunious pediatricians, internists and family practice docs who are trying to scrape by on the measly payments by Medicare and Medicaid, which have cut year by year to pay the insurers to insure the middle-class employed person at ever higher prices.

Eventually, this will cut into the hospitals’ and the high-paid specialists’ bottom line and they will gradually start to see fewer and fewer patients, limiting their patients to those who can pay by some guaranteed manner.  Only the most infected and infested practices will be left for those who cannot guarantee payment.

And through all of this, Mitt Romney and fellow Republicans will be telling Americans that everything will be fine if they just eat right and exercise more.

But by that time (prediction: 2020), the Chinese will have essentially foreclosed on their loans to the US and will own most of our industrial base.

Another prediction:  buy Wellpoint/Anthem — it will own one-third of the market by 2015.  But wait to buy until the stock hits bottom after the Obamination passes.

HealthJustice | 57 W. 200 South, Suite 101 | Salt Lake City | UT | 84101

Martinis with Michelle–A Times (UK) Writer Jumps the Shark as Palin Helps Block a Senate Super-Majority

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of days ago I happened to spot the post over at PUMA P.A.C. entitled “Worth Repeating” which offers an encore presentation of an odious ode to Hillary “Nutcracker” Clinton.  Fast forward to mid-November and CNN’s obsession with the fashion f*ckups of First ladies  and how Michelle Obama is supposed to be our hope for a First Lady who really knows how to do it RIGHT.

Little did I know that there was something lurking in the archives of The Times (UK) that I had somehow missed in the first days following the election. It was published on November 5th, beating CNN to the punch–of course, I wasn’t thinking correctly in the aftermath of the depressing election and was not really looking for things to make me want to feel even sicker.  And this DOES make me want to vomit as reality has set in and the crap is so completely over-the-top that it makes Lewis Black seem discrete…

November 5, 2008

Michelle Obama: a new type of First Lady

Sarah Vine

That rather sad, muffled noise you hear behind the whoops and cheers of Democrat America is not the sound of defeated neocons mourning the passing of trickle-down economics; it is the sound of sobbing in the Élysée Palace. For Carla Bruni, reigning queen of First Ladies, the game is finally up. Cindy McCain would have been a push-over; even Sarah Palin she could have coped with, sexy specs or otherwise. But in Michelle Obama, Ms Bruni has truly met her match. This is a First Lady like none before.

In truth, from the moment Michelle Obama stepped on to that podium at the Democrat convention what seems like, ooh, about three million years ago, we all secretly knew which way this race was going. Sure, he had big, sticky-out ears; sure, all those luvvies made that embarrassing YouTube song about him; but if Michelle thought that he was OK — if she chose him — then he just had to be a good man.

Everything about this woman speaks to the modern, post-feminist woman: she is manifestly clever, independently minded, attractive in a normal, accessible way (and not in a scary, plastic-fantastic Cindy way). Her demeanour is a reassuring mixture of sassy and self-deprecating; her easy, confident dress sense neither too sexy nor too self-conscious. Most of all, however, she appears to be the personification of sanity, a woman who, while clearly supportive of her husband’s quest for world domination, is nevertheless not afraid to point out when he is danger of drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid.

(SNIP a brief discussion of two types of First Ladies, with Jackie Kennedy being the only style-queen among the bunch)

What makes Michelle unique is the way she so skilfully unites all three: supportive, independent and a fashion icon. Sarah Palin blew £90,000 on her campaign wardrobe but let’s face it, it is that blue shift dress that we all remember.

In the last American election, the big question was this: who would you most want to share a beer with? In this one, it was more like: who would you like to share a Martini with? The answer of course being Michelle. (Barack could maybe make himself useful by popping out for some crisps.) Michelle is not only invigoratingly intelligent, proud of her urbanity, but also unafraid of showing her abilities. She is certainly the only wife of a presidential candidate I can remember who, instead of playing herself down, played up the general uselessness of her husband in matters domestic — and in doing so not only held her ground intellectually but also reached out to all those women who, while devoted to their spouses, also find them slightly useless in matters of sock-tidying.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Michelle however is what having a woman lawyer like her in the White House means. For it is not often one can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there is an educated, intelligent, sensible female voice being heard in the corridors of power.

At the 2004 Democrat Convention in Boston, when the unknown Barack Obama stepped up to the plate to deliver the keynote speech, she famously said to him: “Don’t screw it up, buddy.” One cannot help hoping those words were repeated last night.

Well. The writer fell for the Sarah Palin clothes smear and doesn’t seem to remember that Hillary Clinton is a lawyer who lived in the White House. She trashes Cindy McCain and weeps for Carla Bruni.  And I don’t remember that blue shift dress at all, but I sure do recall the “black widow” number from election night.  As for wanting to share a Martini with Michelle…frankly, I don’t drink, but I may start any minute to help numb myself from 4/8 more years of this spew!

So who the hell IS Sarah Vine, anyway? Well, according to her publisher, Penguin Books, she

was born in Wales and raised in Italy. As a child she had a great capacity for reading comics, gossiping and trying on her mother’s shoes, all of which have stood her in excellent stead. She writes for the Times and is married with two children.

Stellar credentials, I guess for this sort of nonsense. She must have a least one daughter, because she’s created a website based on her co-authored book, “The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls.”  There’s a certain Victorian quaintness to this tome.  And is Vine confused as she refers to Michelle Obama as the epitome of the “modern, post-feminist woman”?  I don’t know, it’s seems real weird to me, a pre-post modern feminist.

Let me give you an example from the book. The site includes activity sheets for things like “making pom poms” and “palm reading,” to name a few.

But tucked away in the preview page for “The Great Outdoors” are instructions for falling out of a tree.  But before you get to that information, a girl will have to wade through this:

Falling
Learn to walk before you run; learn to fall before you climb. Knowing how
to fall properly is an art. Done well it is exciting, it looks great, can be very funny – and besides, crutches are such a bore.

Start by perfecting the stage faint, itself an invaluable accomplishment and a
useful exit strategy for all manner of uncomfortable situations (non-completion
of maths homework, getting out of PE, wanting the morning off school). Practise
it on a lawn or in a room with a thick carpet.

Bend your ankles, bend your knees and let yourself go floppy, collapsing
vertically at first, until you start to topple. The trick is to be very loose, very
relaxed, and not to stick out a hand or try to catch yourself; you are supposed to
be unconscious. The aim is to hit the ground from the ground up, so that the bits
nearest the floor land first, softening the impact. A crumple is really what you’re
looking for – first your calf, then your thigh, then your waist, then your shoulder.
For added drama, and to dissipate the impact, you may wish to add a half roll.
Land with your eyes shut (or if you’re feeling really confident, rolled back in
your head). Resist the temptation to open one eye to check the reaction.

I have no words…

Meanwhile, in the much-despised real world of Sarah Palin, the “polarizing bimbo” created by the media, we find that she was down in Georgia on Monday drawing large crowds as she campaigned for Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate run-off election (which Chambliss has won and which blocks a Democratic “super-majority). Apparently, there are some GOP operatives who don’t see her as the “kiss of death” politically and it seems a lot of real people didn’t see it that way either:

Several Republicans have campaigned for Chambliss, including one-time presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. McCain campaigned in the state last month, but only Palin was tapped for election eve and four Georgia stops, reflecting her star status. Tommy Byler, 22, of Savannah marveled at the size of the crowd Palin drew compared to other top-tier Republicans who have campaigned for Chambliss.

“I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago, and I think there were only about 100 people there,” said Byler, who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Palin’s face and the words “Sarah Palin Is My Homegirl.”

So, while Michelle Obama practices being “supportive, independent, and a fashion icon,” Sarah keeps soldiering on.  Ah, but can Palin do a stage faint???

Attention NeoProgs: You DID NOT Defeat the PUMAs!

~~By Grail Guardian

Enough already! It’s been nearly 2 weeks since the mythical “post-racial” election that would change the world, purify acid rain, halt all crime, turn all hate into love, make rainbows appear simultaneously and permanently in the sky over every nation, end global warming, part the seas, cause God’s light to shine upon us, and make the Unity Pony the universally accepted mascot of the globe – yet still it persists! By it, I mean the gloating, the taunting, the childish harassment across the Blogosphere, the never-ending threats, and of course the omnipresent misogyny alternating between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton.

Our own GRL posted a smattering of the nasty comments we’ve had here at InsightAnalytical earlier this week. The site has been in forced moderation ever since the election due to the attacks of the Oborg and threats promising to shut the site down (and GRL informs me that at least one of our “regular” trolls has been permanently banned due to abuse). In this same article, reader Leslie reports that she is still beset by combative co-workers trying to cure her of her “wicked ways”. The joy is not isolated to IA, however. A recent check at Not Your Sweetie showed someone artfully calling themselves “PUMA FAIL” asking:

“How’s that McCain landslide going?”

…more than 10 weeks after the article was originally posted. Useful? I think not. Unprovoked? Most assuredly (note that the comment is preceded by 2 links to probama sites). Isolated? Hardly. At Texas Darlin’s blog, commenter Jennifer Boucher went way beyond the acceptable [Strong Language Warning!]:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!! HOW IS HAVING BARACK OBAMA AS THE NEXT PRESIDENT GOING TO FUCK UP AND RUIN LIVES AND/OR THIS COUNTRY!!! HAVE YOU BEEN FUCKIN’ BLIND FOR THE PAST EIGHT FUCKIN’ YEARS!! LOOK AT THE FUCKIN’ MESS THAT BUSH HAS MADE! HOW ABOUT THE JOB HE HAS DONE! THE ENTIRE WORLD FREAKIN’ HATES US, THE ECONOMY IS HORRIBLE, A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR JOBS. DID YOU ENJOY PAYING OVER $4 A GALLON FOR GAS? DO YOU ENJOY PAYING HIGH HEALTH CARE COSTS? HIGH GROCERY BILLS? HOW ABOUT NOT HAVING A FREAKIN’ JOB! MCCAIN WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO FIX THIS MESS! HE’S OUT OF TOUCH WITH WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE AN AVERAGE AMERICAN, HE HAS SEVEN FREAKIN’ HOUSES FOR ONE THING! BARACK OBAMA DIDN’T GROW UP WITH A SILVER SPOON UP HIS FUCKIN’ ASS, AND HE’LL WORK HARD FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN! THIS WHOLE FUCKIN’ BULLSHIT ABOUT BARACK BEING A TERROIST, AND HIS MIDDLE NAME IS HUSSEIN IS RIDICULOUS!!! SO WHY DON’T YOU STOP WASTING YOUR FUCKING TIME PUTTING UP THESE FUCKING WEBSITES! WHY DON’T YOU WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE AND OPEN UP YOUR FUCKING EYES WHY DON’T YOU, AND SEE WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON!!

Of course, I could go on with the examples, but you get the drift. They’re still bitter, they’re still hostile, and they’re still blaming the PUMA movement for…uh, gee – I guess for Obama winning the election? Nope. In fact, they’re still insisting that PUMAs don’t exist. To wit, blogger LastPlaneOut:

Nice try, but PUMAs are done.

They never existed.

I have spent every day of the last 5 months thwarting Darragh’s Legion of Lost Typists.

Every prowl she organized, I got there first. I warned the media and the politicos that you were coming for them. I helped Roland Martin at CNN duck you. I telegraphed your email swarms to every targeted delegate and superdelegate at Denver. I have an inbox full of “Thank you” letters from PUMA targets who listened to me and dumped your message swarms into unused voicemail accounts and fax machines in the utility closet. I have fought you on the HuffingtonPost, US News and a dozen other media outlets. I have blocked your disinformation at every turn, bombed your YouTube videos, pretended to be your friend in Denver and spoofed you in a thousand ways.

There aren’t 18 million of you, as tonight’s election proves. Hell, there doesn’t seem to be ANY of you, based on the vote. You’ve been living a fantasy.

Tonight, I am — like Lou Gehrig — the happiest man on the face of the earth,

Bravo, President Barack Hussein Obama.

And good luck, PUMAs, at whatever the hell it is you plan on doing now, at the fringes of American politics.

The conventional wisdom indicates that if we don’t exist we wouldn’t get bothered or even referred to anymore, right? Alas, there is no wisdom in the Oborg. Their attacks continue unabated. Not just against PUMAs, but, of course against, all women. And their favorite 2, of course, Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Hillary Clinton. This week’s Roundup mentions perennially perky “joke” CBS News anchor Katie Couric’s advice to Palin:

“I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing. But I’m not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything.”

No one seems to be mentioning that Couric could stand to learn something about journalism. Meanwhile, Politico snipes Palin for being more interesting to the press than her fellow Governors at a meeting last week:

While her other governors diagnosed the GOP woes that led to their second consecutive electoral thrashing and plotted a way out of the political wilderness, Sarah Palin did neither.
Two events were added to the annual Republican Governors Association meeting especially for the Alaska governor and former vice presidential nominee, but her objectives were unclear and her message, mixed. For somebody who is now seen as a prominent leader in the GOP and perhaps the party’s instant-front-runner for the 2012 presidential race, it was a less than auspicious return to the Lower 48.

Of course the big news making Obot heads explode was the offer to Senator Hillary Clinton to be Obama’s Secretary of State. At the Huffington Post writer Nico Pitney couldn’t disguise his disdain for the possibility, noting that Team Obama had to create an argument for him to swallow the news and that:

The offer shows that the Obama team is, in fact, serious about bringing all types of political officials — former foes included — into its governing tent. During the Democratic primary, Clinton was often accused by aides to Obama of inflating or over-dramatizing her foreign policy experience.

Enthusiastic HuffPo commenter BeltwayBette showed her support for party unity as follows:

HRC, in spite of huge efforts to pump up her foreign service credentials, which flopped on the tarmac you know where — is not qualitied for SOS.
HRC is not a team player, never has been. As we recall, she allegedly flopped the health plan Bill gave her because no one In DC could or would work with her.
HRC is same ole,same ole — and still too personally ambitious for the presidency to belong to her — or to the latest Clinton to be floated for the POTUS – Chelsea Clinton. The Dynasty refuses to die.
HRC, whose talking points against Sen.Obama fed the McCain campaign for almost two years — will have the power to undermine the man for whom it is said she felt only great contempt . .
BUT this is still only a rumor. I personally wish that President Elect Obama would put a sock in his leaks. And that he would show some loyalty to those who fought so hard for him — like the man HRC’s surrogate Carville villified for his Obama endorsement — Bill Richardson.
In 2012,we may need BR again.

So, to paraphrase the probable future Chair of the DNC Donna Brazile, why not Stop the Hate? No one appears to be immune to the bilious attacks. The Oborg even seems to be defying their beloved leader in opposing his Secretary of State offer to Clinton. The only answer I can offer is that these demented animals need somewhere to channel all the hatred they amassed during the past 2 years. You cannot be that bitter and vitriolic for that long and then suddenly stop. That probably means I should have some tolerance and compassion for these poor tortured troglodytes, but I can no longer muster any empathy or understanding. Instead, I offer the Oborg this thought:

You did not defeat the PUMA movement on November 4^th!

You read that right! You couldn’t do it. McCain/Plain was defeated by our old nemesis, the NeoCons. The facts support it; they stayed home in droves! The supposed legions of new registered Democrats (courtesy of ACORN) never materialized. The other voters that never materialized were the Conservatives. According to the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza (yet another h/t to Not Your Sweetie):

much of the Republicans’ permanent political class has concluded that electing Sen. John McCain as president would have amounted to applying a Band-Aid to a gaping wound. Given the state of the party — bereft of a signature new idea and without many fresh faces — plenty of Republican operatives have come to subscribe to what I’d call the Ra’s al Ghul theory of rebuilding: Ghul, a villain in the movie “Batman Begins,” advocates destroying the city of Gotham to rebuild it from the ground up. “It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die,” he says — a sentiment echoed by many Republicans these days, who argue that hitting rock bottom was the only way to allow new faces and ideas to emerge.

What’s more, the final numbers seem to indicate that had Hillary Clinton been the Democratic candidate, she would have slaughtered John McCain according to CBS:

As voters left the polls on Election Day, many were asked how they would have voted if the election match-up were between Hillary Clinton and John McCain rather than Barack Obama and McCain. 52 percent said they would have backed the former Democratic candidate; 41 percent would have voted for McCain, wider than Obama’s 7-point margin over McCain.

Snip

While 85% of Obama voters said they would have voted for Clinton had she been the Democratic candidate, 13% would not have supported her including 6% who said they would have backed McCain and 7% who said they would not have voted. (Emphasis mine)

In short, one man can be considered responsible for Barack Obama’s victory: George W. Bush

The Washington Post concludes that:

…a look at this year’s political atmospherics suggests that the environment was so badly poisoned that no Republican — not Mitt Romney, not Mike Huckabee, not even the potential future GOP savior, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — could have beaten Obama on Nov. 4.

Why not? Three words (and a middle initial): President George W. Bush.

snip

Enter Palin, who was embraced with a bear hug by the party’s conservative base. All of a sudden, cultural conservatives were thrilled at the chance to put “one of their own” in the White House. In fact, of the 60 percent of voters who told exit pollsters that McCain’s choice of Palin was a “factor” in their final decision, the Arizona senator won 56 percent to 43 percent.

For skittish conservatives looking for more evidence that McCain understood their needs and concerns, Palin did the trick. It’s hard to imagine conservatives rallying to McCain — even to the relatively limited extent that they did — without Palin on the ticket. And without the base, McCain’s loss could have been far worse.

So what’s my point? Well, it’s threefold:

1) An admittedly immature STFU to the Oborg

2) To establish that we PUMAs did our part to defeat Barack Obama

3) To remind PUMAs everywhere that we forgot who we should have been fighting and debunk an old adage: the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.

It’s time to start ignoring the Obots and realizing how ineffectual they have become. We still have work to do.