Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Big Mules and Branch Heads - Medicare Mess

Several years ago my old daddy shared a book about Big Jim Folsom that he thought was a good summary of politics here in the Yellowhammer State. Carl Grafton and Anne Permaloff penned Big Mules & Branchheads: James E. Folsom and Political Power in Alabama in 1985 via UGA's publishing arm. Then ten years later they rolled out, or recycled, Political Power in Alabama: The More Things Change ... yet I've not tackled that one and might not based on what little I've read about the work and certainly the price. "Got a good goose better pick him clean!" as my Daddy used to say. Anyways ... I look here and see the Big Mules still have a place at the feed bucket. Montgomery to DC it does still remain the same.

Folsom knew he needed support from the powerful with money at stake and also had to be able to reach the common people at the tops of the hollows. Big business owns the modern ReThug machine and we know the "values voter" is used to keep them in power where they actually vote against the common man's economic interests. Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas: How ... is a great look at this reality. Rich get (at worst stay?) richer and the poor ... And these mules have hybrid vigor enough to be able to replicate. Multinational mules? Jack Abramoff and the Jack Pack of K Street are just a part of the mess. And while indeed the Dems aren't without fault in influence whore hopping, they are surely clean compared to the RePugs. Now this hardly clear to the WaPo ombudsman (and of course Sean and Bill and Ravage Savage and Big Fat Idiot and the Freepers and ....) but we'got some room to work here.

One initially wants to ask WTF were these guys thinking to lock themselves in a room and bend over for the Big Mules once again. I bet they simply thought nobody would notice and even if they did then they could blame the news on the liberal media and their moonbat lefty terrorist loving jesus hating ... blogosphere. Or Hollywood? Or maybe it was required in a post-911 world as recently offered up by Architect Rove. And the thing is that I'm not surprised to read that the GOP closed the doors to save health insurance industry millions from an already upside down budget. Medicare is a fiasco from how Big Pharm and Big Insurance wrote the bill along with AARP going along as good for their geezers.

Sort of like Teddy and the left letting "conservatives" create NCLB or rather NDOBLB (No Data Obsessed Bureaucrat Left Behind) with the money that disappeared. Fool me once ... This latest example lets the GOP deliver yet another flaming demonstration of incompetence such as "nobody anticipated the levees being breached" and WMD and destroying our Constitution and .... But at least we are spreading our democratic values across the planet ... excepting our allies in in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or ... Our Leader/Preznit is truly the worst ever!

Plaid is sad but mostly mad. Glad he can at least vent blog. War ... or Peace!

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