Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar, LIAR, LIAR, LIAR,

Rachel Maddow is so much better at this than I am, which might explain why she has an audience and I don't. The above video says what I've been saying about our potential next president for a very long time: that his campaign is based on lies, that he lies like he breathes, that he does so shamelessly, repeatedly, and unrepentantly. The video ought to be watched, beginning to end (okay, people could skip the details about the manufacturing history of Etch-A-Sketch, although it's interesting in its own right) by everyone, left, right, center. Because Rachel is scathing in her clarity. While, as usual, completely factual.

And she's dead on about this: whereas lying is a well-honed part of American politics (it's not illegal to lie in campaign ads), Romney's lying is something far beyond precedent. It's pathological. That a man will repeat things, over and over, that are patently false, lie about doing so, and continue with new lies every day -- whose first instinct when confronted seems to be lying -- is deeply troubling. It'd be so in your kid, your friend, your co-worker. If you cared about them you'd seek ways to get them help. Maybe you'd feel the need to turn them in; or, at minimum, just avoid them.

But you sure as hell wouldn't vote for them to be president of the United States, would you?

This guy is defective in some as-yet undefined but obvious way, a way that probably has its own DSM-IV code. And whatever else it is, whatever you might call it, it ought to be categorically disqualifying for higher office. Categorically. Absolutely.

That Mitt Romney, a blatant, continuous, and transcendent liar, will be the R nominee, will undoubtedly win some states, and might even win the whole thing says much more about who we've become as a country than about him.

But it still says a hell of a lot about him.

1984/2012

See, this is the kind of thing that drives me absolutely nuts: in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the guy who's so far given the most money to right-wing superpacs says this about our president:

"Any of these Republicans would make a better president than that socialist, Obama," Simmons told the Journal (subscription required), in what is the piece's most provocative quote. "Obama is the most dangerous American alive … because he would eliminate free enterprise in this country."

Never mind that, according to the first-linked article, the man's wealth has more than doubled under Obama. Never mind that, given the option to do something that actually could have been characterized as socialism, Obama instead made the ACA entirely based on private insurers. Never mind that it doesn't matter if the guy believes what he's saying or not (I have no idea, but, based on a line in the article, namely "The 80-year-old Texan takes his political advice from Karl Rove," I'm guessing he knows better): he'll feed money to those that will repeat his claim over and over, the more untrue the better, to the willing and eager-to-be-misled audience, patiently and carefully crafted for the purpose by Rove, Roger Ailes, and the unified chorus of right-wing screamers.

That Barack Obama is not a socialist is clear in everything he's done. That he understands the central role of free enterprise in our economy is as obvious as a dog on the roof of a car. But, like special sauce in a Big Mac, Republican lies are what sell the product. In this case, rather than cholesterol, which is known to be deadly, the product is crafted to hide the truth doubly: not only is the message patently false, it's not about the message at all. It's about stealing by getting the victims happily to open their wallets while thinking they have them still in their pockets. It's about making sure the Republican vision of the future -- which, it couldn't be more clear (read their budget proposals), is to take money away from our future and lay it in the hands of the presently wealthy -- comes to pass.

And the only way that can happen (sadly, likely will happen) is by the constant selling of a lie to a public only too willing to take it in. Willing, because they've been carefully sold a bill of goods, slowly, for decades; and now they're too endumbed to notice or care.

Truly: I'm beginning to think it's not only a waste of time to say anything, but that the country isn't worth saving.

Showing Up Late

It was for many reasons that I let myself burn out of my surgical practice sooner than I'd imagined going into it. Mainly, I guess, was the amount of work I was doing at the end, so much more than my partners, days on, days off, weekends off; calls all night. The usual. But I'd signed up for that, really; no matter how hard it got it was less demanding than my years of training, back in the days of the iron men and women. No, I think what finally did me in was the psychological toll taken by ever-mounting rules and demands of one bureaucracy or another, all of which seemed predicated on the idea that, unless proven otherwise, I (being a physician) was incompetent, unethical, uninformed, and greedy.

But I never had to face an outrage like the one sweeping the country as it descends into theocracy and (attendant) stupidity. I speak of the forced transvaginal ultrasound craze that is the darling of right-wing, regressive, hypocritical and gynophobic legislators around the country. And I'm sorry that it took a reader sending me this link to a post that's going viral to remind me I should have said something sooner. As a physician, I've been tardy. (Although I've mentioned, many times, the dangers of teabaggR theocracy; and I posted favorably about the satirical legislation -- which failed, because, you know, it's guys -- requiring men to get prostate exams before being allowed to take E.D. medication...)

Yes, this is different. It's bad enough to have to justify, to some kid in an insurer's cubicle, a decision I've made about the care of my patient. Or to fill out a form indicating why I've chosen to order supplemental oxygen for a post-op patient, or to use a blood product. But to be told I must, under penalty of prosecution, perform a medically unnecessary, invasive (and, when not wanted by the patient, a degrading) procedure by declaration of a state legislature... well, I can't imagine standing for it. (Garry Trudeau ran a series of Doonesbury strips about it last week, which were censored by many newspapers.)

My guess -- admittedly prejudiced, which is not to say inaccurate in this case -- is that a lot of doctors in the states where such requirements are brewing are perfectly happy with it. It comports with their personal religious beliefs and is consistent with the fundamentalist view of the subjugation of women. But it's no excuse: there's a principle here. Legislators have no business forcing unindicated procedures on patients or their doctors, and doctors who acquiesce are complicit, whether they like the theology or not.

Wait a minute, I can hear some saying. Haven't you written in favor of medical efficiency research, and tying it to Medicare reimbursement? Isn't that the same thing? Why yes, yes I have. And no, no it's not. What it is is medical people -- experts!! -- investigating what works and what doesn't; which treatments aren't justified when less expensive, less risky, more effective ones are available. That is nothing at all like -- it's the opposite of -- idiot legislators telling a doctor she must perform a medically unnecessary procedure on a patient for political and religiously-motivated reasons.

I'd like to think that, if forced to do such a thing, I'd refuse, and speak out forcefully. In the name of my patients' best interest; in the name of drawing a line between religiosity and health care. Typing away at my computer, hemi-demi-retired, it's easy to proclaim. And, as well-written and right on as the linked opinion piece is, I infer that the author is not in a state where the test is required: he/she is calling on docs who are to refuse. Easier said than done, I'd suppose; in places where such legislation is considered reasonable, I'd guess they'd have no problem destroying a doc who'd speak out on behalf of his/her patient against such heavy-handed, moralistic, and demeaning intrusion.

That it's unjustified in every way except a narrow-minded and spiteful religious one is pretty clear. What's behind the shroud, though, is much worse: it's just an inkling of the kind of society we'll be living in if religionists like Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich (or, depending on whether he shakes the Etch-A-Sketch or not, Mitt "I'm-Whoever-You-Want-Me-To-Be" Romney) gets into office and has like-minded people running Congress. Legislating that vulnerable women, who are making a horrendously difficult decision, must undergo forced vaginal entry by (if only partly indirectly) a gang of religious zealots is just the beginning. We ain't seen nothing, yet.

D-Fense! D-Fense! D-Fense!!!

[Image gets bigger if touched in the right way.]

Near the top of his never-ending panders to whomever he thinks might vote on a particular issue is Mitt Romney's claim that he'll increase defense spending to four percent of GDP. Not only would that trump Obama's planned defense spending by three trillion dollars, when matched with Romney's (and every R candidate's) pledge to lower taxes (not to mention balancing the budget like he says, but who knows what he really thinks), it'd require devastation of the rest of government.

But, hey, it's a dangerous world. Never can be too careful, right? And a few more aircraft carriers will keep away the suitcase bombs, fer sure.

Repeal The ACA!

The argument, I guess, is that as a country we don't need to care; that for people like these, the proper response is "Tough luck. Not my problem." The operative ethic, evidently, is that because the ACA pays for itself by raising certain fees (as opposed to Bush's Medicare Part D, which didn't pay for itself in any way), and, by every measure taken of it, lowers the deficit, it must be repealed. No matter what good it may do for millions of people: if we have to pay, we ain't gonna do it. We got ours: screw you. You don't deserve it, it's not a priority, go away.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the R view of American exceptionalism.

And There You Have It

While I do admire House Republicans for laying it on the table -- and I mean that without sarcasm -- their vision of our future, as revealed today, is one of slow suicide. Sorry: fast suicide.

The GOP plan released by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan would, if enacted into law, wrestle the deficit to a manageable size in short order, but only by cutting Medicaid, food stamps, Pell Grants and a host of other programs that Obama has promised to protect.

To deal with the influx of retiring Baby Boomers, the GOP budget reprises a controversial approach to overhauling Medicare that would switch the program — for those under 55 today — from a traditional "fee for service" framework in which the government pays doctor and hospital bills to a voucherlike "premium support" approach in which the government subsidizes purchases of health insurance.

If the only thing that's important is balancing the budget while maintaining historically low tax rates on high income people, then their plan shines like a tear on John Boehner's cheek. But if any importance is given to education, health care accessibility and affordability, to providing help to those in need -- in short, to seeing to it that there's a future beyond the generation in charge -- then "disgrace" is too mild a word.

I know of at least one reader who thinks their Medicare plan is peachy. Turning a successful (if too costly) program into one that sends money to the corporations that finance the GOP is cool with him. He buys, one must infer, the oft-repeated (including in the R announcement) and never-realized trope that providing competition among health care insurers lowers costs. They're fine, for obvious reasons, with turning Medicare over to corporations with their 30% overhead and profit-taking; but they railed with cynicism ablazing when President Obama proposed ways to save money within the current system. Actual, thoughtful ways, aimed at finding efficiencies in delivery of care; as opposed to turning the system into a money-maker for donors.

Behind the deliberate distractions of ginned-up religious paranoia, private sexual behavior, of made-up otherness of our president, lies the real choice the country faces, and it couldn't be more clear. If you take the time to think past the Foxian fog of falsehoods.

If Romtorum is elected, and if the Senate goes to Republicans, the proposed budget will become law. The financial health of the most well-off among us will be assured for their lifetimes. The next generation will be less educated, will drive on potholed roads in cars that spew more pollution, the poor will die in greater numbers, health care will be less accessible and more expensive. The future of once-great and -admired America, the America that prospered by educating and caring for and counting on its people to excel, will slip from view --replaced by greed, uncaring, and undisguised theocracy.*

And the current crop of GOP legislators will be happy as a pig in shit. (Although, to many, the plan doesn't cut enough or do it fast enough.)

________________________________

*Yes, the guy standing and applauding at the end of the linked unamerican rant is Rick Santorum.

The Lefty View Of Homosexuality

From an interview with an openly gay Catholic priest and theologian, this might be the best analogical discussion of homosexuality that I've seen:

Think of it this way. There is a distinction between left-handedness and the act of writing left-handedly. For most of us the distinction remains exactly that, and has no moral consequences. We would understand that a left-handed person forced to write right-handedly owing, say, to having their left arm in a plaster cast, or a right-handed person forced to write left-handedly for analogous reasons, would, with some difficulty, be able to learn to do so. These people would in some sense be acting contra natura. But the use of the hand appropriate to their handedness would be entirely unremarkable. Now, imagine that, involved in a Catholic discussion, you find yourself addressing a left-handed person. You say: “Any left-handed writing you do is intrinsically wrong; and in fact the inclination we call left-handedness must be considered objectively disordered.” The only justification for using the distinctions in this way is if you have received, from quite other sources, the sure knowledge that right-handedness is normative to the human condition, anything else being some sort of defect from that norm, and yet you don’t want entirely to condemn the person who has a strong tendency to left-handed writing...

[...]

No, it seems to me quite patent that here we have an unwieldy bid to fit a reality into an acceptable framework, rather than learning from reality how to adjust a now unreliable framework.

My own belief is that being gay is a regularly occurring nonpathological minority variant in the human condition, and that an appropriate analogy is left-handedness, which also, as it happens, used to be regarded as some sort of defect in a normatively right-handed humanity. I’ve arrived at this position having, as an educated amateur, followed the studies and arguments back and forth over many years, and notice that this position is tending to be confirmed the more we know and see of gay people who are able to live their lives openly...

Not only does it comport with what we are learning about sexual orientation and choice, it also reminds me that my dad, a southpaw, went to school in the era where people like him were forced to write right-handed. He had the worst handwriting I've ever seen (and I'm a doctor!!!)

When we played catch, he threw from the left.

Alert! Heads Exploding

For the reality-impaired, namely those hoping for an Obama defeat no matter what, based on the imaginary portrait fed to them by Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™, this article might be of interest. Or would be, that is, if knowing what's actually going on was important to them.

But the bottom line is that it is really, truly time for the myth about Big Spender Obama to die. If anything, it is remarkable that, after a recession and a private sector implosion, the public sector expanded less under this administration than it did under Bush or Reagan, especially when you consider the government cuts made at the state and local levels.

The title graph is from the article, and there are a few more in it, reinforcing the point.

You know, it's not as if there are no reasons to oppose Obama. I just wish the upcoming election would be about what's actually going on; what Obama has or hasn't done, what Santomney actually plans to do. Because the constant dissembling by the right-wingers, the outright lying by Romtorum, the happy assimilation of it all by the dumbed-down teabagging electorate, is really really depressing. Because notwithstanding the ways in which Obama has disappointed many liberals (he is, after all, a more conservative president, by many measures, than W was), and despite the caricature of him broadcast directly into the brains of the soft-headed Foxophiles, if what he's actually done is compared to what any of the R candidates claims he'll do, it's hard to imagine more than a handful of thoughtful people voting for the latter.

Which is exactly the point of the propaganda machine.

Wonderment

To me, this is infinitely more exciting, and it imbues me with an immeasurably greater sense of wonderment, of spiritual expansiveness, of connection to the world, than believing in an imaginary person or persons, the characteristics of whom are disagreed upon (and fought over, to the death) among all of those who claim knowledge of them with nothing but circular evidence.

But maybe that's just me, and a few others. Not enough, sadly, to halt our decent to Santoria law.

Satire

Satire, as I understand it, takes a truth and exaggerates it. So, really, I should find a better title for the post: what do you call it when the actual truth is exaggerated beyond the ability to satirize? I tried, too.

Clarifying

This man has more cred (and, no doubt, more page views) than I, but he's saying exactly what I've been saying for a long time: that there are definable differences between conservative and liberal minds, that the Rovian model of exploiting religiosity is entirely unsurprising, that religious fundamentalism is a trait of rightwingism.

His homing in on the word "empathy" is important. In religious fora in which I've occasionally participated, it's regularly expressed that without god (specifically, the self-contradictory rule-book known as the Bible) there can be no morality. But, in fact, it all stems from empathy, the value of which as an evolutionary trait is self-evident.

The professor's analysis is clarifying. It explains (it's really just a statement of observable facts) the essential difference between liberals and conservatives, and how it breaks along recognizable biblical lines. Which, once more, is not to say that religion per se is useless. Not in all cases, anyway. After all, a majority of liberals consider themselves religious. The difference is in literalism, in the need to denigrate beliefs which differ from theirs, in openness to challenging ideas. These differing kinds of religious certainty equate very directly with the differing politics of liberalism and conservatism. Especially since, nowadays, conservatism has devolved into a sort of fundamentalism that wraps itself in the most doctrinaire sort of religionism.

It's pretty hard to see a way forward anymore. Particularly because there was a time when I agreed with much of what conservatives had to say. Before they went nuts.

Closure

Like a Venus fly trap, Republican voters close their minds around false information as soon as they're fed it by Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™. Thenceforward, it may as well be mummified and buried at sea. Ain't never gonna see the light of day again. Of all the things that drive me certifiably crazy, that's the worst. Because I can see no solution; and because democracy, in the world of reality, depends on well-informed voters. With the current iteration of Republicans, once the falsehoods are installed, there's simply no penetrating the carefully constructed wall of deliberate deception around them. And, depressing as it is to see people who have no information about what's really going on, what's indescribably worse is hearing about those who have absolutely wrong information, cling to it like electric charge on hair, and will never be put right. Here are a couple of charts that say a lot, loudly. (Even more loudly, if you click on them.)

The second one shows that Democrats aren't without misinformation either; but it's striking how different are the two parties, how far Rs wander from reality: taxes on the middle class have, in fact, gone down under President Obama. It's not statistical trickery, it's not a matter of opinion. It's straightforward, simple, and undeniable. (For the record, I think it'd have been much better to have spent more money on stimulus, and to have passed on the tax cut.) But it's the work of a deadly combination: desire to believe the worst about the black guy, and a constant stream of disinformation feeding the needing of preconditioned minds.

I admit I haven't looked for the data behind chart #1; when you start graphing rate of change, I start thinking it could be fuzzy. But I do know stimulus spending has ended (probably too soon), and that deficit projections are looking better. It's also a fact that only under Democrats have deficits gone down, and that they've always gone up under Republicans, ever since Ronald Reagan and his voodoo economics. Even for fact-averse head-in-sanders, the Clinton era is not so long ago that its budget surplus -- and what happened to it when Bush took over -- is beyond recall. Is it?

R fiscal policy has never accomplished what it's claimed it would, namely budgetary balance without raising taxes while serving the needs of the country. Yet every single R candidate continues to make the same claim; and the budget plans that they've produced, on which they continue to campaign, have been shown to do exactly the opposite: increasing debt, cutting essential spending (except military, of course), and raising the tax burden on all but the highest earners). But they don't care, because they know they don't need to: their voters snap tight around the lies and suck them dry. No amount of honest information will change it. It's an intentionally rigged game, and since they're roughly half the voting population, in our democracy we're all the losers.

Added 3/16: I saw the following after the preceding was published:

Truth In Advertising

Ever wonder why nearly all criticisms of President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama from the teabagger right have nothing to do with who he really is or what he's actually done?

They can try to hide it in all sorts of phony diversions; but this is what it's about. What it's ALWAYS been about.

Taxes, Patriotism, & Preserving A Future

Evidently, there was a time when people saw a connection. Substitute, oh, schools, roads, health care, for bombs and bombers, and.... Oh, what the hell. What difference would it make?

I'd Pay A Ton To See This

Sarah Palin, knowing it'll never happen, has this to say to/about President Obama:

"... I’m more than happy to accept the dubious honor of being Barack Obama’s 'enemy of the week' if that includes the opportunity to debate him on the issues Americans are actually concerned about..."

[...]

"I’m willing and free to discuss these issues with the President anywhere, anytime," Palin wrote.

Actually, I think it'd be a smooth move for Obama to take her up on it, because one of two things would happen: given her history of crapping out when the stuff gets tuff and her refusal ever to face a non-bogus non-preprogrammed press conference, she'd likely find a way out. Maybe by replacing "anywhere, anytime" with "moderated by Fox "news"" and "questions submitted a month in advance." Or, against all expectations, she'd do it, and be revealed as the shallow and uninformed person she is, who's never taken a hard question and fielded it with aplomb.

President Obama could accept by saying that Sarah Palin represents lots of good people in this country, and her opinions are valued by them. Therefore, it'd be of national significance to air her views, to let her ask questions and receive proper answers, and be made to do the same. Nothing could better clarify the choices we'll face in the coming election. For she's the perfect surrogate to highlight what all of the candidates are vs Obama: dumb vs smart; clueless vs informed; deceptive vs truthful.

If he did it, since she's already implied she's ready at the droppings of a moose, he should accept, send a plane for her, and hold the event within hours, before she has time to be fed answers and write them on her hand. After all, in the eyes of her devotees, and of Sarah herself, she knows everything about everything already. Let her choose the location. Let me choose the questions. (They'd be real, I promise. Important, issue-oriented, realistic, fair. With followup. Like has never happened.)

O god o god o god. If I were a praying person I'd be on my knees right now, begging like Jimmy Swaggart for it to happen.