"Death Panel"

There was a really good op-ed in the newspaper today.  With all of the, ahem, interest in Miss Piggy, locker room talk, etc., we haven't seen much about Obamacare.  Other than a few letters-to-the-editor, I can't remember seeing anything about it in quite a while.  Maybe there have been a few things out there, maybe even from the candidates.  (Granted, I don't pay much attention to either one of them.)  I just haven't seen it.

I suppose there's a good reason for that.  It's been a disaster, by almost any account--other than the false narrative perpetuated by the administration and its lackey media.  According to this op-ed, though, some of the media--the NY Times, good heavens, for one!--have taken a closer look at Obamacare.  About the only success has been the number of people insured.  Well, of course more people are going to be insured; if they don't sign up they'll be criminals (although I don't know if not enrolling is a criminal or a civil offense).  As the op-ed notes (and I think I have said in the past), saying this is a "success" is like instituting a draft and then touting military recruitment numbers.  The whole thing was based on lies and, if some of the leaks are to be believed, deliberate lies.  No, we couldn't keep our insurance if we liked it.  Hey, I'm not the only one who was given something he didn't like or want--less coverage for higher premiums and co-pays and lower deductibles.  And that reflects another of the lies, that Obamacare won't cost you "a dime more."  Well, that might technically be correct since it's cost me almost $5000 more over the course of its lifetime for, again, worse coverage.  And, according to newspaper accounts, average premiums will increase by as much as 20% in Michigan in 2017.  Great, just great.

Many (most?) states and counties have seen insurers flee the state or, I suppose more correctly, the state exchanges.  It's time to scrap this crap and see if we still can get back to the health care we had before this monstrosity.  I have a hard time believing this will happen, esp if Clinton is elected.  Instead of getting rid of junk, the "fix" will be more gov't, a single-payer system.  Imagine what this will do to competition and lower costs.  To whom will the gov't single-payer system be responsible?  Itself?  We've seen how this works, haven't we?  That's what Dems and, increasingly, Establishment Republicans do--create lousy programs and then create more lousy programs to try to fix them.  And, invariably, the fixes fail.  In fact, a Democrat US Senator has already made such a proposal to the US Senate.  They don't learn, do they?

Another nice op-ed was on the same page, "...what is a sane voter do do?"  It's a good question.  But I enjoyed the author's characterization of the two candidates, "the worse two candidates in our country's history."  Now, to me, after W. Bush and Obama, not to mention Kerry and Algore, that's really saying something.  Where Trump is, among other things to me, "psychologically unfit" to be President, Clinton is "ethically unfit" to be President.  Again, to me, that's among other things.  I guess I see people who are supporting Trump (although I understand the original attraction and support it) as getting into the back seat of a car with a drunk driver.  I liked how the op-ed writer wrote, of Clinton, "...a terrible record of incompetency."  Yep.  So, we have two rotten candidates, neither of whom should be anywhere near the Presidency and one of them, the winner, will "be saddled with the awful record of the present administration in almost every area."  Is our only hope that Trump and Clinton will reach an agreement, both agreeing to drop out of the race??????

I wrote of this earlier this week or last, but still don't understand.  I listened to a group of women, half a dozen or so, the other day/night talk of Trump's "locker room talk."  They were appalled, very put off by the language.  To her credit, one of them brought up the Clintons and their record of mistreatment of women.  "Oh, no," a couple of the women said, "that's different."  I kept my mouth shut, just listening, but found myself agreeing with that.  It is "different."  As reprehensible, boorish, offensive (You choose the adjective.) as Trump's conversation was, it was just that, talk.  He didn't sexually assault or rape anyone (although I did hear today there is a lawsuit filed against him in that regard; I'd almost expect more soon.), at least not that these women knew (Maybe they do today, but the other night they didn't.).  Although I'm sure he used his position to take advantage of subordinates, I can't prove it nor do I know of any such claims.  But I'm not denying that happened.  We do know, however, that Bill Clinton did use his superior/inferior relationship to have sex in the White House.  And we know that Hillary Clinton used her power and influence to degrade, debase, and ruin (?) the lives of women who had the temerity to bring the assaults by her husband to the public.  Yet, to these women, Trump's words were worse than either Clinton's actions.  I'm not saying Trump hasn't ruined people.   All I'm saying is simply that, to these women, Trump's words were worse than either Clinton's actions.  I don't understand......

So, a couple weeks ago a front-page article claimed crime, serious crime, is down in Detroit.  Why, then, each of the first two day's this week had stories of people shot and killed?  And, as has become the rule, not the exception, the murders were buried back in Section A, not close to the front page.

Wes sent me a copy of Michael Savage's latest book, Scorched Earth.  I had a chance to start it last night and have read about 50 pages.  As one of my friends said, years ago about a different book, "If only 10% of it is true......"  This book, "if only 10% of it is true," is very frightening.  Worse, it is very depressing.