The Romney Verses -- Don't Trust What I Say

Mitt Romney keeps his campaign well-scripted with messaging so simplistic that it should be insulting to every voting American.  When the candidate himself or a campaign spokesperson is questioned on his legendary flip-flops on core conservative issues (often framed by the clip of him describing his views as “progressive” and “moderate” during his campaign for Governor of Massachusetts) the boilerplate response is two-fold:

1. Deflect the question by attacking Newt Gingrich as being the greater offender. Redirection may be Politics 101, and so by itself insufficient reason for outright condemnation, nonetheless it serves as a reminder of the man’s utter lack of creativity.

2. After this, assert that Romney should be judged not on how he campaigned, but on how he governed once elected. Then mention several of the ostensibly conservative achievements of his administration.

So, in other words, we are asked not to judge Romney by what he says while campaigning, but by what he does when in office... Wait a minute!  Romney is not yet President of the United States—he is *campaigning* to become President of the United States!  So, by his own logic, we should not believe anything he says!

By his choice of campaign talking points, political hermaphrodite Romney displays, in effect, an utter contempt for the voter’s intelligence.

   

I don’t know about you, but I feel insulted by this strategy that assumes I’m not smart enough to add two and two together and see through the inherent contradiction in his explanation.

Of course, can we really expect an honest answer from Romney on his flip-flops, when the real reason is simply that he is a man who believes it is justifiable to say anything to win an election; that the ends justify the means. Is that the kind of person you want as President of the United States?

The Romney Verses -- Losing My Religion

Dec. 20, 2011

Council Bluffs, Iowa -  A reliable source in the Romney campaign made a startling revelation today: the GOP presidential contender is considering leaving the Mormon Church. The unnamed official claims to have been a party to a private conversation Romney had with members of his campaign staff.

According to the source, Romney said he had been having second thoughts about the Church of Latter-day Saints, as the church is officially known, for several years. The Third Rail has also obtained what is purported to be a rough draft of the announcement Romney intends to make at an imminent press conference; it reads:

“After several years of soul-searching, I have decided to leave the Mormon Church. This is a decision that I have come to after extensive consultation with Ann and after discussing it with our children.

Religions are always helpful and interesting, and offer positive things to people. But they can also sometimes be counterproductive, and subject to manipulation. We know that faith is a necessary precondition for religion.  However, I have come to believe that some of the church’s teachings are difficult to accept, and somewhat troubling. It takes a leap of faith to believe that Joseph Smith was directed by the angel Moroni to a place near his home where several golden plates were buried on which was written what became the Book of Mormon.

There are other zany beliefs of the church that have created doubt in my mind and we have recently decided to worship with the congregation of the Grace Evangelical Free Church in Davenport while we’re here with the good people of Iowa.”

Reaction to the leak has met with mostly muted reactions from rival candidates who are waiting for further confirmation before commenting. But both Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Texas Governor Rick Perry have responded.

Bachmann said, “We now have the answer to the question Americans have been asking about Mitt Romney: ‘If a politician will flip-flop on abortion and gay marriage, what’s left for him to change his mind about?’” 

Rick Perry gave a terse response. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya,” he offered.

Mitt Romney: Would you buy a used car from this man?

Abortion

Pre-Massachusetts: anti

Governor of Mass: for

Post-Mass: anti

Gay marriage

Pre-Mass: anti

Campaign for Governor: for

Governor: anti

Embryonic stem-cell therapy

Pre-Mass: anti

Governor: for

Post-Mass: anti

Mandate to buy health care insurance

Governor: for

Post-Mass: anti

“If a man sets himself on fire in front of a courthouse...”

*********************************************************************************

DISCLAIMER

1. The author does NOT advocate self-immolation, arson, murder or other acts of violent protest. The author DOES advocate non-violent civil disobedience to raise awareness of Fathers Rights; in fact, the author believes organized, non-violent civil disobedience is absolutely essential before there will ever be any progress in Fathers Rights.

2. Permission is granted exclusively to Fathers Rights advocates to reproduce this document in whole or in part, without the DISCLAIMER.

3. Any reproduction other than described in (2) must include the entire DISCLAIMER.

4. Reproduction of this document is expressly forbidden to entities considered either hostile to Fathers Rights or “feminist,” for example the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

*********************************************************************************

Read Tom Ball's Last Statement 

*********************************************************************************

"If it bleeds, it leads.” A self-explanatory axiom of TV journalism. TV news is a business, and as such it competes for viewers and the resulting advertising revenue. A gruesome murder in your vicinity grabs attention better than any news of real import.

One would think that a self-immolation in front of a New Hampshire courthouse would merit the TV equivalent of stop-the-presses: a teaser news blurb before the local news airs. “Coming up on News Center 5, a man kills himself by setting himself on fire in front of a Keene, NH courthouse. Details at 6...”

But for some strange reason, this actual event which happened June 15 went completely unreported in New England news media, with the exception of the local newspaper, the Keene Sentinel, which published a terse paragraph or two along with the full content of a 15-page suicide statement which the man, Tom Ball, sent to the newspaper ahead of time.

Investigating how rare self-immolation is in the U.S.,  I discovered a reference to just one: in 1963 a Quaker set himself on fire in front of the Pentagon to protest the Viet-Nam war. “Self-immolation” and “Viet-Nam War” will usually turn up in the same searches, because it can be argued that the self-immolation of the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc  actually launched the protest movement in the US that eventually ended the war. In Viet-Nam, four other monks and a nun followed Quang Duc before the American Quaker, Norman Morrison set himself on fire.  

So, clearly, self-immolation is a big deal. It ended a war, for Chrissakes! And it hasn’t happened over here in nearly half a century. One would think that Tom Ball’s self-immolation would be at least... newsworthy?

Clearly, the non-reporting of this astounding news story begs serious investigation. What could possibly trump the newsworthiness of a self-immolation? After all, as we all know, “if it bleeds, it leads.”

I have not yet heard the rationalizations from, say, the Boston Globe, the newspaper of record in these parts. However, due to past experiences sparring with Globe reporters about other “non-news” that they neglected to cover, I can predict their explanation.

Tom Ball’s suicide letter is essentially an explanation of what caused him to do the desperate act. It culminates in his calling for further acts of violent protest. It is there that the Globe and other mainstream media will find their justification for non-reporting, aka their censorship.  “The Globe will not publish suicide letters that incite violence and acts of terrorism,” they might argue. “It is not in the public’s interest, just as television sports coverage will not broadcast a fan running onto the field, as this is just what the individual seeks,” they might continue.  “If he is not shown, others will be dissuaded from similar behavior,” they will likely conclude.

Well, you can make a case for that, but it is a weak case considering the enormity of the actual event.

Would the Globe hesitate to cover a local act of terrorism by an Islamic Jihadist? A contemporary equivalent of Norman Morrison protesting one of our current wars? How about a self-immolating right-wing survivalist?  None would be ignored by the media, and in fact all of them would be front-page news on every major national newspaper and the event would be the topic of the cable news talking heads for several days at the very least.

So, quite frankly, no, that is not the real reason why the media didn’t cover the story.

Tom Ball’s suicide letter is a very important document. It is at times sardonic, witty and brilliant. He describes the sequence of events that led to his downfall, that is, to his involvement with the Massachusetts Probate & Family Court; specifically to the domestic violence and child support regimes that wreak havoc on the lives of innocent fathers.

According to Mr. Ball, an unfortunate event in 2001 set things in motion. He struck his 4-year-old daughter in the face because she was misbehaving. Though the details of what follows are somewhat sketchy, this led to an argument between he and his wife (who must’ve been understandably very upset). He left the house, and then two phone calls were made, the second to the police. Ball was arrested the next day at work. He was charged with domestic violence. Not believing that what he had done was illegal, he did some research which confirmed his suspicions. Corporal punishment of a minor child is not illegal. This was Ball’s entry into the Kafkaesque world of the domestic violence regime.

Ball gives no details of the subsequent breakdown of the marriage over the next six months only stating that it culminated in a filing for divorce.  However he does recount that he only learned of the first phone call made that night two years later, when his then ex-wife told him that she had called a mental health professional who warned her that if she didn’t call the police, she, presumably as a mandated reporter, would call the police to report the incident and that both she and Ball would be arrested. According to Ball, his wife called the police that night because she felt she had no choice: if she didn’t, the police would be called by the mental health professional and both parents would be arrested and that would mean the state would have to take custody of the children in some manner, for some period of time. In Ball’s words:

“So my wife called the police on her husband to protect the children. And who was she protecting the kids from? Not her husband, the father of these children. She was protecting them from the State of New Hampshire.”

Ball says that he had a court date at the end of the month (June, 2011), and that he owed either $2,200 or $3,000, “depending on who you ask.” He states that he was unemployed for the last two years, and that, yes, he could’ve hit someone up for a loan, but after 10 years of such travails, he was just fed up with it, and didn’t want to fight anymore. In his words, “I am done being bullied because I am a man.”

Yet the persecution of fathers via the divorce/domestic violence/child support regimes (henceforth: ‘D/DV/CS’) is the biggest non-reported story of the past forty years, ignored by media pundits from right-wing John Stossel-type libertarians on Fox News channel to bleeding-heart "social justice” advocates on the left alike.

It is a stinging indictment against the entire fourth estate that the only people reading Tom Ball’s suicide letter or this document who will understand what this is all about are those who have experienced it either firsthand or second-hand through a family member of close friend. It is not taught in any sociology or law classes. It doesn’t exist. What is contained in Ball’s letter is nothing less than the true third rail of American politics.

Within the 15 pages of Ball’s letter are details of how the D/DV/CS regimes work, how it worked in his case, and a somewhat sketchy mathematical accounting of how it is a direct cause of massive homelessness—not just of the men afflicted, but also of whom he calls the collateral damage: the ex-wives and children of these men. It culminates in nothing less than a call to arms. He urges men to burn down the government buildings that house these various state entities—yes, specifically the courthouses themselves—and instructs them in the techniques of a successful arson.

This is, obviously, serious stuff.

What men like Ball are going through often makes them literally wish they were dead. Many, like Ball, do indeed elect to end their misery, though this is the first time that someone has gone to the extraordinary length of self-immolation to rouse awareness and action. And no, there are curiously no studies of divorce-related male suicides from crusading, "progressive" social science scholars.

If you think this is vain hyperbole, think again. Recall the 2003 trial of Clara Harris, the woman who killed her husband by repeatedly running over him with her Mercedes after confronting him over an affair. In her televised closing arguments, prosecutor Mia Magness told the jury:

“For heaven's sake, if a man is cheating on you, do what every other woman in this county does -- take him to the cleaners. Take his house. Take his car. Take his kids. Take his respect in the community and you can make him wish he were dead. But you don't get to kill him." 

There was no shock or outrage at this admission: that a woman has the power to make a man “wish he were dead” by going after him in divorce court. It’s simply an accepted fact of life. Because it’s a universal truth. Magness didn’t even need to mention the really heinous things women do in divorce, like accusing their husbands of sexually abusing their own children, or rape, sexual assault or battery.

Question: How is it that this potential for using the courts with deliberate malice exists, and yet there is no punishment or even disincentive? Answer: The legal system has been hopelessly corrupted by so-called “feminist jurisprudence,” of which the domestic abuse regime is a cornerstone.

Question: How is it possible that this goes unknown, except to those that experience it? Answer:  Look no further than Tom Ball’s self-immolation. A conspiracy of silence by the media. 

Now there is another murder trial that has captured the nation’s attention: The Casey Anthony murder trial, who is accused of murdering her infant daughter. The news coverage on this one is wall-to-wall. A mother accused of murdering her infant daughter. Inhuman! Though the tide of opinion seems to be very much against the mother, as the circumstantial evidence appears to be overwhelming, nonetheless some commentators look for a way to avoid the obvious. Indeed, when women commit heinous acts of a domestic nature, the first recourse is often to look for the nearest man to blame. It is not unusual for the defense to make a claim that the defendant was sexually abused by her father. Indeed, Casey Anthony’s legal team floated just such a trial balloon: some vague insinuation that Casey Anthony’s father, George Anthony, is the real villain. Take your pick: he either sexually abused Casey which somehow mitigates her culpability, or he himself was responsible for the death of his granddaughter.

Hey, it’s just standard operating procedure when women stand accused. Doesn’t cost anything to run it up the flagpole and see if some sympathetic, victim-feminist indoctrinated juror salutes.

Ball speaks extensively of the “second set of books” that is employed by state agents to circumvent the “first set of books”, i.e., the real laws of the land, the US Constitution and state laws. This is made up of court and police policies and procedures, which are often difficult to find. Ball claims that he found all of the relevant ones save one: the judges’ domestic violence training manuals. That is ironic, because when I first encountered the D/DV/CS regime, that particular “second set of books” was actually the first one I found. One of these judicial DV weekend seminar training sessions was coming up and I went to the government office and obtained a set of the training materials. My object was to introduce some material I had collected to counter the DV propaganda. I produced a nice packet but of course it was rejected. However, I did obtain the training materials. It chilled me to the bone. Judges were being taught that if a man commits an act of “domestic abuse”-- a rather wide range of activities--unless there is court intervention he will eventually kill her. Since that time some twenty years ago, victim-feminist anti-male propaganda has become the law of the land, infiltrating both the “second set of books” with things like so-called “primary aggressor” arrest polices at domestic disturbance calls (which provide for the arresting of the man even if police actually witness the woman striking the man)  and no-drop restraining order polices, as well as the real, bona fide first set of books, such as the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the never-ending “refinements” of state abuse protection laws such as Massachusetts' notorious Ch. 209A.

Ball’s lucid, penetrating expose of the D/DV/CS regime must not be swept under the rug as his defiant act of self-sacrifice has been buried by the media. Rather, his essay should be required reading for every man and teenage boy.

In the days immediately following Ball’s death I was contacted by some friends in the Fathers Rights movement who wanted to brainstorm a response. One individual got an interview with a Globe reporter. Despite feeding the reporter a plethora of information and further contacts, no story has appeared.  I’d like to think that Tom Ball’s objective wasn’t to get a few lines of ink in the Boston Globe; rather, it was to wake up the countless men in his situation, to rouse them into action. You can start by reading his Last Statement.

# # #

Addendum

After this blog was written I discovered that the news censorship of Tom Ball’s suicide was not as thorough as I described. Tom Ball’s suicide was, indeed, reported on some local TV news programs in New Hampshire. Ironically enough, it was reported on a real ‘News Center 5” news show. The few TV news reports can be found on youtube. Search on “Tom Ball Keene.”   -- July 5, 2011 

Addendum - 2

One new addendum plus one correction. The Boston Globe did finally publish an article on Tom Ball's suicide, on July 10, three-and-a-half weeks following the event. Here is the link.
Correction:  Tom Ball's divorce case was not in the Massachusetts Probate & Family Court system, it was in the New Hampshire Family Court Division.  -- July 15, 2011

Copyright 2011

Celebrate the (imminent) demise of the Boston Globe

As if any self-respecting Massachusetts man still needed a reason to shun the Boston Globe, in a charitable mood, apparently, they have decided to provide us with yet another. In a Feb 4 editorial, they write: “Amid widespread anxiety over looming cuts in education, municipal services, and aid for those in need in Massachusetts, there’s an easy way for the Legislature to prove its commitment to cutting waste: by passing Senator Brian A. Joyce’s bill to abolish the Governor’s Council.”

Whoa!  What’s going on here?  The Globe advocating for reducing the size of government, the abolition of an agency that impacts our famously “progressive” courts? What’s up? 

Well you might ask. The issue for which the Globe has suddenly found religion is the Governor’s Council, an elected board of officials of the executive branch that advises on the suitability of the state’s judges -- which in Massachusetts are appointed by the Governor, hence the name “Governor’s Council”.

Specifically, the Globe decries that the Fatherhood Coalition, a Fathers Rights organization, has for the past couple of years attended the public meetings and actually questioned judicial candidates about matters that impact fathers (How dare they? Can they do this?).  And that, in the last go-round, three board members, perhaps persuaded by what they heard from the Fatherhood Coalition, actually voted against the candidate!  [Rest assured, the nominee, Fernande Duffly, a liberal feminist, did pass with a 4-3 vote.]

But this is far too close for comfort for the Globe. When the momentum of the game starts to turn, there’s only one thing to do: change the rules. Fathers Rights advocates should be used to this. When Steve Basile did research on the issuing of so-called ch. 209A “abuse protection” orders, the legislature quickly passed legislation preventing any future mischief by any entities who dare question the feminist orthodoxy on domestic violence. [They amended the state’s version of the Freedom of Information Act to restrict access to 209A information to the sisterhood—with the help of Globe reporting, I hesitate to add.]

Hence the Globe giving their dispensation for the legislature to now act on abolishing this particular government agency that has been infiltrated by their opponents­—that is, anyone who opposes the Globe’s agenda for social progressivism.

It has taken a long time for Fathers Rights advocates to intelligently organize and focus on specific targets such as the Governor’s Council. It’s to their credit that they show up at each public hearing for each judicial nominee and raise the right questions: namely about the massive and widespread injustices inflicted on fathers on a daily basis in our courts, specifically through the issuance of these 209A “abuse protection” orders that grant women immediate child custody, throw a man out of his home and impose other restrictions on his liberty and freedom, based on merely a women’s statement that she is afraid of him, without a jury trial or any nod to civil liberties or the presumption of innocence.

There is no gray area on these issues. There is a clear right and wrong.  Even for the stupidest members of the Governor’s Council, the truth becomes unavoidable when it is clearly verbalized in these hearing (which were videoed and are available on youtube). It really doesn’t take much to dispel feminist dogma about “batterer fathers” and child support with ridiculously embarrassing facts about how men are actually treated in the legal system in “domestic relations” issues. They merely need to be heard.

Of course, there are also retarded members of the Council, like Thomas Merrigan, whose victim-feminist indoctrination is so deep that they are quite frankly uneducable. For these people the only remedy is removal from the Council: defeating them at the polls (Governor’s Council members are elected).

So now we see why the Globe has chosen to make visible an otherwise obscure issue. When was the last time the Globe reported on the Governor’s Council?

When the Globe engages in this kind of activism, it rarely just fires from one barrel. True to form they printed a friendly letter the same day as their editorial appeared from one Jo Ann Citron, a family law attorney, who writes,

“Thoughtful citizens watched with horror as Fernande R.V. Duffly’s nomination to the Supreme Judicial Court came close to being blocked by what the Globe described as “the growing clout of fathers’ rights activists’’ (“Duffly is narrowly approved for SJC,’’ Metro, Jan. 27).”

Here is some info from attorney Citron’s web page (http://beta.citronlaw.net/ABOUT/JoAnnCitron/tabid/87/Default.aspx):

“Her current law practice is ... characterized by a willingness to challenge outmoded ideas and assumptions about the nature of families.

“Citron has ... consulted for the Northeastern University Domestic Violence Institute, been a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College, and between 2002 and 2007 was Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at Wellesley College where she taught an advanced seminar in the law and public policy of family formation and dissolution.

”... where her practice is limited to participating in impact litigation situated on the legal frontier of family formation and dissolution.  For example, Citron was lead counsel in Beth R. v. Donna M., in which a team of talented lawyers successfully litigated the right of a same-sex spouse to obtain a divorce under New York law, thereby establishing full parental rights and responsibilities for her non-biological children.”

“Citron is a past officer of the Women’s Bar Association, the Women’s Bar Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.” 

As Stan Lee would say: “Nuff said.”

Here’s a word to the wise for all those that have been harmed by the Globe: Cease trying to educate the Globe. Yes, the Globe is perhaps the single most powerful political entity in Massachusetts, but there is reason to rejoice. The Globe, like most newspapers, will soon go out of business, largely for reasons having nothing to do with social politics and everything to do with changes in technology.

Why not rejoice, even if prematurely?  Let’s start preparing now for our “Ding dong the witch is dead” party.  A two-stage affair: (1) a nice street gauntlet on Morrissey Blvd on the great day to voice our appreciation to the good employees of the Globe on their last day, followed by (2) a formal affair at a nice hotel where all the good people of Massachusetts can celebrate the blessed day with a parade of testimonials on how the Globe shamelessly perverted accepted journalistic canons to advance their feminist, anti-family agenda.

Got health care?

Now that the Republicans have regained the House, health care is back front-and-center in the political spotlight. As an apoplectic opponent of the nanny state and all things politically correct, I take a contrary view on this singular issue. Consider: the cost of a night in the hospital in the U.S. is six times that in Europe. We spend more than twice as much per person on health care as the other rich nations of the world; fully one-sixth of every dollar generated by our economy. So, with one-sixth of the population with no health care coverage, and day-long emergency-room waits (the latter largely a direct consequence of the former): no, FoxNews et al, we don't have the best health care in the world. What we do have is arguably the very worst health care delivery system in the industrialized world.

Health care reform as a political imperative, specifically a single-payer system, has found a home in the Democratic Party.  To the Republican Party it is anathema, considered an evil on the order of paganism or communism. Hence the partisan struggle that erupted over it with the Obama administration’s initiative.

The Republicans' strategy was simple and effective: in Congress, oppose every facet and proposal to force cumbersome and costly compromises to the evolving legislation while attacking universal health care coverage in principle 24/7 in the media. The goal was to produce a final bill that would be so onerous, generating new opposition piecemeal with each new compromise, that it would simply be unworkable and eventually go down to defeat, falling down just shy of the finish line.

This simple but brilliant plan almost worked—everything succeeded but the final step: the bill actually passed.  Let me get this straight: the problem was that the cost of health care had grown to such absurd proportions that it was bankrupting individuals and businesses, hurting our ability to compete in the global marketplace (can you say “General Motors”?), not to mention the ever-growing cost of Medicaid and Medicare to the federal government. And so the final solution is not to implement anything that will actually reduce costs, but rather, simply require all Americans to buy health insurance— and to add insult to injury, inflict new costs to business! Yes, this is the worst of all worlds. Collectively and individually, we are now worse off than before “Obama-care” became law. Thank you, Republicans.

A typical health care premium costs between one and two mortgage payments. So, in the first instance, it is absurd and insulting to believe working-class Americans can afford this. Secondly, in the midst of the greatest financial/economic crisis since the Great Depression, the legislation places enormous new burdens on businesses small and large, guaranteeing a severe braking force on any potential economic growth needed to turn the corner and avoid going over the economic cliff (i.e., the so-called “double-dip”).

In the 2008 primaries, while the Republicans were elbowing each other out of the way to proclaim the authenticity of their denial of evolution, the Democrats were competing in an equally stupid manner. One after the other, each candidate asserted their allegiance to the notion that under their administration mental health would be treated no different than conventional health care. Wonderful. Hence, bipolar disorder, the scourge of our time, is to be considered a “disease” no different than diabetes. Common sense begs to differ.

How no Republican candidate failed to seize on this, if for no other reason than to distinguish themselves from their opponents, is beyond me. Instead, they all parroted the party-line  conservative talking points. Forgive me, but as a working-class American, my chief fear about health care is not that “a government bureaucrat gets between me and my doctor”—but that (a) I don’t have a doctor because I have no insurance, or (b) I don’t lose my home because I accidentally break my leg and the cost of surgery and several days in the hospital is counted in the tens of thousands of dollars.

And with respect to all those Canadians streaming across the border to take advantage of our superior medical care, please consider the following scenario. If Americans without any health care coverage or who can’t afford their growing deductibles and various out-of-pocket expenses were permitted to travel to Canada to take advantage of its supposedly terrible medical care, how would their numbers compare with the dissatisfied (and presumably inordinately wealthy) Canadians?  If it was me and the choice was (a) tough it out for several weeks until it’s my turn for the inferior medical procedure, or (b) lose my home to pay for it here where we have the “best system of health care in the world,” it’s a no-brainer.

And finally, to the complaint that socialized medicine would require rationing, I say, bring it on.  Of course rationing will be required!. But intelligent rationing—something that politicians from neither party have addressed. So, to help get the discussion started on intelligent rationing, here, off the top of my head, are some suggestions:

Alzheimer’s: yes;                Anorexia Nervosa: no.

Cancer: yes;                      contraception: not on my dime.

Gout: yes;                          General Anxiety Disorder: maybe next year.

AIDS: yes;                        ADHD: where’s daddy?

Bronchitis: yes;                  Botox: sorry, Nancy.

Appendicitis: yes;               abortion: not on your life.

Gallstones: yes;                  gender re-assignment surgery: go fuck yourself.

Dental work: yes;               breast implants: get over yourself.

Diabetes: yes;                    Depression: get a job.

Arthritis: yes;                     Alcoholism:  Have you made your decision for Christ?

Knee replacement: yes;      Nutrition: sorry, can’t afford it right now; do your own due diligence.

Osteoporosis: yes.             Obesity: try eating less?

Atrial Fibrillation: yes;        Asperger’s Syndrome:  get a life.

Testicular cancer: yes;       Tourette’s syndrome: fuck you.

Hospice: yes;                    “Death panels”:  no, Sarah.

The obscene cost of health care bankrupts Americans and businesses alike—and it is bankrupting the nation as a whole. A problem this big can't be fixed by tweaking the existing private insurance system with "market reforms," or tort reform—it is way too late for that. The only solution is the one employed by every other civilized nation in the world: a single-payer system.