ACA scorecard: Obama 6,000,000; Roskam 52

As President Obama chalks up the six millionth enrollee under the Affordable Heath Care Act (ACA), meeting the administration's first 2014 First Quarter goal, my Congressman Pete Roskam awaits his ...53rd chance to destroy the ACA's benefits to the tens of millions of folks who no longer have to worry about being shut out of financial and life saving health insurance. Realizing that neither vote 53 nor vote 553 will destroy the greatest legislation helping needy Americans since Medicare was passed in 1965, Roskam has turned over his congressional website, www.roskam.house.gov, almost exclusively to hysterical scare tactics for the Tea Party faithful who robotically turn out to re-elect career politician Roskam every two years. Here are the current website headlines that crowd out every important issue that a fabulously well paid congressman should be addressing:

•Roskam introduces bill to create Special Inspector General for monitoring ACA
•Roskam on CNBC's The Kudlow Report: Obamacare needs independent watchdog
•Roskam, community leaders tout legislation blocking job-killing Obamacare regulations
•What they're saying about Roskam's Obamacare watchdog

 Of course, that wasn't the only issue on Roskam's home page. Don't forget this related bit of anti social safety net nonsense Roskam has been peddling for years:

•Roskam leads bipartisan effort to combat billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid

Roskam's feigned outrage is simply political posturing at its worst.

All things considered, I'll take Obama's six million ACA signups helping to improve and even save folks' lives, then Roskam's 52 heartless and inhumane votes designed to force those 40 million folks into penury, poor health or the grave.

Music Pick: Hot Fives and Hot Sevens

Between November 12, 1925, and March 5, 1929, Louis Armstrong waxed 90 sides collectively known as the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens which are the Holy Grail in the advent of jazz as the first original Amer...ican art form. In the fall of 1925, Louis was still recording only "race records", jazz and blues marketed strictly to blacks. Chicago based Okeh Records, a leading race records label, noticed any record with Armstrong sold well, inspiring them to sign Louis to an exclusive contract to front a combo just for the recording studio. Using the jazz idiom of the day, Okeh came up with the name 'Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five', which quickly turned the jazz community on its head and began spreading Armstrong's phenomenal creativity throughout the nation and world. Fans eagerly awaited each new side to glean the latest Armstrong developments in the jazz vocabulary. His playing was profound and revolutionary. This wasn't "Hello Dolly"; this was Avant-garde. The feature "Potato Head Blues" from May 10, 1927, is one of the best, and one of 11 sides by Armstrong's Hot Seven, which only recorded for one week in the entire three plus years of the series. The end of the Hot Fives and Sevens saw Louis crossover to front a Big Band for eighteen years till he reformed the Hot Five concept into the six piece All Stars aggregation for another 24 year run. Besides a great name, Potato Head Blues is pure Armstrong joy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udWB3OKV9_k

Rumsfeld, trained apes and half a million dead

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Unconvicted Iraq war criminal Donald Rumsfeld emerged from blessed obscurity Tuesday to say this about President Obama's foreign policy acumen: "A trained ape could get a Status of Forces (SOF) Agreement. It doesn't take a genius". Rumsfeld was referring to Obama's failure so far to get that agreement allowing US soldiers to stay in Afghanistan as advisors after December 31, 2014, the official end to our criminal Afghan war directed by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. So far Afghan President Hamid Karzai has resisted a SOF Agreement, in part, over US insistence Afghanistan give immunity to US soldiers who commit crimes against Afghan citizens. Aside from the racial implication of likening a black president to an ape, which surely resonates with millions of anti Obama racists, Rumsfeld hurled one of the most despicable charges ever against a sitting president by a former high ranking official. Rumsfeld, a human being who does have a genius for uttering truly horrible comments regarding war and death, famously had this exchange with a soldier during a 2004 PR appearance before US soldiers in Iraq:

Army Spc. Thomas Wilson: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don't we have those resources readily available to us?"

Rumsfeld: "It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it. As you know, ah, you go to war with the army you have---not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.---You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up."

Translation: "We conquered Iraq on the cheap; we didn't prepare you for occupation resistance; and some of you will die as a result"

It's OK for Rumsfeld to spout his insanity and madness...as long as it's from a prison cell after his conviction and sentencing for war crimes.

Roskam's Obamacare Watchdog acutually a Tea Party Pit Bull

 

When my Congressman Peter Roskam's (IL-6th) email regarding his legislation to establish an Obamacare Watchdog popped up on my laptop, I thought it was written in secret code. It took awhile, but sure enough, I was able to decipher his meaning which I will share with others to spare them the ordeal of interpreting the Tea Party tongue used.

Congressman Roskam: Obamacare is wreaking havoc on Americans’ healthcare decisions
Translation:                    The 40 million without health insurance will now get to make a decision which will improve their lives         

Congressman Roskam: Obamacare is spiking out-of-pocket costs
Translation:                     If you believe that, then you believe greedy health insurance companies never raised rates and never refused to insure folks with pre-existing conditions and never cancelled healthy people who got sick.

Congressman Roskam: Obamacare is forcing millions to lose their healthcare plans altogether
Translation:                     Minimum health insurance standards? Republicans don't need no stinkin' minimum health insurance standards

Congressman Roskam: The Obama Administration still hasn't given the public a full picture of the law as it stands today
Translation:                     It has signed up over 5 million and will never be repealed but I'm sure working hard to return to the good ol' days of ravenous health insurance profits on the bodies of the formerly uninsurable

Trudeau sentence distracts from true hucksters

US District Judge Ron Guzman emptied both barrels at TV infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in sentencing him to ten years in prison for fraud in connection with his book "The Weight Loss Cure They Don't Want You to Know About". Guzman called him 'deceitful to the core', an 'uncontrollable huckster' and said he 'steadfastly attempted to cheat others for his own personal gain'. Trudeau sold 850,000 copies of the book which generated $39 million in revenue. About 57,000 customers received partial refunds from the book guarantee and at least 67 filed complaints against Trudeau with consumer protection agencies. The government offered no evidence a single consumer was financially ruined by the $45 book sale price.

While I don't fret about anyone gullible enough to shell out $45 dollars to make the greatest TV pitchman in history filthy rich, I do worry about the millions of Americans, inspired by brilliant commercials, who demand their doctor prescribe them poisonous drugs which will give them strokes, heart attacks, cancer and a host of other painful and debilitating maladies to make potential improvement in some much lessor condition. I do gasp at the criminality of million dollar executives at Toyota and GM who let car owners die in needless accidents from manufacturing defects they covered up for years to improve their fat bonuses year after year. I do mourn for the half million Iraqis we now know were killed in George W. Bush's war based on lies, fear tactics, threats and propaganda.

The American judicial system has degenerated into bread and circuses keeping the masses entertained watching harmless but foolish little hucksters like Trudeau jailed for years mainly because they are an easy mark, allowing the truly destructive hucksters to skate free to enjoy the millions they reaped doing immeasurable damage to the public.