Really, Guv? Seriously, This Is Embarrassing

The State Medical Board of Ohio oversees regulation, licensing and disciplinary action for the medical profession.  Its twelve members include nine doctors and three so-called consumers. All are appointed by the governor and serve for five years.  In its long history, it has been more or less objective, and has avoided being overtly political.  This is appropriate, given its mission.

"I care about this much."

Our Honorable Governor Katshit -- pardon me, that was vulgar -- Governor Kaysuck clearly doesn't give a fat rat's ass about such proprieties.  He's made two appointments so far, both of the non-professional consumer class, and both are right-wing, anti-abortion ideologues.


The first was Laurie Elsass.  She's the wife of Rex Elsass, Kasich's media consultant/spin doctor.  She's also a trustee for Ohio Right To Life.  Just a typical "consumer".

Then a couple weeks ago, the Guv topped himself by appointing Michael Gonidakis to the Medical Board, again as a consumer member.  This douchebag is no consumer -- he's a lobbyist, a one-way, one-issue zealot who happens to be the president of Ohio Right To Life.  Are you fucking kidding me, Kaysuck?

These two have no medical background and have no business being on this board or any other in the public sector.  They are not there as public stewards, doing the public's business and looking out for the public good.  Their sole function on the Medical Board is to harass, challenge and hamstring abortion providers in every possible way. 

It's an embarrassment for Ohio.  If you agree and want to make a symbolic gesture, you can click the link below to request that Kasich withdraw the appointment of Gonidakis.  Like lobbing spitballs in study hall, it probably won't accomplish much, but it feels good. 

But every now and then, the accumulation of little actions can add up to something.

http://www.ppao.org/Advocacy/Gonidakis.html








      

It's The Law In Britain: Deny Global Warming, Go To Jail!

Good Advice On The Fiscal Whatever-The-Hell-It-Is

Economist and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has two and a half minutes of advice for us :

Bad Kabuki Theater

McConnell & Boehner?

For a month, the GOP brain trust (oxymoron?) has been scrambling to come up with a plausible explanation for the spanking they took on November 6th.  In their best mis-readings, what they've said is that they lost the election because the "under-class", the "nobodies" from "urban areas", young people, "minorities" who got gifts from Obama (tell me again just exactly who the "minority" is) , all those people were "pulled from their apartments" and turned out to vote in larger-than-expected numbers.  (It seems that after trashing and demeaning these folks for years, the R's are shocked to discover that they're allowed to vote.)

Democrats got more votes than Republicans, be it President, Senate or House, but Boehner and other top R's are running a Playhouse 90, pretending that the opposite occurred.  As a friend puts it , "It's just a bullshit Kabuki show."

In the current "crisis" of the impending fiscal "cliff" (actually more like the fiscal off-ramp), the nobodies are not deceived.  They understand that the GOP wants to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits while at the same time ensuring that the wealthiest Americans don't pay a cent more in higher taxes.  In fact, they want the upper crust to pay less.

Instinctively, ethically, mathematically, it's nonsense.

The nobodies instinctively know that this time, the Republicans are yet again on the wrong side of the policy issue, the wrong side of public opinion, and the wrong side of history.

The nobodies know bad Kabuki theater when they see it.

De-Coding Some Conservative "Beliefs"

I've noticed that some conservatives of my acquaintance are very quick to identify certain aspects of modern society that they disagree with by saying something like, "I just don't believe in [                 ]."  You can fill in the blank with words like gay marriage, abortion, welfare, gun control, and taxes.   

These same folks are much less able (or willing) to explain why they hold such "beliefs" -- you often get junk reasons like "That's just how I feel," or "That's how I was raised."

What are their real reasons?  Allow Buster to de-code.  What they really mean is:

"I think gay sex is disgusting and icky."

"Abortion is birth control for sluts, and it's the easy way out.  Too easy for you, slut!"

"People on welfare are just lazy bums and con artists who don't want to work."

"I'm paranoid and need a handgun to protect myself from scary black teenagers in hoodies."

"Taxes cost me money and I'm a cheapskate chiseler who hates to pay a thin dime for anything.  I'd shoplift cart-loads from Kroger's if I thought I could get away with it."

At least it's honest!  It's also prejudiced, immature, uninformed, and mean.  Grow up!

Dumb Ways To Die

Sort of morbid, sort of cute.  A silly, fun PSA from the Land Down Under:

"Soaking The Wealthy"?

(This is a re-post of a letter written by Dave Girves.  You can always find his blog in Buster's Links.  Dave regularly writes some great letters to the editor, but our weenie newspaper rarely has the nerve to print them.  I particularly like this one, so here it is.  Well said, Dave!)

________________________________________________

 

Letters to the Editor

Columbus Dispatch

In his Friday letter, “Soaking the wealthy won’t eliminate the debt”, Michael Rice objects to the term "obstructionists" when referring to congressional Republicans. He asks “What major piece of legislation [did] President Obama want that he failed to have passed?”

In August, 2011 he proposed The American Jobs Act to put more people back to work, even though his policies had already generated tens of thousands of new jobs every month for more than 30 straight months. That piece of legislation failed to pass. Because of obstructionist congressional Republicans that piece of legislation hasn’t even been discussed. The Republican head of the Senate even admitted, out loud, that their primary objective was to limit Obama to one term, not to do something about jobs.

During the debate last year to allow our country to pay its bills, the obstructionist congressional Republicans refused to consider asking millionaires to pay one cent more in taxes, causing our country’s credit rating to be reduced for the first time in history, leading to the impending fiscal cliff. The President wasn’t proposing to soak the wealthy then and he isn’t now. All he wants is to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, just as President Bush had intended them to.

The wealthy would see their top marginal rate, the rate they pay just on the income they earn over $250,000, return to 39.6%. That was the rate they paid under Clinton and they weren’t complaining about being soaked then. Under Republican President Eisenhower, with full employment and a good economy, the top marginal tax rate was 91%, well over twice what Obama is proposing, and no one was complaining about being soaked then either.

Dave Girves