Gotcha Covered
So, now its closer to 15 million* people who’ve signed up for health insurance under the provisions of the ACA.
That’s no failure, folks. The combined 2012 US Census bureau population estimates for the three largest cities in this holy land — New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — is 14,909,352. Let’s call it a draw; there are now as many people insured under ACA guidelines as live in the three most prominent American cities.
Really?
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And the “fiasco” online rollout of the ACA exchange is only some six months on. The Republicans are hanging on to this issue by their fingernails. ACA works, even though the GOP has stood on its head to sabotage it.
Do I love ACA? Hell no. I want single-payer, universal health care like every other civilized country in the world has. But, I’ll say it again, ACA is better than what we had and it’s the best we can do right now as long as the social Darwinists of the Right have the legislative votes.
[*You’ve been seeing the 8 million figure that the corporate media is throwing around, but that only includes people who’ve become insured via the federal exchange. Some 6 million more are now covered under their parents policies, who have pre-existing conditions, had reached some arbitrary liftetime benefits limit, or qualified under Medicare and Medicaid expansion. All of them have benefitted from the ACA.]
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Politics?
So, perhaps Mark Kruzan is running for yet another term as mayor of this sprawling metrop.
Yesterday he vetoed the plan to allow hunters to cull the deer population around Griffy Lake. Believe it or not, it’s the first time he’s vetoed a city council bill since he became Boss in Chief in January, 2004.
Can it be that he weighed the votes of those who hate deer eating their roses against those who hate the idea of Bambi being shot up like Sonny Corleone on the causeway?
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This may be bad news for any of those hoping to grab Kruzan’s chair in 2015.
In any case, the council can override Kruzan’s veto simply by re-voting on the bill — as long they vote 6-2 again. Council rules call for a two-third vote to negate a mayoral veto. My guess? At least one of those six is going to get cold feet.
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The Jews Lose
And so, now we learn that virulent anti-semites constitute at least some fraction of both sides in the Ukraine dust-up.
This despite the strong possibility that those flyers demanding Jews register their families and property being circulated in the city of Donetsk may have been created by Ukraine nationalists trying to smear the Russian partisans there.
The New Republic magazine quotes Russian expert Fyodr Lukyanov, who believes the flyers are fakes: “I have no doubt that there is a sizable community of anti-Semites on both sides of the barricades, but for one of them to do something this stupid — this is done to compromise the pro-Russian groups in the east.”
Just a reminder that anti-semitism is ingrained in much of the pop. of Europe. It existed when England expelled the Jews in 1290. It existed when Spain threw its Jews out in 1492. It existed when mobs attacked Jews on Kristallnacht. And it exists today.
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Why? Simple: There exists within every society a capacity to hate. It’s part of our genetic make-up. And it’s the greatest challenge we as a species face.
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