Here's A Reason Why You Have to Be Reminded That Certain Lives Matter.

Kenneth Foster was no saint. He was once young and dumb and stupid and did some dumb and stupid things. Hung out with bad people. Committed crimes. No one disputes that.

Just like no one disputes that he didn't kill Michael LaHood. No one. Not even the man who prosecuted Foster for LaHood's murder. He freely admits that Foster did not pull the trigger. That he was 80 feet away in his car when his friend gunned LaHood down.

He never got out.

He never pulled the trigger.

He had to ask his friend what happened when his friend came running back to the car.

And he was convicted of murder and sent to Death Row. He came within three hours of being executed. I shit you not.

He was convicted under the Texas "law of parties" which holds that anyone who had any part in a crime can be held responsible for murder if they "should have anticipated" that one of their accomplice's actions would lead to someone's death.

Which means Kenneth Foster was basically set to be put to death for failing to be psychic. Had he not managed to attract the attention of the media he most likely would have been. Norman Evans Green was not so lucky. He was executed in 1999 for his part in a botched robbery. When another man was the actual shooter.

I'm not making any of this up.

Now let's go to Cleveland, where Michael Brelo was accused of firing 49 times through the windshield of a car in which, unsurprisingly, both driver and passenger died. For the last 15 shots  he climbed on top of the hood of the vehicle and was firing inside. This man had accomplices too, who also were firing. A total of 137 bullets were sent the victims way, and no one disputes this man was responsible for 49 of them.

Of course he was charged too. With...voluntary manslaughter. And acquitted. No one disputes he shot at two people 49 times, and he was found not guilty. 

Norman Evans Green pulled no triggers, and he's rotting away today in his grave.

Kenneth Foster pulled no triggers, and is rotting away serving life in prison.

Michael Brelo pulled a trigger 49 times and for all we know could be screwing his wife right now and planning to go out to dinner afterwards.

Now take a wild-ass guess as to the respective races of Foster, Green, and Brelo. And maybe a guess as to what Brelo did for a living. I bet you'll get it.

Now ask yourself why these Black Lives Matter people seem to be so angry. Take a good look deep into yourself and ask that question.

I'm not as confident you'll get that one.

A Quickie From The Morning's News.

We'll have more on APhA, Lloyd Duplantis, and "awardgate" later on, but Sunday mornings always start with the Sunday newspaper around the Drugmonkey household, which today contained this line:

"The county is budgeting about $14 million more for 2015-16 than this year's $45.3 budget. The mental health funds are from a California state tax on millionaires that voters approved in 2004."  

You have no idea how happy that makes me.

Today is a good day.

Carry on.

So Here's An Idea About This Whole APhA Awardgate Thing

Tell me what you think.

First, we get a bunch of the books where American Pharmacist's Association Foundation award winner Lloyd Duplantis espouses his theories that birth control pills lead to more gay men, which led to the whole Horny Haitian Homos bringing AIDS to North America thing.

If you're just tuning in, I'm not joking. Click here to get the scoop, or just keep reading the next few posts here.

Then, we get the book's covers stamped with something like "By APhA Foundation award winning author Lloyd Duplantis." Like how Oprah stamps her book club picks.

Then we show up at the APhA convention and give 'em away for free, and let Lloyd's own words do the talking.

The only downers; this would involve Lloyd getting royalties, and I'd have to go to the APhA convention. I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm open to other suggestions.

Lloyd Duplantis Of Gray, Louisiana Is Far Worse Than I Thought. That's Not The Problem Though. If APhA Is Capable Of Shame They Need To Bring It Out Right Now.

Fans of the blog know all about Lloyd Duplantis. For those of you that don't I'll tell you the condensed version. He was front and center in the movement a few years back of pharmacists that refused to dispense birth control prescriptions. What made Lloyd a little different though, was that it wasn't enough for him to say you couldn't have your Ortho-Novum because it went against his moral beliefs. He essentially ignored that part of his argument one night on national radio, saying he didn't dispense them "in the name of science," calling what's in your birth control pack "the most dangerous chemicals on the market."  He spewed forth bullshit and his bullshit got called here. That's old news.

There's more to Lloyd than we knew though. And thanks to the American Pharmacists Association, we all get to find out.

It seems that our friends at APhA, who seem to do nothing other than give out awards, build new headquarters, and shake hands while taking pictures,  saw fit to give out one of their awards to Lloyd. Specifically, a "Bowl of Hygeia," which is some sort of thing given out by each state association in the name of the APhA Foundation. I was gonna write me a little letter to that Foundation to ask them things like how honoring Lloyd fit in with one of their self-proclaimed values. I quote:

 "Respect for the patient’s role in managing their health is central to care."

Except when some slut wants to have a little control over her woman parts evidently, but I'm getting off track. I thought I could write a better letter if I had a copy of the book Lloyd wrote a few years back. Unfortunately I had to buy the damn thing. It isn't popular enough to be anywhere where you can borrow or steal it. Unlike mine, which can be acquired in all ways legal and otherwise.

Lloyd abandons all pretense of not basing his opposition to sexy pills on moral grounds in this page turner, but what immediately struck me was how he tried to have it both ways on the science stuff. Here's a quote from the introduction:

I have placed my own emotions and my own hypotheses here and those are based upon empirical and anecdotal observations. Since modern science and the politically correct establishment does not accept or rather has a general disdain for that type of science, I chose to call this compilation of my musings and articles that I have found interesting regarding "the Pill," a story rather than a scientific work. 

Got that? That fancy liberal science doesn't accept things like what some guy saw or thoughts he pulled out his rear end to be good enough, so this here type of science is called a story. A story about the type of science that isn't good enough for those eggheads. And a story that uses a lot of words like "empirical" and "clinical" and "hypotheses" to remind you it's just a story.

Just for kicks, let's take a look at a few of the places Lloyd's type of science leads to. These are just warm ups. The main one is coming:

-All contraceptive products have much more potential for harm rather than the possibility of benefit. 

Eh, no surprise there. We kinda figured he'd be saying stuff like this.

-In his practice, Lloyd says "every side effect listed on the package insert presented itself" 

That, my friends, is bullshit. No pharmacist has ever seen every side effect listed for any drug on the market, and every pharmacist reading this knows that as fact.

-"Oral contraceptives are steroid based chemicals and therefore create an immune-compromising situation which makes individuals more susceptible to infections of all kinds." 

Proof please. Oh I forgot. Wrong type of science.

-"I am very pleased to be able to share...some of the information I have garnered through my own personal research, clinical experience, and assessment of material done by others"

But remember, in no way am I trying to call this science.

-"The blood of women taking oral contraceptives often takes on a green color." 

Wha?

-"Any pharmacist practicing for any length of time has been approached and asked whether he has any outdated birth control pills for use on plants." 

OK this is just weird now. I've been at it 23 years and no one has ever asked me for birth control tablets for plants. So if you're interested in the world of reality you're gonna have to at least say "Every pharmacist except one..."

I could go on all night my friends, hell I could go on for a week. You wouldn't believe the amount of material in here. But that's not my point. Here's what I want you to take away from this book. I also want you to remember APhA gave this man an award

"It is proposed by several researchers that the constant bathing of the female ovaries with exogenous female sex hormones affects the complex chromosome balance of the ovum while still in the ovary. This is hypothesized as a factor in the increased occurrence of effeminate men in the American population with the subsequent practice of homosexuality resulting in the rampant spread of HIV and AIDS infections." 

Whoa. So, this guy is saying being gay is like some sort of birth defect. And APhA honored that.

"Well, APhA is incompetent remember" some of you are saying. "They probably had no idea about this book when they dished out that award."

Except it's listed front and center on their press release announcement. 

We're not done yet though. Hang with me and you'll find out how AIDS came to the United States. It's all covered in one of the last chapters, but you're gonna have to stick around for a bit. This is probably the most complex theory Lloyd comes up with. It goes like this.

1) The initial version of the birth control pill contained much more estrogen than the ones that eventually made it to market, which had much more estrogen than the ones on pharmacy shelves today. 

OK. That much is true.

2) The initial, experimental, versions of high-estrogen oral contraceptives were tested in the slums of Haiti, because there was a large, accessible population that was poor and wouldn't cause much trouble if things went wrong. 

Don't know about that, but certainly not implausible.

3) Remember, there's totally a link between high estrogen birth control and more "effeminate" men. And homos. 

That's what you said earlier. Yes I remember.

4) These experiments were done in the 50s, which means by the 70s there were more....

homos?

...than would be in the normal population. 

OK, I'm gonna quit commenting here and just let this thing play out to the end.

5) There were several vaccines being tested in the Belgian Congo in the 50s and 60s which "are offered as a catalyst for the beginning of HIV" 

6) In the 70s, which would be when the homos created in Haiti would be at peak horniness, a "unique population transfer" occurred as 47,000 Haitians were brought to Zaire to work on "health and welfare activities"  

7) Remember, there were more homos in this population than there would be normally.  

8) And they would do homo things. Because they would be at peak horniness.  

9) And so they would catch the AIDS, and bring it back to Haiti.  

10)  Then it spread throughout North America. 

OF COURSE!!!!!!!! IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE!!!!!!!!!! Big Pharma experimented on the poor people of Haiti, creating a pool of homos, who then grew up and got horny and went to Africa, where there was some sort of mad scientist or something who accidentally created the AIDS virus, and the horny Haitian homos picked up the virus and took it back to Haiti and then into our own country!!


THERE SIMPLY IS NO OTHER WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


OK lets all laugh at that for awhile, and then remember something.

APhA gave that man an award.

And they knew about this book. It's featured in the press release announcing the award's presentation.

Which means whether they meant to or not, the American Pharmacists Association just gave a tacit endorsement to the theory that horny Haitian homos caused AIDS.

This goes way beyond birth control now.

This goes way beyond calling APhA ineffective.

They have some explaining to do.

An Unhappy Customer.

Brevity seems to be the soul of wit these days in the mailbag my friends, as this message came in today. Again, complete and unedited:

"If I wanted politics I would go to another and better written blog. Stick to pharmmacy (sic) workplace issues."

Your plight tugs at my heartstrings sir. I can only imagine how terrible your online experiences have been of late. And while I, of course, am more that willing to take my share of responsibility for your discomfort, your real problem may be with whoever is putting a fucking gun to your head and forcing you to read this blog.

I certainly sympathize. It must be some unique version of hell to sit there, cold steel pressed against your temple, as you are forced to read every word I write and never to be able to just skip to the posts that interest you. How it must rip your soul to know that others can simply click on one of the category links on the right, for example, the one that says "An Insider's View Of The Profession" when they want to see only pharmacy related posts while you sit there reading left-wing viewpoints constantly in fear for your life.

Does he quiz you? This man who sits there with cocked handgun making you read my words? Is that how he knows you haven't skipped anything? If so maybe we can work out some sort of arrangement where I can provide you with a cheat sheet. Let me know how I can help. Because while I appreciate the traffic, making someone read my blog at gunpoint is wrong. You can tell that man I said that. If you're not afraid he'll shoot you.

Moving on, you may have a secondary issue with whatever internet service provider is blocking you from accessing the other, better written blogs. I've heard of this thing happening in China, but perhaps the NSA is closer to having its electronic tentacles wrapped around our collective necks than I realized.

Or maybe you could just try Comcast.

I'd probably deal with the gun at your head first though.

Asshole.

 

From The Mailbag, A Reader Concerned With The State Of My Relations To Federal Affairs.

The message, in its entirety:

So....How's Obama working out for you?! LOL

Glad you asked my friend, as I haven't had much of a chance here to tell folks  how many more prescriptions I'm filling these days from the Obamacare. Funny thing how people tend to give me more business once they're finally able to afford to see a doctor, and a little ironic how the reason I haven't had the time to tell you about all the extra prescriptions I've been filling is because of...all the extra prescriptions I've been filling.

That's the main effect I see as to how the Obama's working out for me. I'd call it a win win for me and my customers.

Of course there's more to a presidency than money for me, so I suppose we should take a minute and ponder some of the other workings out of the Obama administration:

-A quantum leap forward in rights for gays and lesbians.

- A solution to a vexing problem in the Middle East that doesn't involve a bunch of dead people.

-Long overdue recognition that pretending that the government of Cuba doesn't exist is kinda stupid.

-Acknowledgement, at the top federal level, of the idiotic gun culture so unique to us.

-Net neutrality is now federal policy.

-AT&T and T-Mobile were stopped from combining to make your cell phone service even worse than it is now.

-Comcast and Time Warner were stopped from combining to make your cable/internet service even worse than it is now.

-No more federal cheer leading for the likes of Lloyd Duplantis and his ilk. Pharmacists, you'll remember, who got their 15 minutes of fame during the Bush administration for denying women birth control prescriptions.

We'll classify those under "things you definitely wouldn't have got under a President McCain or Romney."

By the way, there have been developments on the Lloyd Duplantis front. Stay tuned.

Back to the Obama workings out though:

-A president who addresses the out of control criminal justice system we've created, and the personal, spiritual, and financial toll it takes on every American.

-An economy that didn't collapse after it was left on the brink by George The Lesser.

Those will go under "things you probably wouldn't have got under those other two guys."

It hasn't all been roses and sunshine though, to wit:

-George The Lesser's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still limping along, although another way of looking at it would be two fewer wars have been started than during the previous administration.

-Guantanamo's still there.

-Zero action, at the federal level, regarding the idiotic gun culture so unique to us.

-A monstrosity of a trade deal is working it's way into law. If you haven't read about the Trans Pacific Partnership you should.

Those will go under "things that probably would have happened under a Republican administration."

All in all I'd give Obama a "B," mostly for the increased foot traffic going through my business these days. If I were rotting away in Guantanamo or humping around in Afghanistan, I'd be inclined to grade him a little lower.

Not quite sure why you care about my views so much my anonymous friend, but there you go.

From The Archives, And With a Special Dedication To A Certain Mr. Trump.

We've reached bottom now, right?

Surely we have. I've said that so many times over the course of the last decade, and been proven wrong every single time. But tonight it has to be true.

Because let me recap for you where we stand in the political life of this country right now. A commie, left leaning, profane half crazy blogger who calls himself a monkey and would call John McCain a butcher of innocent lives in the service of empire, who would have surely taken part in any and all demonstrations against the stupid, unjust, illegal dance of death this country was responsible for in Vietnam.....

....who wouldn't have hesitated to shout in John McCain's face what he thought of his career choice had he been 20 years older and ever had the chance....

....still has more respect for John McCain.....

Than the man who was at the top of the last set of national polls of likely Republican voters.

Surely we can't sink any lower.

Original blogpost airdate  November 05, 2008

A True Story About John McCain I Can Tell You Now That The Election Is Over.


I don't have to tell most of you that John McCain was a fighter pilot in the Navy during the Vietnam War. I don't have to tell you that he was shot down, captured, held prisoner and tortured by the Vietnamese for 5 and a half years.

And I don't mean the kind of torture that we do in Guantanamo where we're careful not to leave any marks. The Vietnamese didn't care anything about leaving marks. They beat the living piss out of John McCain and then would hang him from the ceiling in his cell by his broken arms when they were done. That's why you never saw him raise his arms during the campaign. He can't. At one point during his captivity he weighed less than a hundred pounds. That's not the story I want to tell you though. The story I want to tell you starts in that prison cell, with the voice of a person named David Ifshin.

Ifshin was president of the National Student Association, and in 1970 he went to Hanoi to urge American troops to turn against the war. His words were broadcast over Radio Hanoi repeatedly and into the cell that was John McCain's living hell.

You might expect that the two men would have gone on to become bitter lifelong enemies. You would be wrong. Ifshin went on to be general counsel of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, a fact that didn't sit very well with many of the veterans of the war Ifshin had railed against. Some of these veterans heckled the president during his first Memorial Day speech, waving signs that read "Tell us about David Ifshin"

John McCain gave a speech on the floor of the Senate that day. “Let me tell you about David Ifshin…" McCain said. "David is a friend of mine.”

"I wanted the protesters to know that they were bearing false witness against a good man." McCain said later."His friendship honored me and honors me still."

 You see, although both McCain and Ifshin came to radically different conclusions, both men passionately believed in doing what was best for the country. Both men came to see that in the other and to respect the others' commitment.

I was going to write a tongue in cheek post tonight about kicking the Republicans when they were down. It would have been really funny. But after hearing Obama's victory speech tonight, I decided to tell you this story instead. Because my friends, I can't help but feel there was a tectonic shift in this country tonight. A much welcome shift in the tone we are going to get from our leader over the next 8 years. After hearing the man I had hoped so long for, finally making the speech that I so longed for him to make, well, a post about kicking the Republicans when they were down just seemed so.........Bushy.

And Bush already seems like ancient history, doesn't he?

I'll be dammed if there isn't a little hope in the land tonight.

The Spawn Of Lloyd Duplantis Of Gray, Louisiana Are Back. And Wal-Mart Tells A Big Fucking Lie.

The Drugmonkey is pissed this night my friends. The kind of spit in your eye hellraising pissed that was so common in my Bush administration prime. If you've been with me that long you may remember Lloyd Duplantis of Gray, Louisiana. The "pharmacist" who had his 15 minutes of fame back in the day for refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, once telling National Public Radio they were "the most dangerous chemicals that have ever been put on the market." The Drugmonkey viciously destroyed Lloyd afterwards. To the point where if you Google "Lloyd Duplantis " right now, the first two results are posts from this very blog,  above his own store's website. 

Awesome.

But I also knew the work of vigilance against these pharmacy pretenders is never done. I wrote this back in 2009:

...don't think you should stop kicking the likes of Lloyd Duplantis of Gray, Louisiana and his ilk. 

Because you and I both know they'll be back. Pat yourself on the ass for awhile and get ready to huddle up for the next play. 

Well it's playtime again my friends. From Mother Jones, the magazine that once broke the story of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" foot in mouth episode: 

When Brittany Cartrett lost her pregnancy in March, her doctor prescribed misoprostol to help her complete the miscarriage. The drug, which would allow her to avoid a more invasive surgical procedure, is the same one used to induce many abortions. Which is why, Cartrett suspects, two different pharmacies in central Georgia refused to fill her prescription.

Yup, we've been down this road. See if you can detect a difference this time though:

Cartrett slammed one of those pharmacies, the Walmart in Milledgeville, Georgia, in a Facebook post published last week. When she asked the pharmacist why she wouldn't fill her prescription, Cartrett claims, "She looks at me over her nose and says, 'Because I couldn't think of a reason why you would need that prescription.'" Cartrett says she then explained that she'd had a miscarriage, and the pharmacist replied, "I don't feel like there is a reason why you would need it, so we refused to fill it."

Did you see it? Not even pretending to have a good reason anymore. No trumped up safety concerns. No thinly veiled medical rationale. Just "I don't think you need it and you don't need to know why"

That is, until it gets to the level of the corporate spin doctor. This is where it really gets crazy folks:

Walmart, however, disputes that its pharmacist refused to fill the prescription on principal. She refused, says Brian Nick, a company spokesman, because the prescription did not follow FDA guidelines.

Everyone in the pharmacy profession just shot scotch out of their nose. Even if they were drinking water, scotch is what came out. Even if no beverage at all was around, the sheer ridiculousness of this explanation caused single malt to flow through sinuses. Because Wal-Mart, through its spokesman, just seemed to say that prescriptions that do not follow official FDA guidelines should not be filled.

Which is unadulterated bullshit. Lloyd Duplantis wasn't allowed to spew bullshit into my profession and you're not either Wal-Mart. Prepare to be called.

It's estimated 76% of all prescriptions of Seroquel are for off-label, non FDA approved uses. Which I'm sure means Wal-Mart dispenses 76% less Seroquel than its competitors. Right Wal-Mart?

Right?

I bet you never allow any amitriptyline for neuralgia to ever leave your place either, right? And no trazodone to treat insomnia. Because there are no official FDA guidelines for that either.

I could go on all night. Because the list of prescription drugs used off label is endless, and Wal-Mart knows it.

But for some reason......only the off label use of misoprostol seems to show up on your radar. What could that reason be?

Because.... that off label use of Seroquel I mentioned really has raised some serious safety concerns, unlike anything to do with misoprostol.  Yet... I don't see any Wal-Mart pharmacists taking a stand on off label Seroquel.

So again, what could the reason be?  That just this one drug......out of zillions that are used off label.....is the one to be concerned about?

Everyone reading this now knows the reason Mr. Wal-Mart corporate hack, so you can cut the crap. That pharmacist of yours didn't fill that prescription because she's an anti-abortion zealot who thinks she's entitled to put her beliefs above the people she is obligated to serve, and is also too stupid to know misoprostol has a myriad of uses that wouldn't raise her self-righteous, hypocritical hackles.

Tell the truth Wal-Mart. If you're going to take a stand and give cover to your employees when they attempt to force others to live by their moral code, at least don't lie.

Because while not everyone agrees on the abortion issue, there's a pretty clear consensus among all faiths that liars go to hell.

Fuckers.

At Last, The End To Our National Narcotic Nightmare

Leafing through this morning's edition of the delivered on dead tree news in a semi-awake caffeine craving state, little did I know the momentous moment that was in store. Not only for me my friend, but for my patients, for you, for the country, and hell, probably even the world. 

That's why I still get the dead tree news. Because if I let myself just pick and choose my news from the electronic information buffet, I would have missed this, and probably have spent the morning reading about how the latest cost projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Obamacare will be coming in at a 20 percent lower cost than previous estimates, then I would be writing a post rubbing that in your face right now.

You wouldn't have liked that, because you would have been torn away from a post about no-go zones in Europe where non-Muslims are not allowed to instead read some left wing slanted news story, when what you wanted was funny pharmacy material. Perhaps a return of the ever popular "Highlights From Today's Pill Counting Action" posts.

A left wing story that happens to be true by the way, unlike that no-go shit that Fox News pulled out of its ass.

So it's a good thing none of that is happening, and that I still force myself to have my news delivered to me like the Johnny Marzetti that was plopped down on my tray every week in elementary school. Or else neither one of us would have come across the breakthrough solution to the most vexing of modern problems.

I'm talking about painkiller addiction. You deal with it, I deal with it, everyone with a healthcare license deals with it, as well as the millions of Americans whose lives have been upended by this plague. Once we had a bright idea to reformulate the OxyContin thinking that would help. What happened was that drove people to heroin and dirty needles and product cut with rat-shit contaminated baking soda the local pusher had lying around his filthy soon to be condemned meth lab trailer out by the old Johnson farm.

Dammit!! What we thought was a great idea turned out to have zero effectiveness! What is the solution to this Rubik's Cube public health dilemma?  Well there it was right in front of me on the printed page.

First though, is a Johnny Marzetti served anywhere other than elementary school lunch trays? And what kind of life do you have to lead to be honored with a vaguely appleish food product?  

God, so many questions this night. But fortunately one big answer.

Because someone, you see, finally asked leading syndicated health columnist "Doctor K" what they could do to minimize the risk of becoming "hooked" on their newly prescribed painkillers.

And if you know one thing my friends, you know that once Doctor K is on the case, he'll get to the bottom of it.

After giving us the lowdown on the basics of opiate/opioids and their uses, the good doctor gets down to brass tacks. Unveiling after what I'm sure took months if not years of research, the key. That's right, now for all the world to see, we have tips from the National Institute on Drug Abuse that will help not only the letter writer, but everyone on god's green earth avoid the horrors of addiction.

But wait, do they really make tacks out of brass? I would think you'd go with a cheaper metal. And why would you say "god's green earth" when any picture from space clearly shows the planet to be blue? I suspect the answer to the latter has something to do with the religious types and their difficulty accepting what science shows to be true.

That's not why you're here though, let's free the people from their narcotic hell, and then we can move on to why the faithful can be so stupid. Here we go, the answer to how we can finally free ourselves from the chains of drug dependence and be free at last, free free free at last:

Keep your doctor informed about all the medications you take. This includes over-the-counter drugs. 

Take your medication only as prescribed. 

Read the information provided by your pharmacist before taking your medications. 

Discuss your medication with your doctor or pharmacist. Don’t hesitate to ask questions if you are unsure about its effects. 

Throw away any unused pills once your back pain improves.    

Jesus Fucking Christ. This is the last time I start a blogpost about something before actually reading the article I'm writing about. I saw the headline before work and was so excited....but now....I'm stuck trying to defend this bullshit as something other than a waste of space.

Really Doctor K? I trusted you, and you treat me like I'm too goddamn stupid to think that maybe I shouldn't take my fucking habit forming meds as prescribed. Thanks there buddy, because up to now I thought a good way to avoid ending up in a twelve step program would be to force Norco down my goddamn throat by the handful. I also figured that hiding the fact I got Vicodin from my dentist would be a great path to moderation as well.

You fuckhead.

It's more than a waste of space, thanks to this antiquated technology it's also a waste of ink and I probably just contributed to the deforestation of the Indian subcontinent. Fuck me.

And fuck you. Go back to your Fox News, because you're not getting anymore Highlights From The Day's Pill Counting Action. Because I don't hate my customers anymore. Because it's amazing how much more likable people become when you finally have the tools to deal with them as an actual pharmacist and not a cog in a goddamn pill mill trying to keep the numbers on your computer screen from turning red.

Jesus Christ I just wasted my whole night on this. Doctor K sucks ass.

Of Ham Sandwiches And Burning Walgreens

If there's nothing else I want you to know about what's going on in Ferguson this night, only one point I could get across to you before you drift over to the Fox News Fear and Loathing Manufacturing Company, it would be this:

That was no Grand Jury Darren Wilson faced. Not in any sense that the American legal system defines one. Not in any way you or I would ever face one if we were ever charged with a crime.

For one thing, you or I would never "face one." That's not how any Grand Jury except this one works.

Let me bring you up to speed with what a Grand Jury is, and let's see how long it is before you smell the bullshit in the case of Darren Wilson. By all means double check anything I am about to say while you're here on the information superhighway.

Grand Juries have their roots back in the days of jolly olde England, when they were instituted as a check on the power of the Crown. Anyone arrested had to be charged with a crime and the prosecuting attorney had to go before a group of citizens and explain that there was some evidence that the person might have actually committed a crime. This was to keep the King from being able to lock up whoever he wanted for however long he wanted for no reason.

Except...Darren Wilson was never arrested, was he? There's your first clue something smells a little rotten here. No need to check the power of the government to keep someone locked up if no charges have been brought.

Hang with me here, and I'll tell you how Grand Jurys work in the world of the unconnected and unimportant. It's something like this:

Prosecutor: Ladies and Gentlemen, now we have the case of Drugmonkey, charged with narcotics possession. When arrested, he was found to have a hundred OxyContin in his pocket. I'm sure you'll agree that's enough evidence to proceed with the charges.

Grand Jurors: Yup.

Prosecutor: NEXT!!!!

That's it. As soon as the prosecutor can give the slightest reason why Drugmonkey was arrested, we move on. This is NOT the place where Drugmonkey says "I own a drugstore you dipshit, and I was delivering a prescription to one of my customers. Here's all the paperwork, which I'm sure you will find in order"

That part happens at the TRIAL. Where the prosecutor lets loose with all the evidence he's got, and Drugmonkey and his lawyer get to tear it to shreds, perhaps by putting Drugmonkey on the stand. Drugmonkey DOES NOT GET TO TELL HIS SIDE OF THE STORY AT THE GRAND JURY HEARING.

There's a saying in the legal profession that a prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich. Because all he's doing is giving a reason why the person was arrested and should be charged. The way it works in the real world, it's nothing but a formality. In all of 2010, out of 162,000 federal court cases, a Grand Jury refused to indict someone 11 times. You read that right. A whopping 0.007% of the time, a Grand Jury thought there wasn't enough evidence for the government to have its day in court.

Are you smelling the bullshit yet? Because Darren Wilson DID get to tell his side of the story, didn't he? Instead of a prosecutor saying, "ladies and gentlemen the accused shot the victim 12 times, and there are conflicting eyewitness accounts as to what happened, I'm sure you'll agree we should sort this out in court." What we got was a mini-version of a real trial, where only one side got to tell its story, uninterrupted, with not a Grand Jury, but a group of people acting as a regular criminal jury making a decision.

A mini-trial that could only end one way. because if the jury doesn't go along, then Darren Wilson gets another shot at full blown trial.

They say a prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict that ham sandwich because what they mean is a Grand Jury will do whatever a prosecutor wants it to do. Which is exactly what happened here. This wasn't a Grand Jury hearing in any sense that it is known to the law. This was nothing but an elaborate cover-my-ass legal ruse by the prosecutor who had no intention of ever bringing a case against Darren Wilson.

And that's why you have a lot of angry people running around the streets of Ferguson, Missouri this night, doing things like burning down the local Walgreens to give white people an education. Because if it weren't for the riots in Los Angeles back in 1992 most of you honkies would still be ignorant of the way cops can act when they think no one is watching them. A riot seems to be the only way people who have been shit on for hundreds of years, fighting inch by blood soaked inch towards the promises this country makes its citizens, have of educating you snoozing in complacency what it's like in the parts of the system you never see.

Yesterday's riot lesson was the reality of police brutality, tonight's is the function of a Grand Jury in a society that clams to have equal protection under the law.

Let's hope you learned something.

The Return Of Rick Scott, Who May Finally Get The Karmic Payback He Deserves, For The Most Incredible Of Reasons.

The political junkies among you may already know which direction the wind is about to take this post, but stick around, I want to make sure you get the whole recap here, not that it will matter.

I've warned you, and those of you in Florida in particular, about Rick Scott more than once. Rick Scott is a crook. A thief whose company, a chain of for-profit hospitals by the name of Columbia/HCA, ripped off Medicare and Medicaid to the tune of over a billion dollars, and then had the chutzpah to enter the debate over President Obama's health care plan with privately financed commercials emphasizing that any solution had to be built on "accountability and personal responsibility"

I'm not making that up. By all means do a Google search and double check me.

I asked you to remember this the next time you start to judge the Medicaid momma who comes in your store looking for some free Tylenol for her feverish kid. To maybe keep some perspective when comparing her actions to the rich white crook. Instead, you made Rick Scott the governor of Florida, which I understand some may consider a fate worse than death. In Rick Scott's world though, it is considered a validation of his lifestyle.

He went on to refuse to take any of the free money the federal government was offering states to expand their Medicaid programs. Perhaps because he was no longer in a position to steal any of it.

But Rick Scott may be about to get his comeuppance. Not because of his unethical business practices mind you, nor for his rank hypocrisy. Rick Scott my friends, has finally done something far worse in this day and age.

He looked stupid on television.




According to saintpetersblog.com, Scott's hissy fit "cost him two or three critical points" in the opinion polls, flipping his slight lead into a slight deficit.

Christ on a cracker.

So here's our lesson for the day. I want you to imagine what would have happened if Rick Scott had a political instinct that was even slightly honed. If he had just acted like a grown up and ignored the fan, or even if he brushed off some charm skills and make a little joke about it. Holy cow depending on the quality of the quip he could have crushed his opponent right then and there. After stealing a billion dollars. And shouting for all that would hear, after stealing a billion dollars, about the need for "accountability" I want you to think about that for awhile and what it says about the viability of our democracy.

Because the answer my friend, with apologies to Bob Dylan, is quite literally, blowin' in the wind.

Back When It Wasn't So Busy, Ebola Made A Guest Appearance In This Very Blog.

Original blogpost airdate January 31,2008

President Wankerhead Will Release A Budget Proposal For The Federal Government Monday, Prompting Joy For Reasons Other Than He'll Never Do It Again.


From this morning's New York Times:

In his new budget to be unveiled Monday, President Bush will call for large cuts in the growth of Medicare, far exceeding what he proposed last year, and he will again seek major savings in Medicaid, according to administration officials and budget documents.

Reached for comment in the lung of an elderly woman at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Mycobacterium tuberculosis said "While on the surface the cut in health care funding for America's elderly and poor would seem to be a good thing, we have to remember that the conditions setting the stage for my comeback are not all financial. It is my sincere hope that the money my prey spends for health care will not only not cover the cost of inflation, but that Americans will never realize that they could actually spend less and be more effective in their genocidal campaign against my species by simply copying the health care system of Canada."

"Overall, I'd say the president's budget makes me cautiously optimistic" concluded the bacterium.

At its headquarters in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Ebola virus issued an emotional, short statement:

"HUMANS DIE!!!!! said the virus through an interpreter. "ME FIND YOU! YOU MAKE JOB EASIER!!!!!"

Sources said Ebola was especially excited about the president's proposal to to reduce special Medicare payments to teaching hospitals by $23 billion dollars*

"THEY KNOW NOTHING OF ME NOW" said Ebola. "THEY NO WANT TO LEARN? ME KILL THEM!!!!!!"

Meanwhile, a spokesman for bird flu promised that if Bush's funding proposals were accepted by Congress, it would limit its effects only to those without good health insurance once it developed a way to cross the species barrier.

"We have our best viruses working on how to infect humans more effectively" said the spokesman. "But we are willing to spare the rich among you if you only give us a chance to taste sweet, sweet, human blood"

"You can trust the word of a bird flu virus" he concluded. What's in your wallet?

*You know the quotes are made up. The special cut in funding for teaching hospitals, however, is real.

I Am Nothing If Not A Man Of My Word.

I needed a favor and I mindlessly threw in a deal sweetener. It probably wasn't necessary. The Angry Pharmacist is actually much nicer than you would think, and he probably would have done it for me anyway. But I said it.

"If you do this for me I'll even write something Republican friendly on the blog"

Crap.

OK, let's see here.................

thinking.....................

Ummmmm....Oh. I think I have something. Here we go:

Neither Marco Rubio, or any other Republican, has ever cut off the head of anyone on a video broadcast on the internet throughout the world.

That I know of.

I think the fact that the bloodthirsty religious whack jobs of the GOP limit themselves to abortion clinic bombings, and the occasional doctor assassination, and that they choose not to film their acts for propaganda purposes, reflects somewhat positively on their character when compared to the bloodthirsty religious whack jobs of ISIS.

Glad I got that off my chest. I must be more careful with my promises in the future.

Once Again, Real Life Takes Away My Material. I Also Call Out Some Chicken Shit Compounding Pharmacists

Those of you who've picked up a copy of my awesome first book no doubt remember how I opened it with reminiscences of how I used to mock healthcare professionals who couldn't poison someone.  A doctor who tried to kill his mistress with strychnine for example, or a nurse who might use morphine to off a patient or two. It worked as humor because you'd assume that anyone who spent a few years studying the combination of how the body works and the chemicals the world of medicine puts into it oughta be pretty good at figuring out the poison thing. Basic stuff, right? Right in these people's wheelhouses and they screwed it up.....ha ha ha.....

Yeah....ha ha fucking ha.

The execution of a convicted murderer in Arizona lasted for nearly two hours on Wednesday, as witnesses said he gasped and snorted for much of that time before eventually dying. 

This drawn-out death of Joseph R. Wood III in Arizona prompted the governor to order a review and drew renewed criticism of lethal injection, the main method of execution in the United States, just months after a high-profile botched execution in Oklahoma.

And another one before that in Ohio. Right in the people's wheelhouses and they screw it up. Time after time. Once again I have underestimated the incompetence of others, and once again, real life robs me of comedic material.

Midazolam is the common denominator in all these fuckups, used with the narcotic hydromorphone in Ohio and Arizona and with a muscle relaxant (vecuronium) and potassium chloride (to stop the heart) in Oklahoma. So let me tell you a little bit about midazolam. It's what's known as a benzodiazepine, related to the Xanax and Valium so many people have made friends with. All in all they're a pretty good class of meds, gaining popularity in no small part because they are safer, particularly in overdose, than the class of meds they replaced, known as barbiturates.

Now, I'm gonna pause here, and place a large bet that even if you haven't had a day of any kind of medical training in your life, you can read that last paragraph and figure out the problem here, and offer a possible solution.

Some 6th grade dropout probably just said something like "um...maybe they shouldn't be using the safer one if they want to kill someone, and maybe go with that barbiturate stuff instead"...and that person... would be smarter than the Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona Departments of Correction.

 How many of you have had to have a pet put down? How long did it take? Seconds, not hours, yes? Guess what they use? Read that paragraph again and just take a wild-ass guess.

"Um......a barbiturate maybe?" the dumbest person on earth might say. And he would be right. Pentobarbital to be specific.

The olive in the martini here is that some states have figured this out. You won't hear about botched executions in Texas or Missouri because pentobarbital is exactly what they use.

So let's recap here. There is a successful model of a lethal drug that has a proven track record in both animals and humans. Yet some people in power think it's a good idea to go their own way and come up with a plan that uses a drug that is popular in medical practice in part because it is safer in overdose than the drug that is successfully used to kill lots and lots of living creatures.

And this is the world in which I try to satirize. Which probably says something about my intelligence.

Not that a midazolam/hydromorphone combination is completely inappropriate in theory. Pump someone full of enough of it and yeah, they should kick the bucket you would think. You know, assuming the meds were of the correct potency and actually were what they said on the label. Who knows? Maybe that was the problem here. Let's just check with the manufacturer and clear this right up....

...oh....wait. We can't do that. because no one quite knows who the manufacturer is. The prison people claim they're getting their goods from compounding pharmacies. Which means, if true, there's a colleague or two out there of mine who's a spineless, chicken-hearted, weak, cowering, thumbsucking, lily-livered, yellowbellied coward of a human.

That's right bubs. I'm calling you out. Signing a contract of death with the state is one thing, but doing so while insisting on the protection of anonymity is a whole other level of pussydom. Come out come out where ever you are deathdruggist, because if you can't stand the heat you're generating, you never should have gone into that kitchen and started cooking.

And just in case you are ready to point a finger back at me, I'll point out that I ended my awesome first book by telling the world how to get an abortion using a common anti ulcer medication, and I'll put the backlash whackadoodle anti-choice zealots are capable of generating up against anything you'll face any day of the year.

That part of the book still holds up by the way. No doubt because there I wasn't trying to mock an increasingly unmockable world.

Your Small Penis Is The Key To Understanding A Key Tactic Of Right Wing America's Arguments.

Because make no mistake, the right wing media machine is set to dominate the nation's news agenda. In a few short years they've gone from Glenn Beck being the crazy babbling uncle in the journalistic attic to being able to manufacture stories that get traction in normal people's dialogue.

Don't believe me? Bengazi.

Don't worry though, democracy may be at stake, but your small penis will stop them. First though, we'll have to learn a little bit about how they operate.

One of the favorite tactics of the conservative cable goons is the old "some people are saying" trick. It has its origin in the writings of people like Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote this for Rolling Stone while covering the 1972 presidential race.

“Not much has been written about The Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the Presidential Campaign, but toward the end of the Wisconsin primary race – about a week before the vote – word leaked out that some of Muskie’s top advisers had called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with ‘some kind of strange drug’ that nobody in the press corps had ever heard of.” 

It is entirely conceivable — given the known effects of Ibogaine — that Muskie’s brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at the crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely and he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. 

We can only speculate on this, because those in a position to know have flatly refused to comment on rumors concerning the Senator’s disastrous experiments with Ibogaine.

After the campaign, Thompson had this to say:

“I never said he was (taking ibogaine), I said there was a rumor in Milwaukee that he was. Which was true, and I started the rumor in Milwaukee. If you read that carefully, I’m a very accurate journalist.”

Back then it was funny because of course no one would take that Ibogaine story seriously. But just like the old lady who gets up at a town hall meeting and says "the government needs to keep their hands off my Medicare,"  what was once ridiculous is now considered mainstream.  Listen for echos of Thompson in these actual quotes from Fox News transcripts:

7/14/11, commentator Eric Bolling: "There Is No Question That The Ground Zero Mosque Is In Fact A Victory Mosque."

The same Eric Bolling, 4 days later on Fox Business news: "Some Have Called" Park51 "A Victory Mosque."

On November 21st, 2011 Fox' Martha MacCallum reported "People Are Saying" Obama "Did Not Show Leadership On" Deficit Deal."

Who are some people? Mostly Bill O'Reilly from the day before: "Where Is President Obama On Leadership? He Should Have Laid Out His Vision."

I could give you plenty more examples, as there is no shortage of this kind of thing on Fox, but you get the idea, and you might be saying to yourself, "Wow, that Thompson example is just what I need to expose this bullshit for what it is."

You may be right for a few of the higher functioning ones, but remember who you're dealing with here. If you want to get to the majority of them, you're going to have to go with something far more visceral. Something that plays into their constant need to have something to fear.

Their small penis.

It's actually pretty simple, whenever you find yourself in front of the Fox News with one of their Cro-Magnon fans, just insert the phrase "your small penis" anytime after you hear "people are saying"

For example, Gretchen Carlson's "Some Would Say That It's The Unions That Have Crippled The U.S. Economy And Led To The United States' Debt." Becomes "Some would say you have a small penis"

Later, when they hear Sean Hannity say "And, less than 24 hours after some say that President Barack Obama virtually spat in the face of the State of Israel... " you tell your co-watcher "less than 24 hours after some say you have the smallest penis on the planet....."

Don't think you'll actually be promoting any intellectual growth or understanding of logical fallacies with this though. It'll be effective, eventually, but only because they will develop a Pavlovian fear of the phrase "some say," as it will trigger unwanted awareness of their organal inadequacies.

Take your victories where you can get them my friends, and pick up a copy of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. If for no other reason than to be ready for the next trick the fiends at Fox will have up their sleeve.  

Ripped Out Of Today's Headlines, By Me, Eight Years Ago.

In light of tonight's news about the botched execution in Oklahoma, I think we can all agree here that I am some sort of prophet:

Original Blogpost Air Date: June 13, 2006

Government Can't Even Not Create A Bureaucratically Screwed-Up Policy When They Kill You.


Ok, so I'm being a living stereotype this morning, an elitist liberal leafing through his copy of The New York Times, when I come across a story about a death row inmate appealing his sentence to the Supreme Court. Nothing unusual there. Can't blame a guy for wanting to live I suppose. Buried in this story though is a piece of evidence that shows just what a fucking genius I am. Stick with me here. I've been against the death penalty for a long time now. Partly because of the whole "an eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind" thing, but mostly because, and I have 2 different ways of phrasing this depending on who I'm talking to:

1) If you're a member of the general public: Would you trust the same organization that runs the DMV to have the power of life and death?

2) If you're a member of a medical profession: Would you want the same people who run the Medicaid program in your state to decide if you live or die? (OK, their decisions may decide if some people live or die, but in a different way)

Actually I have 3 different ways of expressing my thoughts. Sometimes I'll say that capital punishment is just another big government program that doesn't work very well. That line seems to work especially well with Republicans.

It is the particulars of this man's lawsuit that proves my brilliance. It seems his argument is that the way a lethal injection is carried out in his state is cruel and unusual. According to the Times:

The focus of concern is two of the three chemicals that make up the lethal cocktail used by most states. One is sodium pentothal, an anesthetic, which Mr. Hill argues in his lawsuit is insufficient to make the procedure painless.

The second is pancuronium bromide, which causes muscle paralysis but does not block pain or interfere with consciousness. Studies indicate that while inmates who receive this drug look calm and peaceful as the third chemical, potassium chloride, is administered to stop the heart, they can actually feel intense pain without being able to express themselves.


Anyone who knows even a little bit about drugs is probably saying to themselves right now... "WTF?" Anyone ever hear of long acting barbiturates? hhheeeelllllloooooooooo.......cheap as dirt, and a little IV push sends your condemned gently drifting off to an eternal sleep. The sodium pentothal they already use is a short acting barbituate. Crank up the dose of that alone and you'll do the trick with no problem.

But no. Some bureaucrat gone wild had to come up with an unnecessarily complicated cockamamie 3-step procedure that leaves open the possibility of having someone suffer a heart attack while feeling everything and being able to express nothing. Less effective, more complicated, more expensive. Remember this the next time you're in line at the DMV. At least sooner or later you'll walk out of there alive.

I Explain The Country's Continuing Race Problem In A Way Even A Numbnut Should Be Able To Understand.

Oh man I can hear it now. I just admitted the existence of a race problem in this country, which means legions of angry middle aged white men just went ballistic. Quickest way to get a middle aged white guy riled up is to say even a trace of racism still lingers in this nation. They will huff and puff and yell and scream about Obama (we'll get to him in a second), about African-American NFL coaches and bosses at their work. The smarter ones might even realize there is a sitting African-American Supreme Court Justice, along with two of the last four Secretaries of State. That's it. Case closed.

Not so fast. You could write more than a few books on what's still not right about race relations in this country, but I'll throw two things out at you that oughta make it crystal clear. First, from the world of the criminal justice system:

Rap lyrics and videos are turning up as evidence in courtrooms across the country with alarming regularity. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey found that in 18 cases in which various courts considered the admissibility of rap as evidence, the lyrics were allowed nearly 80 percent of the time.

And I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole/No one could steer me right but mama tried, mama tried.....

Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, as you can hear with your own ears, Merle Haggard clearly planned from the beginning a life of homicidal mayhem. Under the law you have no choice but to find him guilty.

And do I dare bring up the authority's negligence in allowing Johnny Cash to die of old age a free man after his confessions of not only shooting a man for no other reason than to watch him die, but to the brutal stabbing death of a beautiful young woman.

I plunged a knife into her breast/And told her she was going to rest/She cried "Oh Willy, don't murder me/I'm not prepared for eternity."

I took her by her golden curls/I drug her down to the river-side/An I there threw her in to drown/And I watched her as she floated down

Not to mention the drug use:

Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds/I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down...

Merle and Johnny could write whatever they wanted knowing that to use their lyrics against them in a court of law would be ridiculous. Yet entering a rapper's words into evidence works about 8 in 10 times.

Do you see now how more than an African-American on the Supreme Court might be needed to ensure all people are treated fairly by the judicial system?

Let's stay in the world of music for a second. Remember when Paul Ryan told the world Rage Against The Machine was his favorite band? Most people who had a reaction at all just kinda chuckled, "ha ha...that silly guy listens to hard rock"

But......let's take a look at a few of the lyrics the man who was nominated to be Vice-President of the United States says he enjoys:

Bam! Here's the plan/Mother-FUCK Uncle Sam... 

The present curriculum, I put my FIST in 'em!/Eurocentric, every last one of 'em/See right through the red, white and blue disguise/With lecture I puncture the STRUCTURE of lies! 

What? The land of the free?/Whoever told you that is your enemy

And that's just the start. There's plenty more where those came from.


Now Paul Ryan is free to listen to whatever he wants, I love Rage myself. But I want you to think about something....

What if it had been Barack Obama that said this was one of his favorite bands? You think that would have flown under the radar of the nation? Or do you think maybe Sean Hannity, his friend O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox News goons would have shouted fear into the heart of every white heart over 50 until they were red in the face and foaming at the mouth?

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told White House adviser Valerie Jarrett that the Obama administration has to enlist the help of “gangsta rappers” if it really wants to help young men of color. 

“You are going to have to get people like Jay-Z, all right, Kanye West, all of these gangsta rappers to knock it off. That’s number one,” said O’Reilly, who attended the launch of President Barack Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative Thursday.

That actually came from yesterday's news. Guess we have our answer.

So my friends, the day Barack Obama is as free to talk about the music he listens to as Paul Ryan, the day young rappers have the same artistic freedom as old cowboys, we may....may be able to start thinking about a post-racial society. But he's not, and they're not. So there is still a race problem in this country, and I for one will not rest until every bloodthirsty redneck is in a cage where he belongs. Here is all the evidence you need:

With Apologies To Bill Maher, New Rule. You're Perfectly Free To Hate Obamacare, But....

....you have to pick a reason that's ACTUALLY TRUE. Because if you hate something for a reason that is false, you look really stupid.

Like when the people at your counter started complaining last year that they weren't getting the yellow Norco anymore and it must be because of Obamacare. Someone who would say something like that is a demonstrable idiot, and you know it wherever you fall on the political  spectrum. I'm trying here to keep you from looking like that guy. Doing you a favor really. You should thank me.

Thank me even though it may seem at first like I'm being a bit condescending. Stick with me though, because the journey to a reality-based reason to hate Obamacare  is fraught with peril. You may be making an effort to educate yourself about the issue by tuning into what passes for TV news in this country these days, and while that effort should be commended, sadly, it is not enough. Watching the shout shows is likely to leave you convinced that Obamacare is a threat to the sacred free enterprise system itself, as it becomes obvious that small business across the nation have been crippled under the weight of onerous regulation. Here's what an actual journalist wrote about the experience:

I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.” Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them...

For those of you unaware, Hannity is one of the leading current affairs commentators on the television today. His ratings the envy of many an aspiring journalist.

As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on. 

“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.

Well they certainly are covering it now. Hannity is on the Fox News Network, on which millions of Americans depend for their information. He is the very essence of today's mainstream media. Back to the journalist:

I decided to hit the pavement. I tracked down Hannity’s guests, one by one, and did my own telephone interviews with them. 

First I spoke with Paul Cox of Leicester, N.C. He and his wife Michelle had lamented to Hannity that because of Obamacare, they can’t grow their construction business and they have kept their employees below a certain number of hours, so that they are part-timers. 

Obamacare has no effect on businesses with 49 employees or less. But in our brief conversation on the phone, Paul revealed that he has only four employees. Why the cutback on his workforce? “Well,” he said, “I haven’t been forced to do so, it’s just that I’ve chosen to do so. I have to deal with increased costs.” What costs? And how, I asked him, is any of it due to Obamacare? There was a long pause, after which he said he’d call me back. He never did.

Facts. Remember when news outlets valued them?

Next I called Allison Denijs. She’d told Hannity that she pays over $13,000 a year in premiums. Like the other guests, she said she had recently gotten a letter from Blue Cross saying that her policy was being terminated and a new, ACA-compliant policy would take its place. She says this shows that Obama lied when he promised Americans that we could keep our existing policies.

Allison’s husband left his job a few years ago, one with benefits at a big company, to start his own business. Since then they’ve been buying insurance on the open market, and are now paying around $1,100 a month for a policy with a $2,500 deductible per family member, with hefty annual premium hikes. One of their two children is not covered under the policy. She has a preexisting condition that would require purchasing additional coverage for $600 a month, which would bring the family’s grand total to around $20,000 a year.

I asked Allison if she’d shopped on the exchange, to see what a plan might cost under the new law. She said she hadn’t done so because she’d heard the website was not working. Would she try it out when it’s up and running? Perhaps, she said. She told me she has long opposed Obamacare, and that the president should have focused on tort reform as a solution to bringing down the price of healthcare.

I tried an experiment and shopped on the exchange for Allison and Kurt. Assuming they don’t smoke and have a household income too high to be eligible for subsidies, I found that they would be able to get a plan for around $7,600, which would include coverage for their uninsured daughter. This would be about a 60 percent reduction from what they would have to pay on the pre-Obamacare market.

This is what I'm trying to save you from my friends. This person was so convinced by the right wing echo chamber of the evils of Obamacare that she never even bothered to look before shooting off her mouth. She was more willing to go on national TV and spread the bullshit she'd been eating than to put any effort into finding out the truth and saving 60% on her health insurance costs in the process. I bet she wants the yellow Norco because it works better.

Don't be like this person.

But what's a loyal right-wing Obama hater to do when it comes to the challenge of opposing this law using the reality based world? To be honest, I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help you here, but for the sake of a civil debate that may serve the purpose of improving our public policy, let's do a little exploring and see what we can come up with.

I guess you could say the website sucks. That is an undisputed fact. But what you're really saying if you go down that route is that you want Obamacare to work better. So even though that seems to be the only thing Congressional Republicans have left in their arsenal after their delightfully suicidal shut down the government and piss everyone off maneuver, I'm not sure how far that'll get you, even though you will be miles ahead of that Hannity moron.

Here's an idea. You could say that Obamacare was an incredible wasted opportunity to implement the reforms our healthcare system really needed. That by leaving the insurance companies that have earned the hatred of their customers through so many types of abuse in charge of coordinating health care, it is the ultimate corporate welfare law. Forcing us to give our dollars to soulless, for profit entities with no care other than getting an extra nickel per share profit over last year, when we could have used far fewer dollars to create a public, single payer system which would be far more efficient and provide better outcomes than the numbnuts at Humana and the rest of their ilk could ever dream of.

Definitely fact based. Medicare has been shown time and time again to be more efficient with your tax dollars than Humana's ilk ever is with the ones they take from your payroll check. And I don't think even Hannity could come up with a panel willing to sing the praises of their current insurance plan.

So there's your talking point for those of you used to listening to Rush and having them given to you. You hate Obamacare because it is simply corporate welfare for the companies that have been abusing their policyholders for over a generation now. Say that and you'll never look like the yellow Norco guy. Your gratitude is appreciated but not necessary. A smarter public shall be reward enough for me.

Now, go forth and be less stupid.

The Tyranny Of Obamacare Explained Through My Own Eyes

Today was the day every freedom loving, right thinking, mostly middle age and most likely very white and healthy American has dreaded. I had waited for this moment for nearly two years. Ever since the man who has won two nationwide elections by a combined 14,400,000 votes signed into law The Affordable Care Act.

Obamacare. It was here. Tyranny had come to my own drugstore as my technician approached me with the news that she had just been to Covered California. The tyrannical website set up to trick poor unsuspecting souls who wish to see a doctor into committing treason.

It was worse than I expected. She reported that next year she would be saving over $5,000 in health insurance costs. $5,000 that could have gone to good, honest corporations such as Aetna, United Health Care, or Anthem Blue Cross. Companies that have been such good friends to the pharmacy profession.

I shudder to think what sort of hit Humana might be taking in all this.

Back to my own store though. I immediately ran through the impact of the bombshell my technician had just exploded in my face. With $5,000 extra in her pocket the pressure would be off me to give her a raise anytime soon. I looked down at the pharmacy's carpet as I gathered my thoughts. The money that I otherwise might have spent on a technician raise could now be used to replace the tissue paper thin fiber remnants that continue to cling to the floor. A faint echo of the glory my floor covering knew in the age of Don Draper.

So now my technician will have more money in her pocket and I will hire a local contractor to do something about my disgusting floor. If that isn't tyranny than I, and most tea party members, have no idea what is.

I've saved the worst revelation for last however. My friends I have a confession. I myself have been to Covered California. I could not resist the siren call of socialism and as a result I found out I will be paying 1/3 the price of what I was privileged to hand over for COBRA coverage. It wasn't enough that I was already taking advantage of one federal law that interferes with  free market health insurance companies who only want to do what is best for you. I would soon be paying far less to the corporations who never in their wildest dreams would ever do anything unjust to their customers.

My other technician, firmly in the grip of Medicare, is long lost to the cause of freedom. She is very healthy however, which I'm sure is a small consolation.

So this is the face of tyranny. A pharmacist taking advantage of no longer having a history of hypertension held against him, able to buy health insurance so he can go into business for himself. His employees happy, healthy, and with a significant amount of extra bank in their purse. A carpet layer hired and paid to perform work.

In short, a socialist hell.

And as soon as the parks open back up and the tourists come back....a more profitable one for me as well. I haven't looked up the meaning of the word "tyranny" in awhile, so I'm not quite sure when it started to mean "extra money and profits." One of you teabaggers will have to clue me in on that one.

   

The Forces Of Political Correctness Know Exactly How To Bend Me To Their Will

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