Health care law upheld!! Eat it baggers!

Well it finally happened, and in a manner that I didn't expect.  The Affordable Health Care Act or Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court.  This is huge and not the way we thought it would go down.  If it was upheld, all bets were on Kennedy being the middle ground person to keep it intact, but it wasn't.  Anthony Kennedy voted against it.  John Roberts said it was constitutional and not abiding by the law is equivilent to a tax... more or less.

A lot of us liberals didn't like the conservative nature of the law in the first place, but it was a huge step in the right direction.  More people will be covered and less people will go bankrupt and die.  I can get on board with that.  We wanted single payer or at least a public option, but those are still possible.  The public option in itself is definately on the table as an addition to the current law. 

First off, I'd like to give an up yours to all of the tbaggers.  To all of the fake astroturfing douchers that shouted down representatives and senators with non facts and hatred.  To everyone to threw bricks through the windows of Democratic headquarters.  To everyone who was sooooo confident that it would be struck down.  Up. Yours.  You failed, forever.  The court is never going to be more conservative than it is now.  Obama is destroying Romney and only something huge could keep him from winning the election and this was it.  This was what could have lost Obama the election and a Gdubya appointee called it constitutional.  The Arizona law being struck down is more or less an Obama win (or at least a tie).

So I'll get a check for the healthcare I didn't use, more people will be covered, and the country will be better off for it.  The debates are going to destroy Mr. Bane. 

I was laid off by a corrupt POS yesterday.

So, I hadn't been putting my name on here for several reasons, but one of them dried up today, so I thought I'd at least lay out my first name.  It's Jake by the way.  So as I stated before, part of my reason for wanting to be anonymous was because of where I worked.  So I'm going to tell you all about it.  I can't get in trouble in any case.

I worked for a company in Evansville, Indiana called Meetings and Events International.  Now first off, I also worked at a place during the same time called Advance U.  These are technically the same company, but for legal reasons, they pretend to be two companies.  They didn't try very hard.

I'll get to that mess in a moment.  So what did Meetings and Events actually do that was so bad?  MEI was more or less an Abbott Labs employee.  Abbott is a pharma company that makes Trilipix, Niaspan, and several other products.  We had a couple more clients at one point, but Abbott was our main client for the last couple of years.  Abbott would give MEI money, and MEI would pay doctors and other medical staff to endorse their products.  They were essentially semi-legal money launderers. 

The illegal part is that the company upstairs was called Advance U.  I technically worked for both for a time, but I never really did Advance U's work.  They didn't have a manager for us, so they gave us an Advance U manager.  Advance U handled the travel arrangements for the speakers/doctors.  Paying them for the meetings and handling their travel at the same time is illegal, so they pretended to be two companies.  This was not the case at all.  Theresa Hall, the CEO, ran all of it.  All of it.  They did MEI's work, MEI did Advance U's work.  Our phone number reference sheet had Advance U people all over it.  They were not in anyway, two companies.

What did I do?  I merely made the invitations for the bribery meetings.  I designed some, but mostly I just used templates that were already made and put new information on them.  I didn't realize the level of coruption there until after a year of working there.  I worked there for two and a half years.  I needed the job, or if I lost it, I needed the unemployment.  I have school loan payments out the ass and my wife and I moved back to Evansville from Owensboro, KY a little under a year ago.  I should have had more integrity, but I looked for ways out.  The way out turned out to be getting laid off.

So... what were my experiences there other than the inherently corrupt structure.  Well there was Tim.  Tim was Theresa's brother.  Then there was Alice.  Alice was their sister.  Alice worked HR, but was promoted to president.  Tim was just around, cutting invitations for a while until I ended that.

I'll start with Alice Gooley.  Alice was 100% unqualified for her position.  She didn't know how coordinating connected up to graphics or any of the other depts.  She was just put there, because of her bloodline.  She probably got paid six figures while I struggled in 2011.  She scapegoated me for things that weren't my fault.  I think that she wanted to fire me,but couldn't get anything real to fire me for, so she laid me off.  She was such a coward that she didn't even do it herself.  She has Jason, another manager, do it.  Tiffany, my graphics manager... I'll get to her in a second, was sitting there not saying a word while Jason did the dirty work.  I'm okay with Jason, but Tif... I'll get to her after Tim.

Tim Hall...  Damn it I hate that man.  Tim is insane.  Literally.  He talks to himself really loud.  He vies for attention non stop.  He punched  printer, broke it, strapped it with a bungie cord, and never got in trouble.  He supposedly harrassed the other employees, but they wouldn't come forward for fear of losing their job.  This fear was justified.  Tim one day came into work and told us, "I had a dream where I killed myself.  If I did go through with it, I would kill everyone here that I could.  I would slit their throats from ear to ear."

I told the only manager I could trust.  We had a HR dept at that point.  They took action, but Alice resisted.  She eventually put him on leave and got him 'help'.  They had him come back eventually.  If I had done something like that I would have been fired. The HR dept was eliminated soon after.

I have several action figures on my desk.  Super Saiyan Vegeta, Superboy Prime, and black costume Spider-Man.  One day after this I came in.  Kristen, who I'll also get to, had thrown Tim's giant name tag thing on top of the counter away.  I didn't know or care about this, since I was under the impression he was gone for at least a while.  He wrote, "Where's my nametag, Jake?" on a FedEx envelope and TIM on the counter with permanant marker.  He also threw my figures in my trash can.  There were okay, but the HR lady was scrubbing it up as I walked in.  Alice said that Tim had admitted to the marker stuff, but denied the figures thing.  She tried to get me to admit that they must had fallen into the trash, unrelated to Tim.  I wouldn't admit it.  She didn't like that.

Tiffany was a suburban overpriviledged lady/girl whatever that became my manager after sucking up to Tim and Alice for 4 months when I had been there for over a year.  I also asked for a raise at my year's anniversary and was denied.  At my two year, Alice didn't even respond.  Tiffany was a bad manager.  Didn't take responsibility for anything.  She didn't give direction.  She went weeks without talking to me and we were in the same office.  She talked down to me and was four years younger than me.  I was crushed when she was promoted.  I thought about insulting her with words used only for women, but I'm not a sexist, I just like foul language.  I don't want to come off that way.  The person I respect the most at MEI was a woman and I'll miss her.  She reminded me of a black version of my Grandmother who passed away 9 years ago.

In 2011, my school loans were too much.  I had to donate plasma, work as a bartender (which I liked) and did a clinical study for Covance.  This got me caught up or so I thought.  My AES loan went up, so I had to start forbearing my loans again.  It went up $110 just this year.  I can defer them now that I'm unemployed.  Tiffany didn't understand my financial plight.  She lived with her mom and more than likely made double or more of what I made... which was $13 a hour.  With school loans it was more like $9 or $10. 

Kristen was there in Graphics from the beginning.  She was a racist conservative.  She hated Obama with the fury of that guy I met on Halo last week.  She couldn't debate very well and shut up after a couple of facts were thrown her way.  She was a horrible person and got paid a decent amount more than me.

I started my pay about what I got at Unifirst.  I thought I would get yearly raises like every other place I'd ever worked and I was wrong.  I needed a job in Evansville and I took this a fast as I could.  I don't 100% regret it.  I hated the place, but I'm in Eville now.  People I know are closer.  My sister who I had a falling out with are becoming close again. 

I learned not to work for anything related to big pharma again.  I learned that people who have been comfy and well off their whole lives, may not be bad, they can piss me off sometimes.  I also learned that the meritocracy is a lie.  It's who you know.  That's it.  Driftglass talks about this on TPL podcast, but it really hit home today.  I may end up trying to legally hurt MEI after I start getting unemployment, but I doubt it will work.  I have to look for a new job.  Wish me luck.

Gretchen Carlson knows how the rest of us feel now...

Huff Post has a video of Gretchen Carlson of Fox News walking out of a segment due to sexist language.  You can see the video here. 

Gretchen, this is the side you've chosen.  The right is full of sexists, racists, and homophobes.  When their bile hits a little too close to home, you walk out.  You can't really talk back too much, because they pull this shit all of the time.  Now you know how minorities, gays, and liberals feel.

The back handed snide comments full of innuendo and dog whistles.  You ignore it, until it's your group who they're attacking.  Maybe, you'll wise up and join the sane people's side, but I doubt it.  The money's too good and you'll apologize or go to some other t-bagger, neo con outlet.  Have fun continuing to sell out your gender and the country.

T-Bagger on Xbox Live

If you personally know me, then you know I’m a gamer.  You also know that I heart Halo.  How do either of these things have to with religion or politics?  It comes up more than you would think.

Typically I’m playing with one my friends, Travis.  Travis likes to try to start shit with people on Xbox Live.  Sometimes he tries to goad them into being a racist or a homophobe or he talks about how he voted for Obama.  Most of the time this doesn’t do anything.  We get mute banned sometimes, so we don’t know if anyone can hear us.  Lately we haven’t been, so Travis whips out his ‘I voted for Obama’.

There was one guy on our team that went off.  We messed with him a little at first, because I typically don’t go on Halo for political debates.  Then I got serious.  I asked him why he hated the president so much?  He says that he hasn’t created one job.  I told him that he’s created upward of 4 million jobs.  He denied it.  I told him that we were losing 750,000 jobs a month at the end of the Bush presidency and that at the height of the stimulus we were gaining 260,000 jobs, but even last month of 69k was better than losing ¾ of a million jobs a month.  Obama has handed that.  That economy where it was spiraling off of the cliff getting ready to smash into a thousand pieces when it hit the ground.  That's what he was handed.

He said that was only one month (because I sited December).  I then went through the months before, I have the months around that more or less memorized.  He eventually went back to calling me a Democrat and Liberal, like it was an insult.  Travis asked him why he likes Mitt Romney?  He said it was that he had better policies.  I told him that he wanted to give rich people more tax cuts when their taxes are really low already.  He says that proportionally they are the same.  I told him the Mitt paid 13.5% admittingly in a video interview.  He was silent… and then he started with the insults again.  I eventually betrayed him to piss him off and I got booted.  Travis stayed on and got insulted for another couple minutes, making no headway.

This is conservatism.  This guy on XBL.  He was the foxbot that I rarely deal with in real life, other than my father, which is a totally different post.  He doesn’t know facts.  He gets confused when you give him facts or he just gets mad and starts insulting you as a defense mechanism.  They take your disagreement with them personally.  Religion often times works the same way.

There are quite a few of these guys/ladies on XBL.  Well I personally haven’t run into a lady like this, but I’m sure they’re out there.  This instance, like the all of the other encounters on XBL, the internet, and most of the real life situations, I’ve experienced, always devolve into racism.  Always, always, always, the conservatives I talk to come out as either a blatant racist (like in this case) or allude to their racism (like at work).

I think I personally have talked to one conservative that I wasn’t 100% sure was a racist.  Though an instance when during the primaries in 2008 when he called Obama, Mufasa… so maybe he was a racist. 

So if you find yourself on XBL playing Halo or whatever, put some tentacles out there and see if you can find a racist t-bagger, because there are a lot of them out there.

Intro

This is the first blog I’ve done on these types of subjects.  I have another blog under my real name, but it’s about nerd stuff, comics, horror, sci fi, etc.  I may open this up to my real name, etc in a year or so.  I have some personal stuff I have to flesh out before I can just put this out there as I am.  This is also assuming anyone reads this and/or gives a crap about what I have to say.
I was raised in a couple of General Baptist churches in southern Indiana.  Both were in or around a small town called Tennyson.  Since my childhood this place has fallen into ruin.  There’s a building that my dad used to work out of that’s either fallen over or was knocked over and no one has bothered to clean the fallen building mess.  I hadn’t been there for years before I visited it earlier this year.  It was heart breaking to see my home town turn into sh*t.
The churches I went to were two completely different animals.  The one in town had a pastor that was an okay guy, but the congregation was pretty much insane.  At ten I had an argument with my Sunday school teacher about whether dinosaurs existed.  She was talking about the story… the fictional story about Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden.  I asked out of curiosity, when did dinosaurs exist?  She said that they didn’t.  I laughed at her.  She didn’t like that at all.  She said that anyone who said that dinos existed were lying to me, at which point I laughed again.  I then proceeded to outwit an adult about scientific data at ten years old.  This seems to be the way I feel now when I debate a creationist or a fundamentalist.  It almost doesn’t seem fair, because they are operating on an intellectual level that I could decimate them at when I was in elementary school.  I loved dinosaurs and watched anything dino oriented when I was a kid (or now).
The other church had a bit of a jerk for a pastor, but I had friends in the congregation.  This is where I spent my teen years.  I may have actually became an atheist when I was in high school, but after not going to church after about a year and a half (due to what I suspect was the craziness that I encountered at the first church), my mother made me go back to church at 14.  I went there for 5 more years.  There are a lot of reasons why I started to enjoy the experience at the time, but I’ll get to those in another blog post.  It will more than likely have to do with more moderate/liberal versions of christianity.
I ended up leaving at 19 due to a disagreement that my family had with the pastor.  It had to do with the treatment of a family friend and things fell apart… so on and so forth.  I spent the next five-ish years trying to stay a Christian, but my intellectual side kept picking away at my faith.
My wife had been an atheist forever basically.  We didn’t talk about it and since I was barely religious at the point we met, it didn’t matter.  One of my best friends at the time came out to me as an atheist, my wife (girlfriend at the time) said she was too.  I had been on the fence for about a year at that point.  I said I was a Christian, I thought about it, and said nevermind, I’m an agnostic.  This was at the point that I didn’t realize that agnostic and atheist weren’t mutually exclusive things.  This was the point I started watching Atheist Experience and watching Sam Harris videos, so on and so forth. 
Five years later and now I’m coming to terms with the fact that more of us need to speak out.  Within a year I have to come out, with part of my family, I don’t talk about it.  I wouldn’t lie about it, it just doesn’t come up, or hasn’t at this point.  My workplace, which I hate anyway… trying to fix that, is full of extremely religious people.  I’m a little worried that it could get me fired, but I’m not so sure that would be a bad thing.  I’ll get into the specifics of that at a later point also.
As far as the liberal part goes, since 2004 I’ve been a liberal.  Since the Iraq war went to crap, and I was 19 at the time, I started paying attention to politics.  I always had liberal leanings, but I never paid attention to politics until this point.  I was 16 when Bush was elected the first time, and I was like, “Oh his dad did an okay job… blah blah… I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
I saw the way that they ripped Kerry up for being a war hero.  I saw how they demonized better healthcare systems.  I saw how they called anyone who questioned the war un-American.  I hated them for that.  When we discovered there were no WMDs, I lost it.  I wouldn’t vote for another republican after that.  I might vote for an independent under certain circumstances.  I do have problems with the Democrats in some regards, but that’s another post.
The GOP has just gotten worse since then.  They have lost their minds.  They want to burn the government to the ground and live like a fictional cowboy.  This is what they said they want.  Maybe Mitt Romney doesn’t want to go that far, but he’ll set the fire and put it out when there are a few cinders left.  Santorum or Ron Paul would just let the rest of the burnt reminisce disappear.  Sometimes I can’t believe how far they want things to go, but as the debates showed us, the base will cheer poor people dying due to not having healthcare and boo a soldier just because he was gay.
That’s my intro, and I’ll be posting more info about myself as well as my opinions and facts about topics of the day.