Author: Bandolero

About Bandolero

Bandolero is an acrominical phoneme dissimilar in many ways from the phenominal esprit de la monastic pheronome widely observed in the montanas and sometimes mistaken for somebody else.

Politics

Presidential Twitter-Head

On May 8 the President in one of his ill-advised tweets wrote “council” where the correct word would have been “counsel”. Although what he meant was clear, tweeters were quick to jump on his typo and use it as grounds for a barrage of snarky comments. The comments, for the most part, were illustrative of certainly no greater intellectual capacity than that illustrated by the President. They were generally illustrative of the attitude and mentality shown by those who desire to take any and every opportunity to trash the President. They were also typical of the stupidity exemplified by those who desire to take any and every opportunity to trash the President. Although he has achieved a number of accomplishments that benefit the country, these people will never admit such. Rather, they cast their description of such accomplishments (if they acknowledge them at all) in terms calculated to undermine them.

There’s no question the President ought not be tweeting in the first place. If the White House feels the need for a presence on Twitter, then tweets ought to be generated by a staff department that’s tasked for the purpose. It could logically come under the purview of the office of Press Secretary. He has not, however, demonstrated any greater facility for use of the English language than has the President. The best solution would be to delegate White House tweeting to Bandolero’s good friend, HarpShot. This fellow has a proven record of ability to write succinct missives.

El Bandolero continues to stand with El Presidente, but must, and will, always demand faithfulness to the principles that swept him into office. One of those principles is learning how to keep one’s foot out of one’s mouth. In furtherance of this principle, El Bandolero will be nominating HarpShot as official White House Tweeter, and expects this nomination to be approved forthwith.

Health, Importante, Politics

Dammit!

So the Republicans scramble to deliver their replacement for Obamacare but all they’re doing is cobbling together a bunch of talking points instead of creating a plan that will actually improve the delivery and payment of medical services. They have not addressed the deep rooted anti-trust issues that infect the entire system. The triad of Providers-Pharmaceuticals-Insurers will still rake in the bucks at the expense of the consumers. There is still no transparency that will enable consumers to make informed “free enterprise” choices among the various insurance policies that will be offered under the “new” health care plan.

Everyone knows that Bandolero is a strong proponent of free enterprise, and a strong opponent of government regulation. But unfettered free enterprise leaves the door open for abuse. This is because free enterprise at its roots is fueled by self-interest that easily becomes greed. Anti-trust laws make the free enterprise players responsible for abusing the liberties that make the system work. Self-regulation has rarely proven up to the challenge of keeping participants in line. Those that become more “successful” should be rewarded for their success, but not rewarded for abusing the power that success confers, particularly in regard to shutting out the less successful and disabling their ability to play on a level field. Unfortunately, there’s no oversight that can work other than oversight by government. Consequently, this is one area where Bandolero can support a role for government regulation. And, appropriate government regulation has to be a primary ingredient of any new health plan. Nobody other than government has a chance of breaking the triad’s grip over the health care industry and its ability to manipulate the system to assure that they will continue to get rich at the expense of the health care consumer.