Dick Head

...s back to break the tie and fuck us all over.
You guys, I'm like a recalcitrant three year-old. I have been in a riteous snit since I woke up this morning, and the news just keeps coming. Mitt's an insufferable douche twice in one day. Johnny Damon can't show his face anywhere in the Boston/New York corridor without getting pelted with sharp, heavy objects. Dick Cheney is coming back from some European jaunt to impose restrictions on Medicare, allow drilling in Alaska, fuck with federally subsidised student loans, and digital television. You can see the "highlights" (read: ways you get screwed) here. Here are some choice bits:

--Student loans. $12.7 billion in net savings, achieved chiefly by reducing lender subsidies and retaining a scheduled shift from variable interest rates to a 6.8 percent fixed rate on most loans. Increases loan limits to $3,500 for first-year students and from $3,500 to $4,500 for second-year students. Establishes a new $3.7 billion grant program for low-income college students studying math, science or specialty languages.
--Medicaid. Saves $4.8 billion from the health care program for the poor and disabled by reducing payments for prescription drugs, tightening asset-transfer rules for nursing home eligibility, permitting states to reduce benefits and increasing co-payments paid by beneficiaries.
--Medicare. Saves a net $6.4 billion from the health care program for the elderly. Saves $6.5 billion by increasing Medicare payments to insurers that cover sicker patients and lowering payments to those covering healthier patients. Accelerates premium increases for better-off Medicare patients for doctor visits. Increases Medicare beneficiaries' premiums for coverage of doctor visits by about $2.30 a month in 2007. Saves $2.8 billion by reducing payments for imaging services, and saves $2 billion by freezing payments to home health care providers. Provides $7 billion for doctor's fees to avoid a 4.4 percent cut otherwise taking effect Jan. 1.

I am tired, you guys. I can't rage against all this shit alone. Senator Chafee and I can't do it alone. Contact your senators and bust some heads, figuratively speaking. I'm getting the vapors and need to lay down for a while. Get all indignant up in my comments section.