Someone check Bernie Ebber’s cell, please.

I was reading a McCain press release, and I kept wondering, why do I feel like I’m about to have my pocket picked? Almost as if it’s been done before? Some.. other financial bad idea, not too long ago?

Then it struck me.

Creepy organization #1

Creepy organization #2

Perhaps it was just an unconscious link to one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. History, or maybe there’s something else going on here. Either way, you’ve got two old guys with a penchant for financial shenanigans, eager to present themselves as “cowboys”, and a habit of invoking god and country everytime they’re caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“You Can’t have McCain without MCI”

McAbramoff?

You’d kind of think McCain would know better than to let his name appear within 10 feet of Jack Abramoff, but, you’d be wrong. Hell, there’s so many links between John McCain and Jack Abramoff that I could cause a dire html shortage at wordpress just trying to keep up with all of them.

McCain accused Obama of being “filled with ambition to be president“. Is McCain simply too disgusted with himself, and has decided to just “throw in the towel”, by making it this easy? C’mon, John. You can do better than this.

Sen. McCain: GROW UP

*sigh* if only I could say it as well myself!

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment.

Home Warranties, Part 2: You got taken, now what?

In an earlier post, we found out some of the common scams that American Home Shield uses to deny claims. If you’ve had an expensive appliance break, you’re probably been through this part: They’ll fix your problem, except for (insert 15 expensive problems totaling up to about the normal retail cost to fix the problem on your own.)

Here’s your decision point: Can you live without this appliance for several weeks? If the item is your heating or hot water system, the answer is probably “no”. If it is something like a lavatory sink or an infrequently-used cooktop, maybe you can. Don’t waste time if it’s the former; you don’t want to damage your house to save $50. You have a legal duty to mitigate your damages, and that includes knowing when you’ve been ripped off and not expecting the con artist to behave better the second time around.

1. Dispute

Whatever the original contractor tells you, immediately call AHS and dispute their findings. Do not offer your own diagnosis, simply refuse the one that has been offered. You’re going to have to cough up another $55 for the second opinion, but there’s a good chance you’ll get it back. How?

Chances are good AHS will already have told the “second opinion” guy what diagnosis he’s supposed to make and perhaps even how to write it. Do. Not. Help.

When the second opinion guy comes out, give them access to the broken item, offer conversation, and a few little questions – “I guess they told you about the problem?” – things like that.

If the second opinion doesn’t match with the first, they have to pay for anywhere that the two opinions DO NOT OVERLAP. So if the first guy says your A/C broke because a dog pissed on the compressor, and the second guy says canadian termites burned up the evaporator coil, they’re on the hook for the entire repair, even if your dog is pissing on the coil during the repair.

2. Report

Chances are that if the contractor doesn’t want to do the repair (very likely, considering the fixed-rate repairs that AHS does) and they’ll often clumsily make up “code violations”. You know the drill.

Report their sorry asses to every regulatory body you can. Start with the BBB (not regulatory, but still will chew up time), then on to any licensing authority, state, county, and/or municipal. It can be something as simple as not having their licensee number painted on their vehicle. Report it. Licenses get revoked.

Open a complaint against AHS with the Iowa BBB (they’ve got thousands on file, but yours counts). Also open a complaint with your state’s real estate and/or insurance commissioner. Don’t exaggerate, but be factual. The enforcement people for these agencies have gotten screwed themselves, and are all too happy to help.

3. Cancel.

A home warranty is a bad deal. When something breaks, you lose control over how and when it’s fixed. Do you really think you’re going to wait three weeks to get your AC fixed in August, or your heating fixed in December? Hell, no. But with AHS, you’re stuck using whatever contractor they feel like sending, and completely at their mercy for whatever add-ons they feel like hitting you with. If it’s july and you’ve got no cold air, you better believe the list is going to be long and expensive. Gold-plated code upgrades for you, pal.

Call AHS to cancel your agreement. Don’t say “I’ll cancel, unless..”. Just tell them you want to cancel it. There’s a good chance they’ll offer something – it might only be half or a third of the repair costs. Take it. Cash the check. And cancel.

This is not the time to argue, either. They’ll likely offer you a free coupon for your next service call – because the last one was so much fun! Just say “I’d like to cancel, and I’m in a hurry, could you do it right now please?”

4. Follow up.

If you got screwed on a fairly major repair, you would be doing your neighbors (and the general public) a service by following up on complaints. I’ve already gotten my cash out of AHS and out of one of their contractors. The other one is facing the loss of their license, and a lesson: Don’t lie to someone and be rude about it.

So, how’d that work out for you?

Ah, the good old days. The Contract with America. The Values Voters. Turning back the Gay Agenda. Overturning Roe v. Wade. Putting Jes^H^H^HGod back into the classroom. Oh – and just a little fiscal fine-tuning to protect American workers – just a tiny bit.

So, how’d that whole thing work out?

I’ll admit, when the whole thing started in the early ’90s, I was a fence-sitter. I had my qualms about “gay rights” – understandable if you don’t actually know a lot of openly gay people, perhaps. Saving children? who could be against that, right? And for gods sake, how could anyone NOT want some tort reform, what with the billion-dollar verdicts for anyone who got a drop of coffee on their panties**. America, Fuck yeah!

So let’s look back, the better part of a generation into that whole Gingrich Revolution and the return of the Citizen Legislator.

1. The Contract With America

What a fucking miserable goatfuck. We did the electoral equivalent of getting date-raped in the hopes that the roofie might help us get to sleep better.

2. Gay Rights

I felt some empathy with those who felt some discomfort of adding a whole new “protected class” to what looked like an out-of-control entitlement system, back then. Now, not so much. I have openly gay friends and co-workers, and they’re *gasp* pretty much just like anyone else. I trust them with my car, with my insurance, with my teeth, and with my children. If they want to shoulder the responsibility of marriage as well as the growing pool of straight friends and co-workers who are on their second and third marriages, who am I to talk them out of it?

Verdict: Jesus 1, Gay Americans 1, Cletus Fuckhat 0.

3. Abortion.

Nobody likes abortion. I hope my daughter will never have one. I do my best to educate her and give her the self-confidence to drop-kick any horny guy right in the nuts and use his face for soccer practice. But should the worst happen, through rape or bad judgement, I want to help her get the best possible medical care – not the leering preachers driving their tax-exempt Navigators.

Verdict: Women 1, Parents 1, Cletus Fuckhat 0.

4. Tort Reform.

We all remember the billionaire plaintiffs, don’t we? The people who were getting millions for frivolous claims every day of the week? Right? No, we don’t. Never fucking happened. **The infamous McDonalds coffee case involved a woman who received third-degree burns over much of her pelvis. The same kind of burns you’d expect if someone poured lighter fluid on your pants and dropped a lit match in your crotch, for a minute or two. The verdict was overturned and litigated for years – proving, if anything, that even the most egregious case of liability still affords large corporations multiple layers of legal protection against the excesses of even multiple juries.

Verdict: Lawyers 1, General Public 0, CEO’s 1.

5. Tort Reform, Part 2.

While they were busy protecting small businesspeople from the ravages of wild-eyed plaintiffs at the gates, they took care of a much more worrisome problem: YOU. A good friend who was always a lifelong Republican got royally screwed by a homebuilder. This isn’t a case of coulda/woulda, it’s a case where you have a photo of a square pipe sledgehammered into a round hole, essentially – meaning he’s on the hook for thousands of dollars to correct the problem. Builder flips him the bird. The look in his eyes when I reminded him of mandatory arbitration was what you’d expect to see on a hung-over cheerleader waking up sans robe’ on the pool table in a frat house: “Why does my ass hurt so much?”

6. Tort Reform, Part 3

Since the New American Prosperity was causing so many bankruptcies*, more reform was needed: Mom-and-pop credit card issuers and Family-Owned hedge funds needed protection against dishonest homeowners and malingering kids with asthma who simply didn’t feel like paying their bills. Fucking bastards.

*this might seem nonsensical. To correct this, smash your skull against the desk a few times, and it will become clear.

Here’s to you, Mrs. lazy slob

Here’s to you, hard-working Houston suburbanite, showing just how much you care about your state, your neighborhood, and your digestive tract.

(with apologies to Right Said Fred…)