Bud,

I agree—something really binding so that, without fail, they will never ever have to endure public health care, then make public single payer health care to law of the land for the rest of us.

Democratic Party Senators up for replacement in 2010:

Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas-D)

Barbara Boxer (California-D)

Ken Salazar (Colorado-D)

Christopher Dodd (Connecticut-D)

Daniel Inouye (Hawaii-D)

Roland Burris (Illinois-D)

Evan Bayh (Indiana-D)

Barbara Mikulski (Maryland-D)

Harry Reid (Nevada-D)

Chuck Schumer (New York-D)

Byron Dorgan (North Dakota-NPL-D)

Ron Wyden (Oregon-D)

Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania-D)

Patrick Leahy (Vermont-D)

Russ Feingold (Wisconsin-D)

With the exception of Senator Ted Kennedy, all Senators joined the DLC, and with the exception of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, all the House joined the DLC, which is against representation of the 70% MAJORITY Common Population and all must be removed from the Democratic Party, as the DLC, New Democrats, Blue Dogs are all Right-Wing Conservatives in the Democratic Party are war mongerers, who in no way represent the whole political Left. RightWeb is a good source of learning about the DLC, but all the following links give insight:

DLC:  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Democratic_Leadership_Council

DLC:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-goff/unmasking-the-dlc_b_39287.html

Al From Right-Wing lobbyist originator of DLC: 
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Democratic_Leadership_Council

PPI:  http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/ppi.php

Unelected Right-Wing Conservative war mongerer WILL MARSHALL calls himself a “centrist,” but he is a Right-Wing Conservative EXTREMIST.  At the onset of the Iraq invasion, Marshall signed statements issued by the Project for the New American Century, PNAC, calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein, advocating that NATO help “secure and destroy all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,” and arguing that the invasion “can contribute decisively to the democratization of the Middle East.”— All this even though he has never been a member of Congress.

Marshall served on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee on NATO with neocons Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Randy Scheunemann, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Peter Rodman, Jeffrey Gedmin, Gary Schmitt, and Bruce Jackson of PNAC. At the request of the Bush administration, the Project For The New American Century’s, Bruce Jackson also formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which, with DLC Chairman, Joseph Lieberman, serving as co-chair together with John McCain, aimed to build bipartisan support for the liberation, occupation, and democratization of Iraq. Marshall, together with Robert Kerrey (coauthor of Progressive Internationalism), represented the conservative wing of the Democratic Party on the neocon-dominated advisory board.  Other advisers included James Woolsey, Elliot Cohen, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Joshua Muravchik, Chris Williams, and Richard Perle.  In no way are these war mongerers liberal.

On 2-25-03, Marshall joined the neocons to sign a letter to President Bush calling for the invasion of Iraq. Marshall and others asked the president to “act alone if that proves necessary” and then, as a follow-up to a military-induced regime change in Iraq, to implement a democratization plan. The letter urged the president to commit his administration to “maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning.” Others signing the letter included Hillel Fradkin, Rachelle Horowitz, Bruce Jackson, Penn Kemble, Robert Kagan, James Woolsey, Nina Shea, Michael Novak, Clifford May, and Ben Wattenberg.

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Marshall_Will

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/marshall/marshall.ph...

MarthaA, you are right!  Thank you for the reminder.  I get carried away sometimes with my own sense
of melodrama.  I will defer until after the leeches have been removed. 

FYI:  How to safely remove leeches from your life.  Removing leeches should be done with caution as it
can lead to more infectious diseases and infection.  The easiest way to get a leech out of your life is to
use a knife and slide it underneath the leech and flick it away.  Butter knives work best for this, obviously
a steak or butcher knife isn’t a good choice since you will probably end up bleeding, and you have
probably bled enough already due to the policies of the leeches.  Regardless, make sure you wash the
wound out and put a suit of armor over it to avoid infection.  Don’t use salt, heat, flames, or other
“natural remedies” to get leeches off. These actually increase the risk of infection because it makes the
leech vomit into the wound. This is the last thing that you want. Typically, a leech sucks the blood out
and little of its own “material” gets into your body. The last thing you want is to reverse this procedure.

Things needed::

  * A knife that doesn’t involve cutting.
  * Time

If you don’t feel like scraping the leech off then you can wait a while and the leech will fall off on its own
for digestion. I wouldn’t recommend this as it is highly disgusting walking around with leeches, but it is a
decent method.

Shenonymous,

If you give up your Democratic Party membership, you will not be able to vote in the Democratic Party Primaries in a few months to remove a bunch conservative/moderate leaches.

Well guns come with triggers and bullets.  And this public option is a
gun without bullets, so the trigger is ineffectual.  Americans need a
trigger of their own and the gun needs to be put to the heads of all the
politicians who do not support the public option.

This country could use a good dose of socialism right now.  It seems to
be the only antidote to the oppression imposed by the corporate health
insurance industry.  It is an industry and either the people own this
country or they do.  The public option is the only brake there is against
the megalith.  If this public option is removed then that will give them
the trigger to increase premiums and the situation will be worse than it
was before health care reform.  The President’s press secretary keeps
saying the public option is not the deal breaker.  Well I think it is.  And
if it is removed, I guarantee I will leave my Democratic Party
registration in the dust.  I will after decades of being a Democrat will
become an Independent.  I think all responsible Democrats ought to do
the same thing.  That doesn’t mean I cannot vote for a Democratic
candidate, or any initiative a Democrat proposes, it just means giving
the finger to the Party that let the public option be removed. 

Sirota’s article helps define the dynamics going on between the
perpetrators of the public option (though I only hear a few voices
there!) and those who support the corporate insurance companies.  But
the trigger for the importation of medicine was not a bad idea to certify
imported drugs were safe.  Sirota makes it sound like it was a bad idea
and that because no Canadians died, (which is itself unverified) why
think any Americans would die.  That is stupid logic because medicine
exportation is not always the medicine exported! And there are shyster
drug companies out there, in Canada, in Mexico, in China, in….. who
would make very dangerous drugs, or things with the appearance of
drugs that will kill Americans and would kill Canada et al, if they took
those drugs. That is already recorded history.  Check the article on that
subject.  Scandal after scandal.  We have to get real here, folks.  That
is not comparable to the public option. The public option has no
hidden agenda.  It clearly provides a choice for Americans to force the
insurance companies to control themselves. Nothing else will do that. I
think the entire health care reform depends on this public option. 
Providing coverage for the poor is a big part of it but those who are
not poor already are paying for the poor to get care, and even though
it is expensive, it is what we have been doing for half a century. 
However, without the public option, this bill is impotent.  There is
nothing to stop the insurance companies!

We don’t want the trigger.

Part 2.

According to David Axelrod this morning, this is not the White House’s position, CBS:

“Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said President Obama is “not willing to accept” that a so-called public option “is not going to be in the final package” of health-care legislation on “Face the Nation” Sunday.

“He continues to believe it’s a good idea,” Axelrod told CBS News Chief Washington correspondent and “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer about a government-funded alternative to private health insurance. “He continues to advocate it, and I’m not willing to accept that it’s not going to be in the final package.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/13/ftn/main5307095.shtml

And this from Bloomberg, quoting the President’s speech:

“President Barack Obama, saying the U.S. has never been closer to overhauling health care, promised yesterday to fight back against opponents and special interests working to defeat the effort.

....“This is when the special interests and the insurance companies and folks who think, you know, this is a good way to bring Obama down, this is when they’re going to fight with everything they’ve got,” Obama said. “This is when they’ll spread all kinds of wild rumors designed to scare and intimidate people.” 
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avPuRo615vNs

Part 1.

“On importation, triggers gave corporatist politicians a way to seem like they were remaining true to their pro-consumer platitudes and “free trade” dogma at the same time they were strengthening an extreme form of anti-consumer protectionism for pharmaceutical companies. On health reform, a trigger will let those same legislators look as if they support a public option that increases insurance competition, reduces costs and therefore delivers on promises to decrease the deficit. But if/when the bill’s final language is inevitably designed to make pulling any trigger impossible, it will preclude a public option from ever existing.”

Corrupt legislators, lie, lie, lie, and that’s all you really need to know.  From AP:

“A Republican lawmaker says it’s clear to him that the White House is ready to abandon a government-run public health insurance option.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says that President Barack Obama’s address to Congress this past week was combative and showed little sign of compromise.”  (The WIDELY known secret though is that if an issue is “clear to” Sen Graham certainly the rest of us are on another planet… or he is.)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jAzdGHiVu3dlXkjJb9c86rGIWacgD9AMF7C81

“Senator Olympia Snowe, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where the most-watched version of the health care bill is being written, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the so-called public option is “universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate” and “therefore, there’s no way to pass a plan that includes the public option.”  (Well.. if its “universally opposed by all republicans” then we’ll have to soldier on without that ball and chain.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/health/policy/14talkshows.html

“SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA.): Well, many of us believe, George, that it will undermine the private insurance system.”  (Sure Landrieu ... check out her belief system..according to Landrieu, insurance companies are the victims!?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/13/AR2009091301485.html

Another, (among the many) examples of the “private insurance system” and their fraudulent accomplices on Wall Street, that these corrupt politicians are defending….!  From Alternet, by Mark Ames:

“A recent article in The New York Times exposed how Wall Street is licking its lips over a new scheme to make hundreds of billions in profits by creating financial instruments that will profit off of millions of terminally-ill Americans’ agony, desperation, and death. The only thing standing in the way of this massive new Wall Street scheme is the kind of health care reform that might allow Americans to live longer lives. Yep, this is what we spent trillions of dollars bailing out Wall Street for: so that they can kill us for profit…..

Here’s how the whole thing will work:”
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142531/wall_street_is_gambling_on_how_soon_old_people_will_die_/

(cont)

We’ve Seen This Trigger Before
Posted on Sep 10, 2009 By David Sirota

Hey David Sirota: We’ve Seen This Trigger Before & we
will see it again.

If we were living in a Democracy, this subterfuge
would be a real arcanum.

However, under the FASCIST OLIGARCHY that Bush 3 is
currently being

used to deceive & distract we the people with this
health care hoax

while the cabal’s perpetual wars rage on pushing us
from the debtor’s

abyss into the quick sand below. MIPIC: MEDICAL
INSURANCE

PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX & the MILITARY

INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX win again as usual, because they
are

always able to fool most of the people all of the
time. Those who

can’t be fooled are powerless to make a difference.

Washington Goes to Wall Street Part 3
Officials such as Lockhart have become hot commodities. The revolving door
between government and business is not new, and connections inside
Washington have long been a calling card in the private sector. But some
executives say the qualification Wall Street now covets is a fine-grain
understanding of how regulators are managing the mortgage market and
planning for its transformation.
Lockhart’s “expertise is what we are interested in,” said Wilbur Ross, who hired
the former regulator. “He’s looked at an awful lot of mortgages, given the
regulatory background he has. We are very interested in his expertise as
opposed to his connections.”
Other former federal officials are scrambling for a piece of the action. Joseph J.
Murin, former president of Ginnie Mae, which guarantees securities linked to
government-backed mortgages, and former Federal Housing Administration
commissioner Brian Montgomery, set up a consulting shop on L Street in mid-
August.

The office door of their firm, the Collingwood Group, still has no sign. The walls
are bare. Last week the coffee machine arrived, but not the filters. But calls are
coming in from bankers and other investors outside Washington who are
looking, for instance, to buy or sell loan portfolios and want someone with
trained eyes to help evaluate their worth.
For Ross’s firm, the government itself has become a vital business partner. The
company, for instance, recently bid on a portfolio of toxic mortgages that
came from a failed bank and were auctioned off by the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. The Treasury also selected WL Ross to manage government
efforts to buy distressed mortgage-backed securities.
“Washington is the new Wall Street,” Ross said. “No major capital transactions
appear to occur without the intervention of Washington. To the degree that
becomes a permanent part of the landscape is the question.”
Out of sight is not out of mind.
In their Los Angeles office, the managers of bond giant Pimco hold three-hour
meetings four times a week to analyze investments, evaluating factors like
growth potential and creditworthiness. Decisions made 3,000 miles to the east
also loom large. “We’re having to think much more about the role of
government in the economy,” said el-Erian, the chief executive.
For example, Pimco projected late last year that the Fed, seeking to support the
residential mortgage market, would intervene and buy home loans. So the bond
firm invested in mortgages, benefiting when the Fed indeed acted. By contrast,
Pimco avoided buying General Motors bonds in the months before the
government bailed out the automaker. Pimco feared bondholders would suffer
in a federal takeover, and they later did.
As much as financial firms have watched Washington, the federal government
has been using its new leverage to demand intelligence from Wall Street about
prospective deals, major hirings and executive compensation.
Never before have public officials been in a position to extract these private
details, and that change alone testifies to the new terms of this relationship.
As a leading financial lobbyist put it: “The industry is bending over backward to
give policymakers at Treasury and elsewhere a heads-up on . . . any big thing
that’s going on.”
************************
So now it is out in the open. Wall Street and profit is more important to you elected officials than jobs, healthcare and the general well being of the people.

Washington Goes to Wall Street Part 2
Washington Calling
Before the financial crisis, BlackRock’s chairman Laurence Fink would speak
with federal officials at most a few times a month, for instance when they
called him in New York for information about mortgage markets or pensions
funds or other areas in which his company was active. But now, as the chief
executive of the nation’s largest asset manager, Fink says he talks to officials at
least once a day. He plans to open an office in Washington by next year to
influence policy and has hired the lobbying powerhouse of Quinn Gillespie &
Associates.
Three decades ago, Fink was a pioneer in bundling large numbers of
mortgages, then slicing up these packages and selling off shares as securities.
More recently, firms packaged subprime loans, which soured when the housing
market collapsed, igniting the crisis.
So the Treasury and Fed have tapped Fink’s expertise. BlackRock emerged as
one of their principal advisers as the agencies bailed out major companies and
tried to put a price on their toxic assets. BlackRock is also managing tens of
billions of dollars worth of AIG assets for the government. In August, officials
selected the company to help arrange the purchase, partly using taxpayer
money, of toxic assets from banks.

“We made ourselves available on issues that many people don’t understand,”
Fink said.
Although BlackRock, which avoided the plague of toxic assets, has turned to
Washington by choice, some firms have been forced to Washington.
Take Citigroup, which has allowed its general counsel to move his office from
Midtown Manhattan to a penthouse atop a historic Beaux-Arts building on
Pennsylvania Avenue. The bank, whose executive board chairman was former
Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin, is no stranger to Washington. But badly hit
by toxic assets during the mortgage meltdown, Citigroup received $45 billion
in infusions from the Treasury and in return gave the government a majority
ownership.
Steps from the Citigroup offices, Lone Star Funds, a Dallas-based private-
equity fund, has opened an office on 13th Street Northwest for its general
counsel and a banking executive as the firm seeks to expand its investments in
distressed assets.
“The federal government has really become a central figure in commerce . . .
and we wanted to make sure we’re really in tune with them and readily
accessible,” said Michael Thomson, Lone Star’s general counsel and a Treasury
official in the Clinton administration. “I predict we’ll maintain a presence here
moving forward. We’ll change the way we do business in the U.S.”
So, too, for Fink, who said much hinges on his relationship with Washington.
He often has talked to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Treasury
Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and his predecessor, Henry M. Paulson Jr. Fink
was among the first regulators reached out to when they needed urgent advice
on pricing exotic securities or predicting the global fallout from the failure of
large financial firms like Lehman Brothers.
“We are going to be spending more time inside the Beltway, either by helping
the government or, if we are asked, shaping policy and decisions,” Fink said. “It
is beholden on us on behalf of our clients to have input in Washington.”
A year ago, James B. Lockhart III was the top federal regulator overseeing
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when the Bush administration seized the two
mortgage finance companies, saving the home loan market from collapse.
When Lockhart said last month that he would step down from the Federal
Housing Finance Agency, he was snapped up quickly. Today he is vice chairman
of WL Ross, which is looking to make money by buying mortgage assets and
loans cast off by lenders as unprofitable.

Washington goes to Wall Street Part 1

David Cho, Steven Mufson and Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 13, 2009

J.P. Morgan Chase for the first time convened its board in Washington this
summer, calling the directors to a meeting at the downtown Hay-Adams hotel,
then dispatching them to Capitol Hill for meet-and-greets.

Last month, a firm run by the billionaire investor Wilbur Ross hired the head of
Washington’s top mortgage regulator to pick through the wreckage of the
housing bust looking for bargains.
And the world’s largest bond fund, Pimco, which has traditionally assessed the
risk of any new investment according to five financial criteria, recently added
one more: the impact of any change in federal policy.
As financial firms navigate a life more closely connected to government aid and
oversight than ever before, they increasingly turn to Washington, closing a
chasm that was previously far greater than the 228 miles separating the
nation’s political and financial capitals.
In the year since the investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, paralyzing
global markets and triggering one of the biggest government forays into the
economy in U.S. history, Wall Street has looked south to forge new business
strategies, hew to new federal policies and find new talent.
“In the old days, Washington was refereeing from the sideline,” said Mohamed
A. el-Erian, chief executive officer of Pimco. “In the new world we’re going
toward, not only is Washington refereeing from the field, but it is also in some
respects a player as well. . . . And that changes the dynamics significantly.”
Three times as much U.S. taxpayer money has gone into propping up a single
firm, insurance giant American International Group, as the world spent a
decade ago during the financial rescue of South Korea, then the world’s 11th-
largest economy. And the emergency bailout of financial firms that Congress
approved last year has cost nearly as much as the first five years of the war in
Iraq.
Now the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are embroiled in everything from
credit cards and home loans to auto manufacturing, from overseeing executive
pay to shaping boards of directors.
In response, senior executives of major financial companies are traversing the
Beltway to meet lawmakers in person for the first time. Firms such as Fidelity
Investments, BNY Mellon and even Goldman Sachs, which has prospered in the
crisis relative to many other banks, are opening additional offices or bulking up
their staffs in the capital.
For decades, the federal government has played a key role in financial markets
through regulation, public spending and monetary policy. But the government
has now established itself as never before as the most dynamic actor in the
still ailing economy. That prominence is sure to fade as the rescue programs
wind down. Yet Wall Street executives say the legacy could be enduring.

“This crisis has and will fundamentally change the relationship between Wall
Street and Washington for decades to come,” said Richard H. Clarida, an
assistant Treasury secretary under President George W. Bush who is now an
economics professor at Columbia University. “It’s often said that Wall Street is
no longer the financial capital, that it’s Washington, D.C., and that’s certainly
true. I don’t think this is destined to change. I think this is going to be a fact of
life.”

Yeah, yeah, I get it….ardee

Rumack: I won’t deceive you, Mr. Striker. We’re running out of time.
Ted Striker: Surely there must be something you can do.
Rumack: I’m doing everything I can… and stop calling me Shirley.

Surely there is something you can do, ardee?!

Politicians are a nasty bunch, all of them and I defy anyone to show one who isn’t, or
who is moral, or who is completely honest, or isn’t playing hanky panky with the
corporatocracy or just hanky panky with panties with lace, all of the above at one time. 
They are not excused even if only one of those is descriptive.  Dean is still the best voice
in the Democratic Party and it’s Dems or Repubs that will ever win a national election.  If
because of his “affiliation with GOPers he could be able to “work” with them, then it is to
his power of office that he could succeed where others failed since the Republicans have
the pursestrings and we are paupers at the gate, us and our social programs and
ejumacashun.  If I have a choice, and that is debatable I do know that! but if I do, then
it’d be for good ol’Howard.  Let all the dirt come out on him, it would be good for us if
it did.  We have our shovels ready.  I’m willing to see his dance steps these days.  Can’t
be any worse than what we’ve seen and what we’ve got.  Surely.

Shenonymous

As you explore Howard Dean’s possibilities please do not omit his time as Governor of Vermont from your research.

Dean was a Lt. Governor under a Republican administration and assumed the office of Governor upon the death of the current GOP Governor. Dean’s track record in the State House was one of complicity with the agenda of the GOP and constant battles with his own party’s representatives in state government.

He gave tax breaks and other incentives to big business, chiefly IBM in fact, at the cost of social programs and education in that state. There is more…...

....and don’t call me Shirley.

Oh ardee, Mel Gibson was the patriot in the movie, The Patriot!  Course I liked him better in
Mad Max. Who’s Shirley?  Hmmmmm? Yeah, if only Thomas Paine or TJ or BF or PH were
around or their progeny.  Like who in the entire world is there that has the power of voice
and reason?  They all get assassinated.  I am taking another look at Howard Dean.  I’ve said
it elsewhere the only one in the Democratic Party that has any blood moving in his veins is
Howard Dean. And for the sake of a victory yelp, the Republicans crucified him.  But there is
none more sensible, articulate, or impassioned.

On the face of it, the Interactive Voter Choice system looks to be a sensational algorithm
to organize the non-conservative population using the Internet as the vehicle of
organization.  As I read through the protocols of using a web-based consensus-forming
and coalition-building tools, I thought “boy, doesn’t this look good?”  I kept reading and
it began to look too good.  The word “their” kept popping up and I began to wonder just
who these “theirs” were, who is going to organize a mishmash of disparate individuals,
and it began to appear as a scary proposition. 

It seems a dangerous endeavor to begin to devote one’s inordinate time, and no doubt
money will become part of the effort, to an Internet Ghost Organization Machine
operation where little or no control over the development of policies, choice of leaders to
direct the system would. It is very sketchy who those would be to conduct the public
opinion polls? What would be the questions asked and answered in the public opinion
polls and who would develop them? Why would they be developed?  Who would set up
and operate “their” networks, and on and on and on?  It looks like just another road map
to take over your mind.  It becomes so easy to just let your fingers on a computer
keyboard do all the so-called but delusional empowering, which in fact is only
empowering electronic ghosts not real people whom you do not know and will never
know.  Real people would gather together physically so they can see and observe each
others faces and body gestures to verify closer look whether there is any substance to
those “others.”  I for one resist and look with very squinted eyes at what looks very much
like a set up for tyranny, nazi-like organization, or Big Brotherism, or party control.  I can
just see it now, captains and chairmen running the lives of the millions who were duped
into becoming Soldiers of Change (a euphemism for the disgruntled.)

The government of Czechoslovakia under communism was in theory a democratic one
directed by the proletariat (working class), its critics however state that in practice it was
much closer to being totalitarian dictatorship run by the Communist Party of
Czechoslovakia the KSC.  Take a look at the CONSTITUTION of the Revolutionary
Communist Party of the USA if you want to see what a revolution-in-waiting looks like.  It
is online.  Also in several countries Communist regimes undertook forced administrative
amalgamations of small settlements which were coupled with regional planning policies
designed to freeze development in smaller communities and encourage movement to
larger centers. This was greatly resented and after 1989 there was a strong political
movement to revive smaller settlements in terms both of municipal autonomy and
provision of public services such as primary education, water supply, energy and
telecommunications.  The right of individual settlements to municipal status has now been
enshrined in a number of constitutions. 

I would be very careful not to fritter away your freedoms for the want of a “better system.” 
Be careful to not leap into an inferno due to impatience.  Not that people who are
dissatisfied with the government ought not to act to change things.  But we have a
system, a democratic system, where initiatives are proposed by the disgruntled and they
try to persuade the citizens to vote for it while opponents try to persuade a negative
return.  I would be very careful to give away your right to own your property, if you have
any and there are millions who do, and I would be very careful to not give away your right
to choose.  This country has its warts and pimples but it is still the greatest country on
Earth and there are those always in the wings waiting to tear it apart and you along with
it.  Be careful that the trigger of change isn’t pointed at your head.  Be careful not to get
drunk on ideological fervor.

Shenonymous, September 12 at 2:59 pm #

ardee I do like your spunk, but how many of these “patriots” do
you think would be needed to overthrow a Guvamint of the People, and
would Mel Gibson be one of them?

Hee, But seriously, the patriots to which I referred were the Founding Fathers. The revolution to which I hinted was the original one.

Mel Gibson? Surely you jest….Im not kidding and dont call me Shirley!

Wrong story.

One of the last triggers was prompted by drug companies which didn’t want competition with more reasonably-priced foreign drugs.

By a large majority, polls indicated that Americans wanted to purchase foreign drugs, but drug companies offered congresspeople a way out. They could legislate a trigger for buying foreign drugs and say they voted yes.

As soon as the government agencies declared foreign drugs safe, the trigger could be pulled. As directed by drug companies, it was never done.

The public option trigger is such a sham.

Obama Uses Soaring Rhetoric and Then Deliberately Muddies the Waters on the Policy Implications

His speech to Congress brings into stark reality the fact that he can only take a stand on behalf of the people rhetorically but not legislatively.

In fact, his pro-public rhetoric and anti-public legislative stands that muddy the waters policy-wise appear to be his basic modus operandi.

The man appears to be incapable of framing legislation aimed at enhancing the public good when it contradicts the interests of the most powerful actors in the room, in this case private insurance interests in the corporate sector and key decision-makers in Congressional committees who hold sway over health care reform.

I am a political scientist by training, academically, and I scrutinize his pronouncements to see what power centers and political interests they favor in terms of who gets what, when, where, why and how. In other words, I follow the money trail and try to figure out who benefits and who loses.

What Obama has done so far in his administration policy-wise, as far as I can determine, is preside over the largest transfer of wealth to the private sector and wealthy Americans of any American president.

From the $24 trillion bank bailout that the Obama administration has authorized (see report of the Special Inspector General) to the stimulus bill and now the health care bill, he has done everything possible to move money out of the hands of American workers and taxpayers and transfer it to the corporate sector.

What is so amazing about his support of predatory corporations through confiscatory public policies is that he camouflages it with his soaring rhetorical gestures that seem to recognize the needs of the people.

That is what makes Obama so dangerous. Many people who watched his speech to the joint session of Congress were so taken in by his rhetoric that they were completely unable to follow the money trail of just what he was proposing, which is to grossly inflate the profits of the private insurance industry at the expense of the American people who are forced to buy insurance from it.

What makes following the money trail so difficult is that Obama typically and deliberately creates as much confusion as possible about what policies and programs he is actually proposing.

He amplifies the confusion by making assertions about seeking bipartisanship among quarreling factions whose quarrels he himself has stoked by refusing to formulate clear-cut proposals.

I believe that Obama refrained from intervening this summer when corporate interests started funding mobs of rightwingers to disrupt town halls because he wanted to pump up the political weight of center-right interests so that he could justify dropping the public option and selling the health care store to private insurance companies.

I also believe that Obama, as an African American growing up in a Caucasian dominated society, learned at an early age that when involved in a conflict, the best path to take is to position himself as a mediator among the conflicting parties.

Instead of taking a stand himself, I suspect he found it more advantageous to divide up contested loaves of bread among the adversaries, each portion commensurate to the relative power of the conflicting party. Now that Obama is president, he uses the same modus operandi, as we can see in his stances on the bailout and health care.

The best path for progressives to take is to outflank Obama by electing a majority of progressive legislators to Congress, using web tools like the Interactive Voter Choice System, described in Re-Inventing Democracy, which can be read free online

Otherwise, the damage that Obama will do to the public good is immeasurable.

ardee I do like your spunk, but how many of these “patriots” do
you think would be needed to overthrow a Guvamint of the People, and
would Mel Gibson be one of them?

Sorry G.Anderson but American’s no longer mattered to the
guvamint since Nixon who’s scandalous lying was revealed and the guy
lost his job!  Presidents don’t lose their jobs for nuttin. 

I just got through listening to Obama in Michigan.  I did not hear the
words ‘public option,’ and if the partisan news media thinks that was a
great speech, well they are coloring the book on health care reform
with discriminating opaque wax crayons because it was not obvious in
the least that there was any real reform presented.  AKA the smoke and
mirrors game.  Much as I want this president to succeed, this project of
health care is going to be the deal breaker for him and if the people
don’t get that public option, then the insurance companies win, and
Obama loses.  We don’t really hear from any captivating third party
articulations either!  So who said it, we are f’d!  Shall we hold our
collective breath?  Lung capacity is only so big. 

He is out on the stump, but I do not hear any other voices brilliant or
otherwise out there banging the skillets for health care reform (didn’t
you like that homily?).  I swear this bunch of Democrats are the
most anemic bunch of politicians I’ve seen in my lifetime.  Real
xombies.  Seems like they have political laryngitis and brain paralysis,
and if they personally don’t “do something,” I hope they lose their
seats, I hope Obama loses, and I hope the f’n Republicans take over
because it will be what is deserved!  And again, worst of all, the people
lose.  Sigh.  I know I won’t give another Democratic vote but will go
Independent for the first time in m’life.  I am so sad to face reality.

Well there is always Simon-Peter to do it isn’t there? But then he wasn’t a true “messiah” so it probably wouldn’t look good to Joshuah the Meshiach now would it? So much for the Hebrew myth minute.

Yes on Fox Noise Glenn Beck is the cheerleader and promising there is a way out of the mess of too big gov’t. [He doesn’t seem to be as worried about the mixture of church/state/corporation so far.] Or global warming or pollution or extinctions or anything else you or I would be interested in. For him, he should do whatever he wants just as God intended. No real different from your standard theocratic conservative.

I have always felt that prez Barry was just Bill Clinton in blackface.

The coming healthcare debacle is the latest proof.

Like the dimmos previous attorney-in-chief, Barry has never met a big business conservatve that he could not go out of his way to compromise with. He keeps reaching across the aisle to scumbags like Boehner, only to get his hand slapped. But, undeterred, he will reach over there again for a second, or third flogging. He is stuck in that old dimmo mode of trying to look like a victim so that on election day he can claim he got nothing done because of those “meanies” on the other side of the aisle. And like his “slick” predessor, he will get nothing accompliced. Barry has chosen to emulate Bill Clinton. He has already surrounded himself with Clintonian scum and copitulated to every republican he can find. How long before he is defiling the cocktail dresses of chubby, starry eyed interns, while hogging down a big mac and propping up a beer can on their ass?

Let’s see, Barry has escalated the war, given even more money away to corp america, turned his back on gays(insert your own joke) and now he plans the single biggest give away to an already bloated healthcare industry. I take it all back, he is really George W Bush in blackface.

Oh well, either way, we’re screwed.

Aren’t you talking about Trigger with a capital T, doublestandards/glasshouses?  And
that Trigger is stuffed and on display at the Victorville Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
Museum, in Kali Fornya.

What ought to be energizing all the liberals, progressives and moderates alike, is the massive
Tea Party Protest march in Washington, D.C. today!  The tens of thousands of Republican
conservatives thronging there that the media is incessantly showing on tv is misleading in
that it is supposed to “represent” a larger entire body politic of Republican conservatives that
supposedly exist in the USA, when in fact the “crowd” are all of them collected in one place at
one time and those tens of thousands are a very small group indeed compared to those who
want health care reform and the bloody financial system fixed!  But the main problem as I see
it is that liberals cannot get their poopie together as a group and force the hands of the
politicians.  Why isn’t there a counter parade going on and loud loud voices shouting down
the conservative Republican Reprobates who easily can call the “real” protest, We the People
Want Change for the People!  Duh! They are a very lazy group and deserve anything or the
nothing that they get!  The only shouting I see are the old Dems in Congress who are about
as effective as a scoop of cantaloupe seeds and on forums such as Truthdip (thank you, again,
Folktruther for that refreshing new name for TD, I tickle at it every time I think about it).  I
think we need that crazy screaming Howard Dean to rise up from the dead like did Lazarus
(well only in a manner of speaking as there is no JC to do the ‘raising,’ right?).

It’s hard sometimes to face facts. But the fact of the matter is American’s no longer matter to their government.

Only the corporations matter, and what they want is the only thing that is important to the polichickens.

It’s only a nuisance to them that we can vote, so short of out right stealing from us, they have to come up with convoluted way’s of B.S.‘ing us, to make us believe that when we are being lied to manipulated, and stolen from it’s for our own good.

At this point I fully expect no public option, some weak reforms, 50 million more customers for the health care companies, and more mis direction, and B.S. by those in Washington.

While those who run the racket in the health care industry will continue to make billions of dollars, expanding their source of income from premiums to tax revenue just like the banks did.

I noticed that all the crooks were appaulding mal practise reform, so it’s likely that will go through faster than the speed of light. Since there is little regulation and limited oversight, to protect the public now, it’s likely medicine will deteriorate even further after reform.

Real health care reform will be up to each and everyone of us, to accumulate some medical supplies, a Merch manual, a PDR, learn what medical tests are available at your pharmacy, and develop a basic understanding of how to use supplements instead of costy prescriptions, because it’s likely that after congress passess reform, the American people will be SOL.

There is really not much one can say about this abysmal failure to give the American people what they need most, decent, affordable comprehensive health care.

That thirty six other nations manage that seemingly impossible feat while spending far, far less than we do on a much more exclusionary for profit fiasco of a system is an indictment of our system of governance.

The money being spent each year to slaughter Muslims would pay for a single payer system for years to come, add in the bloated and unnecessary military budget and we could probably educate every kid in this nation to the college level or even beyond.

But what am I thinking, that would entail having a govt that represented the will of the people, gee, if only there was a group of dedicated patriots willing to lay it on the line to overthrow a govt that abused them…..Naaah probably wouldnt work.

I would like to be wrong. I know how it sounds but that is the way I see it at this time and I don’t like it.

Night-Gaunt:  He is the most recent salesman for the crypto-fascists out to ruin
the remains of the republic while they use its wealth to build up their empire to
be.
***********
This comment deserves reposting. Thank you.

There should be a civil disobedience campaign of citizens refusing to buy mandated, overpriced, private health insurance they cannot afford.

Medicare For All, also known as single-payer health insurance, is favored by a majority of Americans.
How can we convince our Members of Congress to enact what the people want?
Let them know that unless they support Medicare For All, you won’t support them.

Take the Medicare For All Voter Pledge today:

http://bit.ly/medicareforallpledge

The insurance lobby was willing not to ban preexisting conditions, as long as buying coverage was mandated.  They do not want people waiting until they get sick to buy coverage.

FolkTruther, Ya, my comment was defiantly a rant, I am so frustrated, angry mad, sad and tired of all that has been going on in the UUSof A (ununited united states of americrazy)...I feel that this is more like a prison than a country….A state/union of oppression, fear hate and all things bad, mostly I do feel this way about our government and the brainwashed who support their efforts to enslave….So the rest of the world is learning from our craziness?...that’s nice to know, at least someone is learning from this travesty….I see that this empire has fallen, good deal actually, we need it to become real human beings…But China????Maybe your more cynical than I am, am I that naive to believe what I have read about the plight of the Chines people and Russians etc, due to uncontrolled materialism of their class elite…What about the horror stories from Africa???And the not so nice stories from south america, murders for drugs to sell to Americans program???...Is that too propaganda, if so where can I do to verify that again, “reality is not like it use to be”????

Volma, get a hold of yourself.  It is quite true that 9/11-antrax homiicide initated the American deepslide into barbarism.  But not the world.  over 4/5 of the world’s people live in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and they are throwing off the homicidal racism of the Western tradition, fighting American militarism, and economically and soically developing out of Western capitalist oppression.

It is a hopeful time for most of the world’s people, even as the US promotes violence, racism, torture and rape.  It is quite true that the US-Israel neoconlibs, may well instigate a thermonuclear war, and they are stimulating the rise of nuclear weapons by US_Israel policy.  But just because one power coalition is barbaric, the one we happen to live in, does not mean the world is.  The historical struggle starts from a very low level, is confused, suffers defeats, but it is the future of earthpeople as it emerges from Western barbarism.

By being willing to ditch the public option and by mandating the purchase of private insurance, Obama has given the insurance industry just what they were lobbying for.

The Democratic base will be angry, but the campaign contributions to Obama from the insurance lobby (he is already a big recipient) will roll in.  The problem for Obama will be when people are forced to buy highly overpriced private insurance that they cannot afford.  They are not going to be too happy.

The state I live in had a state ran insurance program for the uninsured and working poor, it was mostly affordable, and a safety net…Well they cut most social services, while still giving themselves raises, a house of cards, the internal destruction of our society..The drug companies, rulers, stock holders are making a fortune by the push and scare tactics for mass vaccinations for a pretend created pandemic. My personal belief on this is that it is an unsuccessful attempt at population control, but I am just that untrusting and cynical about the new, improved, same as the old, “Third Reich”
I wouldn’t put anything past these fascists…I would trade health care reform to get our freedom back, to not have to be required to have a national ID, to have our civil liberties restored, no domestic spies, no black water, no war….People are so brainwashed, tooled, manipulated that they have the US citizens just where they want us…Terribly and passionately divided, polarized, united we stand divided we fall, how very very true….But really when it comes right down to it, it’s really a battle of fascism, enslavement, domination, control, judgment, hate and fear vs love, freedom, respect for the individuals rights to live a life free from tyranny, enslavement and fear…Fighting hate with hate, ignorance with ignorance, fear with fear, never works…Gee Happy 911 Day (911 was an inside job, don’t fool yourself) and Obama fooled liberals, people like me who didn’t want to believe it, who had hope and faith in truth still, I will never forget or ever trust any politician again…They are all rich greedy bought and sold by a shadow government, that really controls most of all of the world governments, and that is the truth…We need to open our eyes and start looking at reality, no matter how hard it is to swallow…The reality we are living is an evil hellish, heading toward a more hellish reality….We are all creating it collectively, it has a life of it’s own, and I personally see my responsibility in it, and want to get it together never give up and keep telling the truth as I see it, without hate fear and oppression and defeat that they are trying to embed in our hearts and souls…Obama supporters are like the brain washed Bush zombies, and Fox News devotees, what ever happened to the motto “Question Authority” We need to question the news from all sources, just because it’s labeled liberal, doesn’t make it news truth or liberal…I question any news site that still supports the 911 terrorist lies…There is so much credible evidence that this was an inside job that Bush Cheney and who knows all the cast and charecter, are guilty of crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to take over the US from within,,,but it worked, it’s been done, and whoever supports it, is a part of it…There is absolutely no where to run or hide from this, it’s world wide and huge, and ultimately it means the end of civilizations and maybe humanity, maybe this is a good thing, maybe humans will never ever evolve and can only create hate fear evil destruction and oppression for every living thing, including our beautiful wonderful mother, Earth….

Despite what propagandists like Glenn Beck and other mouthpieces for the hidden gov’t that Obama is a “Marxist” and such when he does this. He is for the PTB and knows what he is doing because that is what he was recruited and trained for. He is the most recent salesman for the crypto-fascists out to ruin the remains of the republic while they use its wealth to build up their empire to be. He is so slick with a siren’s voice. Otherwise so many wouldn’t have been duped by his mere words. He isn’t to be trusted, he isn’t one of us. His pockets are full of money and his mind is in the Chicago School of economics. Remember when Rob Emanuel said about the opportunities of disaster? Made my blood run cold to hear that. So blatant. It is of no consequence that the rabid right attack him, for he is still doing what they want, just like Clinton did before him. The attacks make him look better than he really is. 

A trigger? I would say that any reasonable trigger would have already been pulled. So whatever one they would create would be so hard to engage that nothing short of the fall of the gov’t would do so. But then it would be too late.

Amen, I couldn’t believe how many liberals were all
pumped up after Obama’s speech. Granted he’s a great
orator, but as Clara Pell used to say, “Where’s The
beef?”.

Just about nobody has any kind of option and the
mandate will fatten already bloated insurance
companies coffers.

Obama needs to channel FDR/TR, not Clinton. Call the
corporate crooks out like FDR energetically did, do a
little trust busting like Teddy. The wealthy are
shaking the rest of us down and it’s time that ended.

OK, so it seems like the current plan with momentum in Congress involves:

* Mandating private coverage under penalty of fines
* Saying “maybe later” to the public option
* Cutting subsidy/assistance to low-income workers (from the originally proposed levels)

And somehow they still plan spending billions a year!  Where is this money going to go if not back to the corporations who lobbied and sponsored the campaigns of these Congress-critters? 

“Incredibly out of touch” is one way to describe the activity in D.C., but “hopelessly corrupt” might be more accurate.

It is obvious that Mr. O has no intention of doing anything but strengthening the position of the insurance companies and adding to their profits.  “Trigger” is just one more obfuscation.  That being the case, the only remaining question is whether the progs will roll over on command.  Or rather, how many will roll?  We could have a betting pool.

I had a feeling that legislators, the President, etc., were talking about a “trigger,” and by the very nature of that trigger, obfuscating the reality of what it actually meant.

Yesterday, I read all of the “happy” accounts of the President’s address to congress, and I felt as if I had heard a completely different speech.

I well remember the prescription drug fiasco. Thanks, David Sirota, for sorting out the facts!