Body Scanner Makers Doubled Lobbying Cash Over 5 Years
Monday, November 22, 2010
It's at Truthdig.
I've linked it. Click on it.
About Airlines
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David Axelrod May Leave White House Earlier Than Planned
The most important read of the day...perhaps of the year:
Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Forget the Carter Comparisons, Obama Is Following in the Footsteps of Harry Truman -- and That's a Very Good Thing
The most important read of the day:
Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Body Scanner Makers Doubled Lobbying Cash Over 5 Years
The most important read of the day:
Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
By Chris Hedges
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
The Two Most Essential, Abhorrent, Intolerable Lies Of George W. Bush's Memoir
Dear Dan Froomkin,
Obviously you haven't heard: According to our dear leader, we're supposed to "look forward, not back."
For you and everyone else complaining about Bush's book, it's the equivalent of pushing a cartful of rich and delectable desserts from table to table in the dining room of the Golden Door Spa.
If we can't eat 'em, why t0rture us? (Like I how I tucked that word in? T0rture.)
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
"Which brings me to speculate - as I have been for a while now - whether there aren't neo-cons who come to his blog, posing as progressives, for the express purpose of sowing misinformaiton and making flawed arguments. It would be consistent with the 'dirty tricks' style of political fighting that the GOP has employed in the recent past."==========
I'm an old, OLD liberal Democrat. An FDR Democrat.
Only a low-information voter who votes in the same way that a sports' fan cheers for a favorite team, who doesn't read legislation, doesn't know what's in it, but takes politicians' word for it (if your 'team' says it's good, then that's all you need to know) wouldn't know the difference.
To a low-information voter, why would anyone claiming to be 'on the team' not take the 'team's word for it being "good"? And even worse, why would another on the 'team' express disloyalty by publicly criticizing the 'team's legislation (or another member of the 'team') unless that person was from 'the other team'.
Only a low-information voter would speculate that someone who purports to be a Democrat and who objects to the Republican-like legislation that Obama and Democratic politicians have written and passed, must really be
Low information voters, no better, no smarter than Bushies, are the reason we are in the mess we're in.
About Barack Obama
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
Back last February, when proponents of a public option were finally making some headway between the time that the House passed its version of healthcare reform and the time that the Senate passed its version (and it's important to remember that Obama never pressured Blue Dogs or Joe Lieberman, never used the power of the White House and never took to the bully pulpit to advocate for a public option), Obama held a 'make it or break it bipartisan summit' at the White House which was gamed to keep proponents for getting real reform, (affordable quality medical care for everyone), shut out of the negotiations. Why wasn't Anthony Weiner or any proponents of public healthcare, of single payer, at this summit?
The summit was gamed to let insurance companies retain their lock on the path to getting healthcare.
Whether it's Republicans saying no or Democrats saying yes, to attend this summit you must have accepted that the insurance industry's ability to make profits off of you be preserved and protected, despite it bankrupting you and the nation.
Insurance adds NOTHING to the medical model. The insurance industry is the 'Don Fanucci' (Godfather, Part II) of medical care; the insurance industry is "wetting its beak", letting you get medical care (maybe, if you can afford the deductibles, the co-pays, and if your illness is covered by your policy, but) only if you pay them a gratuity up front.
That's what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party passed.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
There is no mechanism for lowering the costs of treatment. Obama put a fox in charge of this chicken coop -- Former WellPoint executive Liz Fowler will be writing and enforcing the regulations.
Obama's healthcare legislation prohibits the government from being able to negotiate lower drug prices or reimportat
The insurance mandate is, indeed, a tax. Contrary to what Obama claimed, the IRS will be the enforcer, which means compounded fines and prison.
Obama took single payer (Medicare For All) off the table, because if the goal is to get affordable quality medical care for all then everything else pales in comparison.
He's preserving an anachronistic and failed insurance industry and employer-provided system for medical care. It's government sanctioned racketeering.
KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
Obama's healthcare legislation is Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (which was a $700 billion + giveaway to Big Insurance & PhRma), Part 2.
Not only doesn't Obama's healthcare legislation accomplish what Obama and Democrats were put into power to get (affordable quality medical treatment for everyone), it is, in fact, a giant leap toward ending all public healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, CHAMPUS, veterans care, etc.).
Obama's healthcare legislation puts more people into Medicaid, which the states are required to co-pay along with the federal government. The states are already going bankrupt, and moving toward eliminating Medicaid services as a result. States' options are limited, especially those states with constitutional requirements to balance their budgets. So while people may find themselves covered by Medicaid, if you're thinking that should all else fail you've got Medicaid as your safety net, guess again: Medicaid won't cover sh*t.
Having insurance (which is all that Obama's legislation does, and not even for everyone, just for a few million more) doesn't mean getting necessary medical care or that you will be able to afford medical care.
Think about that for a minute, because I do understand how, after hours/days/months of spin by professional spinmeisters (politicians), you might not appreciate the distinction.
All that Obama's healthcare legislation does is require money to go from here (my pockets/taxpayers' pockets) to there (into insurance companies' pockets).
There is no limitation on insurance companies' charging and increasing co-pays and deductibles and eliminating services.
There is no requirement for insurance companies to have to provide services not paid for.
Insurance companies have already figured out the way around the restrictions in the bill. The con game in the legislation -- Medical loss ratio. The amount of money insurers must spend on health care, and how it will enable insurance companies to continue to price gauge and keep obscene profits instead of delivering affordable and quality medical care to policy-holders.
KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
"It's a big bill - there are strengths and weaknesses."==========
It's a bill that was written to benefit the aristocracy of the US; not the poor or middle classes. And it does not fix the problems that the poor and middle classes put Obama and Democrats into power to fix. It was written for the benefit of the very very very very successful, the top 1-2 percent, with a miniscule number of the rest benefitting if they manage to hit a medical 'lottery' of sorts, if a confluence of factors happen to ignite over their coordinates on the globe.
Even the people that it was written for, where the line was drawn, those people are going to have to pr@y like h3ll that their gamble for selling out (so cheaply and against their fellow human beings in the Democratic Party) pays off. And they'd better hope and pr@y that their own financial circumstances don't change. People like Jonathan Alter (see here and here and here) and David Axelrod (see here). Guys like these are why Republicans are able to bust unions. 'Divide and conquer'-tactics were invented because of them. They will not be recognized for humanitarian good deeds in this life, nor will they be honored in any 'Humanitarian Hall of Fame'. These are men who are desperately out for themselves, run by scarcity and their own fears, and ought to be pitied.
KEEP READING
About Barack Obama
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Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
"But clearly, you are not a fan of compromise, which - unfortunately for you - is what politics is all about in this country, and has been for some time now."==========
Your belief that compromise is "what politics is all about in this country, and has been for some time now" is wrong, just as your presumption that I'm "not a fan of compromise" is wrong. It's an arrogant and insulting presumption at that; you don't even understand when you've cross the line into abusive commenting. Try doing that sometime in politics, when trying to negotiate a 'compromise', and see how far it's going to get you.
But I digress.
Politics isn't about compromise. Politics is a process and a method that human beings have for making decisions. Compromising can take place, but not necessarily. And it's never your starting position. What you're calling 'compromise' (and what Obama and the DLC-controlled Democrats are doing) is not compromise, but linguistic distortion and spin.
For compromise to take place, for a compromise to work, for a compromise agreement to be legitimate, to stick, to last, to stand the test of time, for us to get past our differences with each other, live together in peace (that is the point of politics, after all; to share the resources of the country and planet so I don't have to k!II you, or vice versa, so that we are each free to pursue our versions of the American dream), all parties have to be at the table.
And that's the inherent problem with Obama's healthcare legislation. He shut out the People (the customers and consumers of medical care) from the negotiations about what we want to do with OUR money. We The People were denied a seat at the table. Obama and the insurance and pharmaceutical industries 'compromised' away the People's interests.
When he did that, Obama gamed an already-st
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost Read more...
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
Rich text comes with the pundit badge. Or, more accurately, an off-again on-again rich text ability that comes and goes from day-to-day for no discernible reason. At least to me.
I'd prefer royalties. ;-)
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
When you throw the first stone (!nsult and I!e), and when you live in a glass house, you should carry a lot of homeowners' insurance. And a glass factory if, after complaining about being the victim of ad hominem attack, you hurl more insults.
There was no "ad hominem" in my comments. And it becomes about you, like now, when you continue to I!e and distort and misrepresent the facts after being informed of the facts along with being supplied reference links (which work just fine, by the way, in spite of your complaints that they don't).
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Paul Krugman: Obama Has 'Largely Accepted Conservative View Of The World'
Apparently I can't open the link to the campaign ad... .
He certainly campaigned on the idea of universal health care. But he EXPLICITLY rejected the idea of single payer. I can't post links for the moment, but just go to YouTube, "Obama single payer Meredith Viera 24 January 2008" ,where he clearly explains his position.
And to campaign on the idea of universal health care means that he will do everything to WORK WITH CONGRESS (as Congress, not the WH, writes and passes bills) to move us as close as possible to that idea. In the meanwhile, after having waited for more than half a century, Obama is indeed the first president to extend HC to more than 30 million of the 50 million that are uninsured today. So that's a VERY big and historic step into the direction of universal HC, as he promised.
The only promise Obama did break when it comes to HC is the individual mandate. But if you take a closer watch at what he said, he said he was against a mandate IF at the same time people clearly don't have the means to pay for it. What his HCR is doing, however, is giving those who can't afford it subsidies.
Finally, once it became clear that it would be difficult to get the votes for a PO in the Senate, Obama indeed remembered that it would be stupid to focus on a PO only, because even without a PO, the HC bill was already achieving a lot of important and historic things.
Fortunately, we don't have to rely on your Iy!n' eyes & ears. We don't have to listen to your spin about what Obama did and didn't say, or what you say that he campaigned on -- WE HAVE THE FILM & TAPES TO JUDGE FOR OURSELVES!
And the links all work just fine, including the campaign ad.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Sarah Palin Book 'America By Heart' Hits Obama, Defends Actions (ADVANCE EXCERPTS)
I submit to you that Palin's 'effect' on politics "at a very high level" has more everything to do with those "at a very high level" driving the meme of Palin's "effect". Obama would love nothing more than to run against her in 2012, and towards that end, he and Rahm Emanuel did their level best to elevate her and Tea Party. Their contribution was at least as important as the Koch brothers'. Dick Armey's, Fox's in launching the Tea Party.
Whatever Ar!anna's expressed noble intentions and desire to be heading up a serious political news magazine, she's first and foremost a businesswoman. HP is in the entertainment business, conflating news and politics with show business, just like every other media organization in business in the mainstream today. HP puts Palin up all over its webpages because she's eye candy (catches the eye of readers, regardless of the reason).
About Sarah Palin
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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