Spintested: 07/10/11

Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

Sunday, July 10, 2011

“The Democrats & Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact aren't significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on SinglePayer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger & broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of healthcare. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We're at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Healthcare providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We're seeing greater corporatization of our healthcare. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You've absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with InsuranceCompanies. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult & complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary & change frequently.”

“This new legislation doesn't change any of that. It doesn't make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We're going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they're giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna & Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with preexisting conditions announced they weren't going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the ObamaAdministration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Healthcare costs are going to rise faster.

The CenterForMedicare & MedicaidServices estimated that after the legislation passed, our healthcare costs would rise more steeply than if we'd done nothing. The CensusBureau reports that the number of uninsured in the US jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but 1/3 of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The NationalHealthInsuranceSurvey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays & deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/power_and_the_tiny_acts_of_rebellion_20101122/
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

“You can’t effect change from the inside,” Flowers has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported.

There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

KEEP READING
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room.

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.”

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

Changing the inflation calculation for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth. Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ).

And "Obama saved 350 million last year for Medicare and Medicaid simply by going after the doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharmacists and others in the providers and for double billing, double dipping, false claims, etc."???

You mean the $350 million in his healthcare legislation to be spent over the next decade to computerize everyone's medical records, put them online?
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

You've been brainwashed about government programs. They are very very VERY efficient.

The administration costs of Social Security are 0.6 percent of expenditures. The disability insurance program clocks in a bit higher: 2.3 percent. It's all pretty lean.

Had Social Security been privatized when the economic meltdown occurred, that money would be gone, too.
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

I have read the War Powers Resolution. Many times. What is it that you believe I don't comprehend?
About Health Care
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

The $2 Trillion deal that looks like is going to be the real "grand bargain" also has untenable cuts to programs like SS and Medicare.

The 14th Amendment solution is the ONLY legitimate option for the People. It is a viable alternative.

Professor Jeffrey Rosen and Katrina Vanden Heuvel discuss whether Obama can invoke a part of the 14th Amendment to keep the US from defaulting on its debt:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/43676939#43676939
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Equating Obama with Bush/Cheney? This is a loser's rant. And with SCOTUS having spoken (badly) in the Citizens United case, the only way to take "personhood" away from corporations will be to form a supermajority to push back on the GOP. Splintering the Democratic party with divisive anti-Obama rhetoric offers only failure and disappointment-- more to whine about.

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Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And, we gave them the White House.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old r@c!st America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. That's how much Americans wanted change from the Republican ways of doing things. Voters did it because of Obama's ability to persuade, that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- Obama was going to be the People's president, not a corporate t00I.

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election & a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy & Byrd, at deth's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises & sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

Obama's political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation -- Everything was to flow through his operation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

Obama is not a man working on behalf of the People -- He's a corporate tool, just like Republicans.

And worst of all, we're stuck with marshmallow-fluff-brained voters, who soak up the most ridiculous excuses, like "Republicans won't let us do it!", when, in fact, Obama and Democrats don't even try. Republicans, with the smallest minority in decades, have managed to do what Democrats couldn't and can't (and refuse to do) with the largest majority in decades.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Equating Obama with Bush/Cheney? This is a loser's rant. And with SCOTUS having spoken (badly) in the Citizens United case, the only way to take "personhood" away from corporations will be to form a supermajority to push back on the GOP. Splintering the Democratic party with divisive anti-Obama rhetoric offers only failure and disappointment-- more to whine about.

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If Republicans are such scvm (and I believe they are) and "so dangerous", why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them?

Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history?

Why are Obama-Democrats continuing the war crimes of BushCheney, blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?

How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminally corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era US attorneys? Presidents may fire US attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire US attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the BushAdministration). Instead of returning the democracy to the American people, Obama's AttorneyGeneral has US attorneys going after legalized medicinal marijuana in the states and Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html

Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this. How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain all that to themselves?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

With SCOTUS having spoken (badly) in the Citizens United case, the only way to take "personhood" away from corporations will be to form a supermajority to push back on the GOP. Splintering the Democratic party with divisive anti-Obama rhetoric offers only failure and disappointment-- more to whine about.

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And yet ending corporate personhood and campaign finance reform isn't anywhere on the agenda of either party. You need to stand back and look at the big picture, what's been going on since the DLC got control of the Democratic Party a couple of decades ago.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to.

Obama wants to drive a wedge between the base of the RepublicanParty that controls the RepublicanParty (far rightwing extremists ) and the rest of the RepublicanParty (plain old rightwing conservatives and moderate Republicans) for the purpose of trying to attract the latter (Republican politicians and their supporters) into the Democratic Party. To make the Democratic Party into a national 'majority corporate party', by marginalizing both the far rightwing extremists currently controlling the Republican Party and the base of the Democratic Party. In order "to govern, from the center, for 100 years".

The Tea Party serves this end in several ways. Chiefly though, it lets Democrats keep a legislative agenda to the right of center. If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim. And that's a lot of corporate-money ground.

Obama didn't invent this plan -- It's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

With SCOTUS having spoken (badly) in the Citizens United case, the only way to take "personhood" away from corporations will be to form a supermajority to push back on the GOP. Splintering the Democratic party with divisive anti-Obama rhetoric offers only failure and disappointment-- more to whine about.

==============================================

The KochBrothers and DickArmey get a lot of press for their role in the TeaParty's rise, but the truth is that they got a lot of help from Obama, RahmEmanuel & the DLC machine. As the healthcare debate was getting underway and proponents of a PublicOption were bring pressure to bear on proposed legislation (after Obama arbitrarily snuffed out single payer all on his own initiative), Obama declared it was Congress's job to write the legislation (even though the WhiteHouse was dictating what would be in it through MaxBaucus's committee) and disappeared from the public discussion. All the while Teabaggers were punching the fear card by strutting around Townhalls, breaking up the discussions with outrage over 'Death Panels', and carrying guns openly. Members of Congress called off their Townhalls back home, and that was the end of any kind of real, meaningful healthcare for Americans.

Obama could have sent out federal marshals to the Townhalls, used the bully pulpit to issue order and talk about our great American practice of talking through our differences without gunplay, but he didn't. What Obama did instead during the same time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting, test out the new weaponry to use on the growing disquieted masses - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh

Obama and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty needs SarahPalin, MicheleBachmann and the TeaParty. The TeaParty serves Obama and the DLC-controlled DemocraticParty in several ways. If they could choose any Republican to run against in 2012, it would be Palin or Bachmann, and elevating the TeaParty makes that more of a possibility.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

With SCOTUS having spoken (badly) in the Citizens United case, the only way to take "personhood" away from corporations will be to form a supermajority to push back on the GOP. Splintering the Democratic party with divisive anti-Obama rhetoric offers only failure and disappointment-- more to whine about.

==============================================

Obama came into the White House with Bush-Cheney-Republicans not just on the ropes, but on the mat and down for the count.

Then Obama issued a pardon, metaphorically speaking, and let them rise again.

After just one month in the White House, instead of going after Republicans and how their failed policies have brought us to the brink of destruction, instead of hammering Bush-Cheney-GOP for our economic woes and wars of choice, instead of investigations and prosecutions and RESTITUTION ("Look forward, not back" -- There's a novel idea for saving money; stop crime fighting), Obama and Rahm Emanuel went after Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, two people with no role in the Republican Party.

Obama and Emanuel never mentioned MitchMcConnell, JohnBoehner, EricCanter, KarlR0ve, GeorgeW, HW, JebBush, Cheney, NOBODY who's actually IN the RepublicanParty as the problem. Obama still doesn't; he mocked DonaldTrump, an undeclared candidate for the presidency who every serious political pundit knew had no intention of actually running.

Republican leadership made no secret of the fact that Republicans wouldn't be cooperating with a President Obama back before he got the nomination in 2008. That he could take his "bipartisanship" and shove it. It wasn't just campaign rhetoric, 'meat' for the Republican base -- Republicans had been 'shoving it' to Democrats since Democrats had regained the majority in the House in 2006.

But there was Obama, watering down Democratic legislation, continuing BushCheney policies (and even going BushCheney one better), and Republicans still wouldn't work in a "bipartisan manner".

So what did Obama do? He watered Democratic legislation down even more (made it actually Republican-like legislation) and passed it through reconciliation, which didn't need (or get) ANY Republican votes.

Obama makes secret deals, lets lobbyists write legislation and policy and regulations, and the only time that Obama gets tough is on those representing the Democratic Party base's interests.

Obama is a changeling, a Republican-in-Democrats'-clothing, a Trojan horse, and Obama's 'most ardent supporters' are being irresponsible by their blind loyalty to a label.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Equating Obama with Bush/Cheney?

==============================================

Obama and Democrats may even be worse, because unlike BushCheney-Republicans who made and make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better. Obama is continuing just about all of Bush's policies, and even going Bush-Cheney one better (Obama is asserting that a president can k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight whatsoever, and indefinite preventive detention? !?! Pure Kafka).
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

If only campaign finance reform and election reform were the same obsessions for Democrats that tax cuts and ending abortion is for Republicans, we on the left would enjoy the same successes as Republicans have had. The rich and the corporations pay almost nothing in taxes, and access to abortion has been so restricted that in 92 percent of all of the counties of the US, a woman can't exercise their right of choice.

Unless and until there is drastic and uncompromising change to our campaign financing system, until corporations are no longer 'persons' and are prohibited from participating in elections and politics, all efforts to reform government are useless.

Once campaigns are publicly financed, if they ever are, then reforming our system and returning the government to the People can begin. But now? The fleecing and pillaging is ongoing. By transnational corporations, made possible by both parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

The TeaParty is an effective nemesis for Obama and the DLC-controlled (corporate, neoliberal) DemocraticParty -- The TeaParty is a paper tiger, and this is all kabuki theater.

If Obama and the DLC-DemocraticParty had believed the TeaParty to be a threat, had they wanted to put the TeaParty down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the TeaParty was coming to prominence. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling TownHalls because of the escalating threats of violence by gun-toting teabaggers, disrupting Americans' long-honored traditions of peaceful debate in the public square.

Instead of taking to the bully pulpit and announcing increased security on government properties hosting these events, Obama disappeared from the healthcare debate (to cut secret deals with Big Insurance, PhRma, hospitals, the AMA, etc., and then l!e about it) as the TeaParty grew and bullied at TownHalls.

What Obama did instead during the same TownHall time period was unleash federal security forces to Pittsburgh (using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establishment elites' really fear) to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting and stem the only unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government.

Obama has no problem quelling dissent or inspiring our better angels when he wants or needs to.

Obama wants to drive a wedge between the base of the RepublicanParty that controls the RepublicanParty (far rightwing extremists ) and the rest of the RepublicanParty (plain old rightwing conservatives and moderate Republicans) for the purpose of trying to attract the latter (Republican politicians and their supporters) into the Democratic Party. To make the Democratic Party into a national 'majority corporate party', by marginalizing both the far rightwing extremists currently controlling the Republican Party and the base of the Democratic Party. In order "to govern, from the center, for 100 years".

The Tea Party serves this end in several ways. Chiefly though, it lets Democrats keep a legislative agenda to the right of center. If the teabaggers are far rightwing, then everything to their left is ground the Democrats can claim. And that's a lot of corporate-money ground.

Obama didn't invent this plan -- It's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

Taxes are low and corporate profits are high, but nothing is trickling down to the American worker:

The theory of supply-side economics tells us that if you cut taxes on rich people and corporations, the newly liberated moguls and businessmen will take their windfall and invest it, creating jobs and accelerating the rate of economic growth. The benefits of a light hand on the upper class, therefore, will "trickle down" to the working man and woman.
Ever since Ronald Reagan first attempted to make supply-side economics a reality and proceeded to inaugurate an era of persistent government deficits and growing income inequality, it has become harder and harder to make the trickle-down argument with a straight face. But we've never seen anything quite like the disaster that's playing out right now.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that corporate profits are looking quite strong for the second quarter of 2011. Even the Journal can't sugarcoat the basic facts:

While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter -- exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy.

But that's just the tip of the nightmare. A newly released study from the Center of Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, "The 'Jobless and Wageless' Recovery From the Great Recession of 2007- 2009," lays out some extraordinary statistics.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

John Boehner Rejects Obama's Grand Bargain On Debt Ceiling

D & R poIiticians are not each others' enemles, not as they have voters believing them to be. Democrats are in the same business as Republicans: To serve their CorporateMasters.

Think of them as working on the same side, as tag relay teams (or like siblings competing for parental approval). 'Good cop/bad cop'. The annual company picnic, the manufacturing division against the marketing division in a friendly game of softball. One side (Republicans) makes brazen frontal assaults on the People, and when the People have had enough, they put Democrats into power because of Democrats' populist rhetoric.

Once in power, Democrats consolidate Republicans' gains from previous years, then continue on with Republican policies but renamed, with new advertising campaigns. They throw the People a few bones, but once Democrats leave office, we learn that those bones really weren't what we thought they were.

Whenever the People get wise to the shenanigans and all the different ways they've been tricked, when the People start seeing Democrats as no different than Republicans, Democrats switch the strategy. They invent new reasons for failing to achieve the People's business.

Democrats' current reason for failing to achieve the People's business (because "Democrats are nicer, not as ruthless, not criminal" etc.) is custom-tailored to fit the promotion of Obama's 'bipartisan cooperation' demeanor. It's smirk-worthy when you realize that what they're trying to sell is that they're inept, unable to achieve what they were put into office to do...And their ineptitude, like that's somehow "a good thing".

This is all in the hands of Obama's 'most ardent supporters'. As long as they keep supporting him, we're all doomed.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

"Why Aren't We Demanding Restitution?"

On Dylan Ratigan, Eliot Spitzer and Larry McDonald explain how banks paying back TARP monies doesn't begin to cover what's been stolen.

Watch it here.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Obama's already "bought into it".
About John Boehner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Michael Lerner's very powerful case for primarying Obama.

Ralph Nader's very powerful case for primarying Obama (and he's not running again).

No one in the Democratic Party will do it. It would be su!cide for any professional politician in the Democratic Party to run against the party's sitting president (the DLC has gotten too powerful, what with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratically-controlled Senate overseeing an NSA with today's eavesdropping abilities).

Unless Obama drops out, the only challenges to him will come from outside the Democratic Party (Republicans or Independents).

Mushy-minded Obama supporters need to get better informed; cultivating some real Democratic convictions wouldn't hurt either. Because whether it's expanding the 'War on Terror', taking single payer universal health care, a public option, investigations and prosecutions of BushCheney, etc., off the table, or continuing the BushCheney policies and going Bush-Cheney one better (by asserting that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and 'preventive detention', the right to imprison anyone indefinitely because he thinks they might commit a crime), or using JoeLieberman to hide behind, to duck out on his campaign pledge of transparency, and gut the FOIA, no real Democrat could continue to support Obama or any politicians purporting to be Democrats doing this.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

That's not true: The $4 trillion includes cuts, as does the $2 trillion. That's what Biden's been doing in these talks. It's the Simpson-Bowles ('Cat Food') Commission's recommendations.
About John Boehner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

The Presidency of Hope has turned into the Presidency of Disempowerment and Hopelessness. And, sadly, I think that was the plan all along.

The Fraud of the Two Party System has been exposed. Can we stop playing along now?
About John Boehner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

There's been no real liberal/progressive challenge to the Obama presidency, he faces no threat at the current moment of any third party challenger within the democratic party, and there's no BernieSanders type politician who's stepping in to challenge him independently. He's been able to tamp down any real challenge to his Presidency and political doctrine from any liberal source, and now he only faces a weak and extremist field of rightwing idealogues who'll be sure to motivate enough of his prior supporters to the voting booth, if only out of sheer fear. He'll retain his corporate sponsorship as long as he's able to continually deliver on their demands for privatization of government and dismantling of programs that empower people to exist outside its complete and total control. No unions, no strong public education, no financial safety nets for the elderly or disabled, no environmental rules that impinge on the scourging of every bit of land and water for the profit of the wealth and the few. None of it.

Obama's delivering it all. Why would they want to change horses?

SocialSecurity and Medicare being placed on the table right before a Presidential election cycle? A striking demonstration of how far this process has already played out and how far Obama will go to keep corporate dollars pouring into his reelection coffer.

Meanwhile, the fascist power structure can’t lose. They have two political powers fighting to prove who's more willing to whore themselves out for their favor. Either way, they get what they want. It'll continue as long as the people go along with the game, and acquises their representation to leadership who seek nothing but their own power. The writing is on the wall.

The only wild card is when the people finally wake up and decide they have had enough of the game.

I don’t see it for 2012. I hope I'm wrong. I hope Medicare and SocialSecurity will be the final straw and galvanize people into the streets. But, if we don’t rally for real change and we continue to futilely support political leaders and structure that have no agenda to represent our needs, change ain’t gonna come.

KEEP READING
About John Boehner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

The President and democratic leadership are fully aware that they don’t serve at the pleasure of the people, they serve at the pleasure of those who buy the election cycles. It benefits the wealth and corporate power structure to maintain political representatives who will be able to foist their policies of greed and dominion over the people while tamping down the possibility of a grassroots and revolutionary backlash to their slimey dictates. Policies that would be universally decried under a RepublicanAdministration by the democratic base are accepted, sometimes defended, and worse yet, even advocated for under the ObamaAdministration. The creation of Candidate Obama was a brilliant corporate coup…the perfect way to stem the anger of the American people after the eight year nightmare of Bush. The face of change with zero change. People gobbled it up.

It was obvious as soon as Obama appointed his first Presidential cabinet what had really just occurred. The corporate power structure had placed a representative in power who not only served to diffuse the anger and hunger for change in the populace, but also had a political leader who would make it politically feasible to implement policies and laws that would have been heavily resisted under a Republican’s charge. Even after two plus years of continuous demostrations of political alliance and favor for the corporate wealth and against the benefit of the American citizenry, Obama still retains credibility (albeit weakend) among many of the traditional democratic base. He's still able to keep the people preoocupied and divided enough to stem any true united movement against the political power structure.

KEEP READING
About John Boehner
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

The writing's on the wall. In fact, the writing was on the wall before Obama even won the election. He's not a progressive. He's not a liberal. He's a politician who serves the corporate powers that placed him in office.   He doesn't serve the people.

He's not negotiating with Republicans. He's going through the necessary theatre to convince the populace that he's ceding away their safety nets, environmental protections, labor rights, and government protections as a matter of necessity. It's pure bullchit.

The democrats controlled three branches of government and they acted as operatives for the private health insurance companies, oil companies, the military industrial complex, and big banks.   I'm fully convinced Obama wanted a loss of control of Congress for his own reelection chances. Mighty difficult to pretend you have to cede every important principle and election promise when your own party maintains full control of the government.  The democrats failed utterly to represent the American people, they lost the mid-terms, and this was scripted as a sign that the people actually wanted MORE corporate/military/wealth friendly policies. Not only did Obama gain the cover of needing to capitulate to the supposedly ‘rightwing agenda’ (actually his own agenda imposed upon him by his corporate donor benefactors) with one of the branches now in the ‘opposition’s control. He was able to spin the loss as a need to further betray not only his base, but the entire American populace.

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

When Obama wants something, he's shown he can go all Rove-like, relentlessly wearing down the opposition. The problem is that he and the DLC-controlled Democratic Party don't want what the Democratic voters put them into power to get.

Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-talk us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentious, fire-in-the-belly Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrated on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle & poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.

Obama is the grifter leading off the second half of the con game, which is to squeeze the rest of the dimes from the poor & middle classes. It's been going on since Reagan, but It began in earnest, for all to actually see, with part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (high-priced junk health insurance that has no cost controls), and has continued with his push for more *AFTA treaties (outsourcing more Americans' jobs) and the Deficit (Simpson-Bowles' 'Cat Food' Commission.

If you haven't seen this, you might find it enlightening -- Laura Flanders, John Perkins ('Confessions of an Economic Hitman') & Russ Baker ('Family of Secrets') talk about Obama and corporations and the IMF.

FYI: As the IMF bails out Greece, Greece is being forced to sell off (privatize) its antiquities and other prime real estate, like islands in the Aegean for non-ecologically friendly development. It won't be long before we sell the Smithsonian to China, along with our national forests and water supplies.
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Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

The 14th Amendment solution is a viable option.

Professor Jeffrey Rosen discusses whether President Barack Obama can invoke a part of the 14th Amendment to keep the U.S. from defaulting on its debt.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/vp/43676939#43676939
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Federal Government Rules Marijuana Has No Accepted Medical Purpose

Project Censored: U.S. Government Repressed Marijuana-Tumor Research
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

Giving Americans Better Health Insurance Choices

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

House Dems Scramble After Obama Insists On Grand Bargain

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Mitch McConnell: Grand Bargain On Debt Limit Unlikely

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

John Boehner Rejects Obama's Grand Bargain On Debt Ceiling

Obama Faces Challenge In Linking Debt Reduction To Job Creation

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Bill Daley: Obama Wants $4 Trillion Debt-Reduction Plan

Federal Government Rules Marijuana Has No Accepted Medical Purpose

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