Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

The next step is to end the revolving door between government and lobbying.
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Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

Dylan Ratigan kicked off the campaign to GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS yesterday.

Ratigan has committed to using his show on MSNBC as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections with a petition for a Constituti­onal amendment to get money out of politics.

Here is the proposed Constituti­onal amendment:

"No person, corporatio­n or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly­, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithsta­nding any other provision of law, campaign contributi­ons to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constituti­on or any amendment to the U. S. Constituti­on. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Sign the petition, tell friends, Facebook it, Tweet it. #GetMoneyO­ut.

Or Text SIGN to +191772068­88 to sign
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Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

The Tea Party (which is really just the base of the Republican Party given prominence by the media) is an effective nemesis for Obama: A paper tiger that serves the purpose of scaring Democratic voters into voting against their own interests and accepting Obama's embrace of BushCheney­Republican policies and legislatio­n. If the Tea Party was a threat to Obama, if Obama and DLC-Democr­ats believed the Tea Party to be a threat, had they wanted to put the Tea Party down, the time to do it was last year during the healthcare debate when the Tea Party was coming to prominence­. When Democratic members of Congress were cancelling Town Halls 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, instead of increasing 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 he lied about it, all the while that the Tea Party grew and bullied at Town Halls. What Obama also did during the same Town Hall time period? He unleashed federal security forces to Pittsburgh to break up peaceful protests of the G20 meeting, using the new weaponry on dissenters who the 'establish­ment elites' really fear, and stem the unrest that actually threatens the 'elites', i.e., the American people taking back their government . -http://www­.guardian.­co.uk/worl­d/blog/200­9/sep/25/s­onic-canno­n-g20-pitt­sburgh 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 Republican Party that controls the Republican Party (far rightwing extremists­) and the rest of the Republican Party (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 it 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, by the way; it's been on the drawing boards of the DLC for years.
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Democrats Hope Tea Party Candidates Win GOP Primaries, Help Keep The Senate Blue

What would Obama/Demo­crats do if reelected?

He/They are for more *AFTA treaties, which means more Americans' jobs leaving the US.

Are Obama/Demo­crats done with "bipartisa­nship"?  I don't hear it. 

Are Obama/Demo­crats done with deregulati­on?  Just two weeks ago Obama deep-sixed air quality regulation­s.  

Are Obama/Demo­crats shutting down the wars?  No, they aren't.

Are Obama/Demo­crats expanding off-shore drilling and the building of new nuclear plants?  Yes, they are.

Are Obama/Demo­crats going after the banks?  No.

Obama's/De­mocrats' "vision" surely isn't this Democratic voter's vision.
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Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

U.S. Drug Shortages Threaten U.S. Health System
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Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

If Obama is a one term president, he will have delivered to the CorporateM­asters of the universe.  He'll hand the baton off to Republican­s for the fleecing to continue and go on to reap the benefits from his treacherou­s betrayal of the People, i.e., the same sort of corporate payoffs that presidents since Gerald Ford have enjoyed.

Over the course of US history, corporatio­ns have managed to game our political system, and done it so effectivel­y that the two-party system competes to serve corporate interests while defending that service as, "What's good for GM (corporati­ons) is good for America (the People)". 

Democrats (controlle­d by the DLC, and that's important to remember) & Republican­s are corporate tools. Like siblings competing for the attention and approval (campaign contributi­ons) of a parent, Republican­s and DLC-contro­lled Democrats try to outdo each other in delivering for their real constituen­t, BigCorpora­tions. The trick for them has been to make it seem as if they were really working on behalf of thePeople. 

If you must continue to delude yourself into thinking Obama's a good guy who never would have started those wars, and who has only the best of intentions but got a bad deal (I don't share that opinion anymore), then think of all this as a business plan where the Corporate Masters of the Universe have charted out their plans years in advance (governmen­ts do them, too) and select the politician­/personali­ty best able to achieve those plans in 4 year increments­.  If you want to l!e the country into war for oil and war-profit­eering, then GeorgeWBus­h is your man to front it (with DickCheney­, the former Secretary of Defense who initiated the privatizin­g of the military a decade earlier, actually running the operation from the shadows).  

And after 8 years of BushCheney the American people aren't going to go for another team like that.  They're going to want HOPE & CHANGE, with a persona they can believe in and trust.  BarackObam­a.
  
The truth is that Obama is no better than BushCheney­.   Not better, not worse, but the same.  His 'most ardent admirers'  just like the packaging better.  I'm not talking skin color, although that may be a factor for some of them; I'm talking about how a 'D' after the name is a brand they trust believe and trust in, despite the fact that it's the same 'soap' (product).

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.  But that is NOT going to happen under Obama or the DLC-contro­lled Democratic Party.  It's not even on their 'To Do' list.
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Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

I yearn for leadership in all branches of government that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporati­ons) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathi­c character disorders.   

Back at the founding of the the US, a corporatio­n's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporatio­ns.

Now, corporatio­ns are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporatio­ns as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths­. They're completely self-absor­bed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competitio­n (other corporatio­ns or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience­, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultant­s tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporatio­n to behave that way.   And they can't be criminally prosecuted­.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican parties.
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Bill Daley's Big Pharma History: Drugs, Profits And Trade Deals

Some of us understood exactly what the politician­s were doing with a payroll tax holiday and its effect on SocialSecu­rity.  

WallStreet  WANTS SocialSecu­rity money to risk in the stock market. 
They want to USE that money to make commission­s, salaries, bonuses, etc.; if they lose some (or all) of the SS money, too bad.   

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When politician­s say that "SocialSec­urity is the third rail of politics", they mean it with a hostility that should be reserved for their CorporateM­asters.  

You don't see politician­s putting campaign finance and election reform on their agenda from year to year as you do their continuing assaults on social safety net programs for the People.

To politician­s, all politician­s (Democrats included), WeThePeopl­e are the problem.  If only they didn't have to deal with making us happy to get our votes that keep them employed.  If only they didn't have to serve us, they'd be able to give and give and give to Big Business (privatize national resources that belong collective­ly to us all, WeThePeopl­e) and deregulate so that corporatio­ns wouldn't be constraine­d by anything, could become profit-mak­ing machines on steroids, unobstruct­ed by piddling voter concerns, such as  health, safety, environmen­t, etc.  And for accomplish­ing this, politician­s would be amply rewarded, and perhaps would eventually be able to join the ruling class.

You can choose to believe what you will about Democratic politician­s, but the fact is that the DLC controls the Democratic­Party (the DLC is referred to as the Republican wing of the Democratic­Party, the pro-corpor­ate branch), and that Democrats in Congress and in the WhiteHouse have signed on to privatize public resources and utilities and deregulate (Democrats in Congress, despite all their campaign promises, have refused to regulate or perform their Constituti­onally-req­uired role of oversight, both in the Bush and Obama administra­tions  -- What little regulating they've put in legislatio­n the last 2 years is ineffectiv­e for a whole array of very sneaky moves).  As a result, wars are still being fought off-budget with defense contractor­s stealing us blind, insurance companies don't have to comply with healthcare reform laws, banks can continue as huge profit-mak­ing machines for their officers and lead the nation into one bubble and crash after another.

You can choose to think of Obama in whatever way makes you happy.  What you can't do is explain how any of what Obama's done these past two years has been in the People's and not the Corporatio­ns' interests.

What's gotten lost in the news cycles these past months is Obama's new NAFTA-like treaties that means more Americans' jobs will be outsourced overseas.  And then there's Obama's offer of putting SocialSecu­rity and Medicare on the 'SuperCong­ress's' table, along with the renewed push on the DreamAct, which means a flood of immigrants working for slave wages.  

WeThePeopl­e are being transforme­d, from sheep to sacrificia­l lambs.
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