Why does Obama hate us? ...

Because he loves the corporate Robber Barons?

As soon as the House passed its health care reform bill Saturday night, two things became predictable: (1) The President would praise Nancy Pelosi and the House for moving the effort further than ever before and (2) an "anonymous" senior White House official would plant stories about how the House bill wasn’t as good as the Senate Finance bill.

Today's quote ...

All this money makes Obama's top financial advisors veritable poster boys for the Wall Street culture that the president in his speeches has publicly decried as a "house of cards" and a "Ponzi scheme" in which "a relatively few do spectacularly well while the middle class loses ground".

I'm not doubting the smarts of Obama's financial team -- but I do feel that the vast majority of people who take the kind of money we're talking about here can't help but be warped by it, and that in choosing to cash in, they essentially disqualified themselves from public service.

Unless they are willing to assertively act in ways that redeem themselves and show that their allegiances have not been purchased, they should step down and make way for people who see the people's side of things a little more clearly.

-- Bankers Vs. The People: Which Side Is The White House On? by Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens puts it in words ...

"They're opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world ... We're entitled to it," Pickens said of Iraq's oil. "Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars."

...

"We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil," Pickens said.

Just who is this 'we' oil man?

I'm almost speechless. But the thoughts that do come to mind are: another arrogant, contemptible turd and mucus secreting corporate slug.

T. Boone Pickens "takeovers put many independent oil producers out of business. With an estimated current net worth of about $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 117th-richest person in America and ranked 369th in the world." [Wikipedia]

And to think he didn't get Iraq and after supporting all the warmongers collected in Bush's Corporate regime that sacrificed so much American blood and money for his benefit.

I realize American corporations just don't care, but what about all the non-Americans that were murdered and killed and raped and tortured and starved and abused. What about all their losses in lives and property and hope for a decent life? 'We," oil man, are all smaller because you and your corporate buddies supported and encouraged a mental deficient 'president' and a criminally insane 'vice president' to perpetrate a war of terror on Iraq. And that 'we' includes you, oil man.

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One little point I don't quite grasp. If Corporatist T. Boone Pickens concludes that the blood and money expended by Americans should result in his personal increase in wealth and power where does the blood and money of others that is destroyed by Americans enter into that accounting? Is it a plus or minus in T. Boone Pickens mind? Or does it just not exist in his mind?

This could be interpreted as ...

... on education Obama wants what he wants but on health care Obama wants what the Republicans and the killers of the sick and injured in the insurance industry want; that is nothing ... or worse.

Senate Using Reconciliation On Major Piece Of Obama Agenda – Not Health Care, But Education

But then again how could anyone get that impression from Obama's hot and cold behavior?

Obama and health care ...

Apparently, according to Gibbs at the July 27 White House Press Briefing, Obama has an 80% agreement on everything but actual healthcare for the citizens of the United States. After all this is no longer a country of citizens, but a country of large corporate enterprises who's longterm self defeating goal is to gather all wealth and power unto themselves and let the serfs just fend for themselves.

Q I'll take it. What is the 80-percent agreement that the President reached where -- narrowly getting the bill passed.

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think there's broad agreement that the bill shouldn't add to the deficit. I think there's broad agreement that we have to increase access. I think there's broad agreement that we have the do something in both the short term and in the long term, meaning inside and outside a 10-year budget window, to cut costs. I think there's broad agreement on insurance reforms, that we can't let insurance companies continue to discriminate against individuals that are very sick or have a preexisting condition. And I think there's some agreement on things like limiting out-of-pocket expenses for individuals.

Notice how deficits are OK on everything except services for the people. After all services for the people of the country, which are paid by the people of the country by the way, become entitlements --such a dirty word-- and what's really needed is the freedom to mainline all the country's (the people's) wealth into the coffers of GoldmanSachs because... well, because... what other reason do you need. Obama behaves as if it's obvious to him so it must be obvious to everyone else, at least everyone else of consequence.

Jon Kyl, runs with such a sweet crowd of clowns ...

Lobbying their business-friendly allies in Congress to take up their cause, the bankers discovered that most of their reliable friends didn't want to be seen in public shilling for the credit card industry. Only four Senate Republicans -- Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Robert Bennett of Utah, John Kyl of Arizona and John Thune of South Dakota -- opposed the bill. One Democrat, Tim Johnson of South Dakota -- where the credit card industry accounts for thousands of jobs -- joined them in drinking the industry Kool-Aid (and taken its campaign contributions) that making the industry responsible would somehow kill jobs. Even Senator Richard Shelby, conservative Alabama Republican, supported the bill.

[emphasis added]

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Today's QUOTES:

So, let's "interrogate" the lot of them -- Cheney, Pelosi, Graham, Goss, Shelby, Kit Bond, the CIA briefers, anyone on the Senate and House staffs who may have been privy to these classified hearings. In my view, to fail to use these techniques is a slap in the face to all the fine American military personnel who ever went through the SERE program. As far as I'm concerned, we might as well be spitting on the troops if we don't agree to start using torture on members of the US Government. As Dick Cheney said, "it's a no-brainer." --A Modest Proposal by digby, Hullabaloo What kind of a country commits brutal crimes and then insists that they can't be burdened with disclosure and accountability because they're too busy or because it's too burdensome? --Distorting public opinion on torture investigations by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com The successful hijacking of the torture debate by its proponents obscures the underlying facts, as Kagro makes abundantly clear: 1. Private contractors were conducting torture 2. It was torture for political gain 3. Pollsters should be asking if Americans support using torture to extract false confessions for political purposes, because that's what happened --I Oppose Torture, and Kagro X Is My Hero by Jane Hamsher quoting Kagro X (David Waldman of CongressMatters), firedoglake.com

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Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Republican ...

Update below.
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Giffords may have run as a Democrat [AZ-8], however she's as irresponsible and obtuse as a Republican. Another DINO in wall street's pocket.

Democrats Who Joined with Republicans to Pass Bean Amendment on TARP Bonuses

Amazing how much better Ed Pastor looks after Giffords joined the 'democrats' in Congress.

Not to leave the only other Democrat from Arizona in Congress out of this post: Raul Grijalva appears to be the genuine article to me ... a competent Congressman who actually works at his job. I use the word 'appears' because politics is such a disappointing arena, given to much deceipt and corruption and the Americans we have hired for Congress have, on the whole, been mean, little, corrupt people. And we have left them there even after the worst has become obvious. We Americans have not done a very good job in selecting and monitoring our representatives. These people still nominally work for us and are actually quite afraid that we may use our power at the ballot box. Until then, they may be as corrupt at they wish. Still I don't think Grijalva is one of the bad guys ...
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UPDATE -----
Ooops. I completely forgot about Rep. Mitchell, Harry [D AZ-5]
And then there's Rep. Kirkpatrick, Ann [D AZ-1] who replaced Renzi when I wasn't looking.

Arizona’s Representatives - Congressional District Maps

Business as usual ...

Holder, Pelosi etc. They apparently are only concerned about corporations making money. They have no concept of breaking up news and editorial control already in the hands of too few as a means of addressing the propaganda as news that is presented to Americans by the media monopolies we are already blessed with.

Their solution? Bigger monopolies.

U.S. law chief open to antitrust aid for newspapers

Yah, save the newspapers but not the news. Why not just one Orwellian Republican governmental propaganda source. We don't have far to go as it is. Oh, that's right, the profit must be in the private hands of a few.

These people can't compete so they must be protected by law. And the rest of us must compete for their leavings. If they need more money then we must give up SS. If they are not making exponentially increasing profit then how could we possibly think we should have national health care. It they are not happy with the magnitude of their wealth as compared to the rest of us then we should expect pay cuts and job reductions.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

... Posing, posturing, pretend progressives prevent progress...

... This is simply the way the American elite have always functioned. Ideology, morality, patriotism, law – all must give way to the relentless and ruthless pursuit of wealth, and the power and privilege and dominance wealth brings. Prescott Bush traded with the Nazis, even when they were killing Americans, because there was money in it. For the same reason, his son, Prescott Jr., has long been a leading figure in trading with the repressive communist regime in China (as have Dubya's brother Neil -- and Don Rumsfeld too, for that matter.). For the same reason, Prescott Senior's other son, George Herbert Walker Bush, and his son, George Walker Bush, have long had extensive and intimate business ties with the violent religious extremists in Saudi Arabia, and with a number of other tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world.

... you told them that American Democrats are Nazi sympathizers and in an act of sheer indecency, the right wing Likud party orchestrated the greatest applause you ever got. For shame!

What this blind adoration finally proves to me is that the right-wing regime that has overtaken Israel cares nothing for its people, its heritage, and the tragic history that they now honor by applauding a man whose family-fortune was built on the bodies of their loved ones. Like their Republican (and Lieberman) counterparts in the United States, Likud does not represent its people, rather, it represents its owners. Likud has traded Israel, its Jews, their heritage and history for the same golden calf purchased and sold by the far-right wing in the United States.

I am ashamed of you Mr. Bush. I am ashamed of those who applauded your political porn played out against the hallowed backdrop of the Holocaust. I am ashamed of those reporters with you, who between them could not muster the moral courage to call you out on your ugly rhetoric and ask you about your own family Nazi ties. You are, sir, the most abhorrent human being of my lifetime. I dare say, in the lifetime of this nation.

Working together with the State, the U.S.-bound media will distort the reality themselves. The American government will tell them the fight has happened because the smugglers are growing frustrated with the outstanding control of the U.S.’s border with Mexico. The correspondents of the American papers working in Mexico will know better but their shouts will go unheeded for the faster, easier story. Some truths are more comfortable than others.

The US Business Model of Life and other absurdities ...

Yesterday I posted a quote from a conference where some are suggesting it was time to shift from product development to discovery research in the fight against AIDS.

Imagine a world where the main emphasis is on the next health related product that can be developed, preferably with the public's money but without the public's ownership, and where that health product will be legally protected so that the end business owners can sell it at inflated costs for years and years, often back to the same public's government organizations that initially invested in the development of the product. That's the world we live in ...

Today I read this post: Shareholder Wealth Maximization in Action

Thus, Walgreen CEO Jeffrey Rein, speaking to shareholders, said “If attendees of the meeting needed to cough, he joked, they should leave the room and ‘go to a movie theater or on a bus’ to spread their germs. ‘We’re really hoping for a very strong flu season’.” While P&G CEO A.G. Lafley said on a quarterly analyst call: “Unfortunately, people have not been getting sick at a rate that we would all like yet.” Finally, LifePoint Hospitals CFO David Dill mused that "You have a strong flu season, and the ancillary business is very profitable . . . On the pediatric side, young kids coming into the hospital, that’s a nice margin for us, as well.”

Truths presented as humor. When people get the flu Walgreens and other corporations make more money selling flu related products. Walgreens' job is definitely not to serve the public. Walgreens' job is making money. The purpose of Walgreens' management is to make the maximum profit which in turn increases the investment value for it's shareholder (joke) so the job of Walgreens' management is to ensure there are an increasing number of people with the flu. Or Walgreens could just change to manufacturing weapons, start another war and kill people directly. That would work just as well and, well, it appears to be the American way. Abortion, no. Genocide, yes. The word is VALUES. Keep repeating a few key words and the whole world, well, at least the US will fall into line ...

How to ignore the nose on your face ...

Arizona has a health insurance program where under certain conditions small business could get health insurance at 'reasonable' prices.

Well, surprise! People with health problems actually migrated to the program as the 'private' insurance companies cherry picked the healthy to insure (cutting them off if the insured got sick, of course).

The state program is in debt while the 'private' insurance scammers are poster boys for how greed works in this country.

Now Republican legislators are arguing for the abandonment of the program and, of course, for turning over more business to 'private' insurance.

At one time insurance was about getting as large a group as possible to contribute to a fund that would cover everyone with the understanding that not everyone would need to draw from the fund. That's called benefiting society, which many people understand (not including a surprising number of Republicans) to be of ultimate benefit to us all whether we ever need the help or not.

Now insurance is about pretending to insure people only to cut them off when they actually need help. That's called a scam.

The only way to solve this problem is to insure everyone and we actually have a system that the Bush Administration has not managed to destroy so far and it's called Medicare.

There is absolutely not reason for the continued transfer of our money to satisfy the greed of insurance companies. No reason other than the complicity, cowardice and greed of politicians.

Source: Arizona health program in peril by Amanda J. Crawford

Compelling? ...

Tony Pugh at McClatchy Newspapers thinks it's "a compelling argument" against expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Statisticians boost effort to block children's health-insurance expansion by Tony Pugh

In its effort to stop Congress from expanding a public health-insurance program for low-income children, the Bush administration has hit on a compelling argument: the obscure but inevitable phenomenon known as "crowd out."

"Crowd out" happens when parents drop their children's private health insurance to enroll them in cheaper, taxpayer-funded coverage through the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that for every 100 kids who enroll in the popular program now, 25 to 50 were previously covered in the private market.

Since a number of newly eligible children might already have what we have come to know as crappy health insurance and their parents may give up said policies (reluctantly, I'm sure) for better and cheaper coverage, well you know the rest ... those poor downtrodden powerless corporations may loose another victim to refuse care to.

But Tony Pugh of McClatchy finds the argument compelling ...

Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has studied crowd out extensively and likens it to snaring dolphins by mistake in a tuna net.

So the uninsured children are tuna? And those caught up in corporate insurance 'health scams' are dolphins?

Medicare Program overpays private plans ...

• Medicare Overpayments to Private Plans
  Changing the payment policies for MA plans would save Medicare almost $65 billion over the next five years and almost $160 billion over the next ten years.