Morning all. Coffee’s warm and porridge is cooking…and it looks like we have another beautiful day of mild weather.

Have a repair guy working on our heater, so I’m typing to the sound of drills this morning. Home ownership — it’s always something, isn’t it?

There’s an excellent article in Newsweek by conservative thinker, writer Sam Tanenhaus titled “Requiem for the Right.” None of what’s happening bodes well for the right, but unfortunately, it’s going to take time for the GOP (such as it is) to move from unraveling to unraveled.

Beautiful and mild in MN, too. Picture perfect days.

Good morning, Christy.

It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.

It’s looking more and more to me that he already has made his choice for the status quo.

George Carlin, “Bipartisianship just means theres a bigger than usual deception taking place”

Oooh, I love that. Thanks.

Good morning, pups! I am beyond disgusted with Obama, and I was a supporter. I didn’t vote for him to make speeches and pander.

Beautiful weather this week in NW Indiana, after a cool and cloudy summer. Lows dipping into the 40s this week, but sunny and clear. Bike rides after work to clear out the political cobwebs.

The sounds of drills is not very soothing, is it? And, the pride drain of ownership is an ongoing joy. But, on the other hand, I know you feel fortunate to have your own. I was speaking to a gal at the gym last night about housing prices and the glut of houses on the market right now. She told me that most of the homes for sale in her community are now bank owned. Two years ago, they were valued in the upper 700’s and 800’s. Now, they are selling for the high 200’s and 300’s. She said many people are just walking away. Frightening and sad.

Yes, but choices aren’t always forever. So one can hope for a shift if what’s going on at the moment isn’t exactly working. At least, a girl can dream…

What I’d really like is for someone to step up and lead on issues that really need it. But I haven’t seen a whole helluva lot of what I’d call leadership for quite a while. It’s mindboggling, but here we are.

Can the Obama administration still make needed changes? Absolutely.

the problem here is one of momentum. While theoretically it would be possible to “make the necessary changes”, in the real world that means a complete reorganization of his administration. What is occurring right now on a whole host of policy fronts (health care, the economy, torture, afghanistan, etc) is the culmination of eight months of putting the wrong people in charge/in place.

Moreover, Obama’s first eight months are so at odds with “needed changes” that were he to pursue appropriate policies, it would be such a shock that people would question his emotional/intellectual stability.

At what point do we realize that the U.S. political system is too corrupt and ossified for any meaningful change? At this point in it’s history the U.S. needed a strong leader who would be willing to do what is right and required. Instead the nation is left with a chief executive who has a bipartisanship fetish. We long for and need an FDR and instead have a timorous and compromised wonk who is more concerned with preserving the status quo. The barrel is rotting from the inside.

Glad you are having good weather, too. And yes, it will take a while for all of this to percolate out on all sides of the equation. Unfortunately, for a lot of folks, they can’t really afford that time when their kid is sick or they have to decide between drugs and food because they fell into the Medicare donut hole or…

Its hard to find a silver lining in the health care debacle on a beautiful morning. (Sigh)

OT, You wrote an excellent diary at the Seminal the other day. Thanks

Oh noes! CNN is onto us. Here’s the current top headline at CNN.com:

Health care message hard to control online

Even somewhat milder weather here in Florida this week; high 80’s instead of 90’s, but lots of rain yesterday and more forecast today.

Well we sound like an attack dog…but can we bite? Methinks the k-9’s teeth have been pulled. heh

Christy-The AFL-CIO, 65 Congrssional Reps and the Left blogosphere NEED to MAKE Obama Lead. Or else.

The NYTimes has another good op-ed today, by Max Blumenthal on Ike, referring to the influence Erich Hoffer had on his thinking. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09……html?_r=1

Though Eisenhower was criticized for lacking an intellectual framework or even an interest in ideas, he was drawn to Hoffer’s insights. He explained to Biggs that Hoffer “points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems — freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions.” The authoritarian follower, Eisenhower suggested, desired nothing more than insulation from the pressures of a free society.

We do feel very fortunate. Luckily, things aren’t quite that bad here in terms of housing — but we were never in the highly inflated section of the country in terms of pricing, so the correction here in the market has been much smaller.

Where my in-laws lived in Phoenix is still a mess. CA, too, as you know all too well. It’s as though the entire nation went insane for a while there, isn’t it?

Sometime in the past month, from reading FDL and other sites, I have come t0o the realization that perhaps Obama’s #1 concern, certainly Rahm’s, is to maintain and increase the Dems fundraising advantage over the GOP in the financial and health care sectors.

This is all about maintaining the status quo, because that will give them the best corporate funding.

From the FDR speech:

I got quite a laugh, for example – and I am sure that you did – when I read this plank in the Republican platform adopted at their National Convention in Chicago last July: “The Republican Party accepts the purposes of the National Labor Relations Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Social Security Act and all other Federal statutes designed to promote and protect the welfare of American working men and women, and we promise a fair and just administration of these laws.”

You know, many of the Republican leaders and Congressmen and candidates, who shouted enthusiastic approval of that plank in that Convention Hall would not even recognize these progressive laws if they met them in broad daylight. Indeed, they have personally spent years of effort and energy – and much money – in fighting every one of those laws in the Congress, and in the press, and in the courts, ever since this Administration began to advocate them and enact them into legislation. That is a fair example of their insincerity and of their inconsistency.

The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and the depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.

Now, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery – but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud.

The pages on the calendar have changed, but the GOP tactics remain the same.

RRRAAAWWW!!! CHS!

Link to text version

Homes in the 700 to 800’s.

Dang.

It truly has been frustrating of late, hasn’t it? What a fricking mess we are all in together. Would that we’d all realize it and decide to really fix it instead of sticking band-aids on the wounds and pretending that does the trick.

A great find!

Christy found it — I just went for a text version.

Do check out the whole thing. It’s all like that.

I ain’t puttin’ my snorklin’ gear away yet. Goddamn Bahia grass has grown 2 feet in 2 weeks.

Another forgotten gem of FDR. 1936 acceptance speech at the Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

Good morning everyone.

It’s a shame. Bipartianship=Tonya Harding Care not Teddy Care.

Bullying is all the rage it seems, and the party that has the majority elected by the people is allowing it to happen. Why on earth would anyone cave to a bunch of folks of who are supported by a lunatic fringe that are only hurting themselves by not supporting universal health care?

It boggles my mind.

It’s the the lack of seeming to understand history that is bothering me about the Obama Administration whether it’s history from 70 years ago to 40 years ago to 20 years ago…they or is it he, Obama himself, who evidences the disinterest in understanding of lessons gleamed from history?

And when he does promote history such as events and circumstances surrounding the election of Lincoln, forgive me but even the coice of era to highlight was wrong…..FDR should be his guiding light. FDR practically left a manual for how to conduct oneself in times such as these and it is being ignored completely.

It ’s a shame and the American people are worse off bcause of it. Let’s not even think about what the effects will be on the Democratic Party if the path Obama has chosen continues.

Everyone thought he was smarter than this……were we fooled.

From FDR’s 1936 acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.

All of FDR’s speeches from that era are worth a read. He hits some very important grassroots progressive notes that still resonate today.

I am getting tired of delusional people getting elected president.

Bush ‘43 was a cheerleader who thought he was a quarterback.

Obama ‘08 is a quarterback who aspires to be a cheerleader.

Some days I truly wonder if folks inside the Beltway bother with history beyond worrying about their own place in it.

Insane. It’s like the line from the Maltese Falcon (again) He wants More, don’t ya Rocko?

Hey, Barbara, how’s the South Beach diet going?? I had my annual physical last week and my internist gave a big thumbs up to the quality of the South Beach diet, except he isn’t wild about the first phase with no fruit and no grain products.

I didn’t probe his views on health care reform (tempted, tho…), but he was grumbling about the burden of computerizing everything. He says they’ve eliminated transcriptionists and he has to do all of the entry into patient records OR hire extra nurses to be in the room during an exam. He says it means an extra couple of hours a day when he could be seeing patients. It was interesting — he sat at a laptop and entered information as we were talking. He also printed out a prescription that was actually readable, and gave me a copy of my lab results on the spot.

I would have loved to engage him on health care reform, but didn’t want to take up his valuable time with that.

Having a better press corps would be nice, too. But the Republicans have spent several decades wiring this one to their complete satisfaction.

FDR was a good leader. His accomplishments were remarkable. But, make no mistake about it, FDR, like Obama, made many mistakes. Many of those mistakes he learned from and went on to do better. Hopefully, Obama will do so as well.

It’s really the perfect storm of inertia and knuckling under on so many levels inside the Beltway these days, isn’t it? Ugh.

FDR did make a lot of mistakes. The key is to learn the right lessons from them and move forward rather than looking back and fretting. Here’s hoping that happens and soon, because there has been way too much wallowing among Democratic leadership of late. And that signals weakness and self-pity, not leadership.

When Obama is not fighting for us he is fighting against us. It’s very lame for him to say ‘I don’t make the rules’ and such..because the majority usually does make the rules. After all it is life and death.

This is Los Angeles. My house is only valued around 100, tho. And, don’t forget, the smoke, threat of fires and the 100 degree heat. Folks be a little bit cranky ’round here these days. And, that’s not even taking the political disgust into the picture. Trying to live below the radar here these days.

Christy nails it. “Bipartisanship” is the code word for “no real change”. By now, it should be clear to the most “centrist” of Obama’s staff that there is nothing he or they can do to make conservatives get on board with any of the efforts to salvage something from 8 years of governmental carnage, literal and figurative.

But there is one place where the GOP will either support him, or not flay him, and that is in sustaining George Bush and their, twin shitmires. Iraq just MAY be winding down. We don’t know for sure, but in Afghanistan, Obama is making the same idiotic “nationbuilding” mistakes that Bush created and pursued. The GOP will be “bipartisan” on THAT. And as more and more americans come to understand that there is no possibility of creating our 51st state in Afghanistan, and refuse to support the effort to do it, if Obama wants to sustain that, he’s going to need…taaadaaa…republican support. And they will have their pound of political flesh for giving it to him. And it will be very costly flesh.

We may soon be treated to the obscene spectacle of Obama cutting deals with the repubs for their support in continuing the clusterfuck in Afghanistan, against an increasing will among democrats to get the hell out and let the chips fall where they will. It could happen.

Re-reading my note, I had to laugh. How often have we all been trying to find Harry Reid’s spine the last few years?

Sometimes, you just have to laugh out loud. Because if you don’t, you spend your life being surly and, truly, it’s just not worth it. But that was one big belly laugh for me… *g*

Government run health care – Medicare is going to be cut by $1.4 Billion in 2010 as reported by bloomberg:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..v3pcTOWVjk

The cuts will be to cardiovascular doctors and oncologists. If a Government Option is contained in a bill what makes anyone think that this will not happen with that program.

I am a cancer patient and there was absolutely no way to avoid my type of cancer, it was a germ cell tumor and congenital in nature. I was 58 when the tumor grew – the normal age to find such a thing is in people in their mid – 20’s. My wife had a heart attach at 59. We are both concerned that we are approaching the Medicare age.

I would rather continue to pay my own health insurance past the age of 65 than have the government cut me out of treatment.

Be careful of what you pray for you may get it.

Pleasant today in Northeast Washington State, finally cooling down from the mid-90s. Supposed to get to the low 80s and then a real cold front comes in with highs in the low 70s. About time.

My frustration with Obama is the failure to lead. Not sure what he is willing to stike his neck out for.

The longer this goes, the more sad I get. The Obama administration turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be, Clinton light, and corporatist to the core.

The GOP hasn’t changed, but can you imagine Obama speaking of Republicans in that FDR tone? Saying those unkind “partisan” words.

Yahoo news has a very flattering article on Chuck Grassley and his cowboy style opposition to Obama’s health care inititative. According to Yahoo, Grassley is doing America a great service by opposing heath care reform.

Its got all the Grassley talking points including “pulling the plug on grandma”.

No reader comments are permitted under the article.

Cowboy Grassley should pay Yahoo for the campaign ad.

demi, seems like a lot of folks are getting cranky these days.

Bipartisanship means that instead of We the People getting screwed by the party in power we are getting screwed by both parties.

Every politician has two goals:
1. Get elected
2. Stay elected

I don’t trust either party to do what is right, they both follow some ideological road map to nowhere.

The chief cause of problems are solutions.

How are you going to feel if your private pay insurer cuts you off coverage because you didn’t report your possible pre-exisiting condition at the time you applied for coverage, even though you didn’t even know it existed at the time? That’s a fairly common practice these days with a whole host of insurers.

No system is perfect, nor does it have all the answers. Even the vaunted free marketplace isn’t exactly free nor is is really a market when you dig under the surface a bit.

It’s best to walk into all of this with your eyes wide open to the problems and the benefits on all sides. As someone with a pre-existing autoimmune issue now, I know exactly where I’d stand trying to get insurance on the private market — nowhere. Which is where anyone with one would be if they lost their job at the moment.

There are no black and white answers with any of this. The sooner we all grow up and realize that, the sooner we can start really having a conversation about it. But, alas, I despair of that really happening — including the need for cutting out the drug-company welfare program that was enacted as a part of Medicare during the last few years — which is, I believe, a big portion of what Bloomberg’s report is talking about, isn’t it?

Sorry, if they are going to spend my tax dollars, I’d rather they went into actual care expenditures rather than inflated cost numbers to perk up someone else’s profit spreadsheets without added benefits being gained for the expenditure.

What is new? That there is no real voice for change and the little guy capitalizing on this moment in our nation’s history.

there are some voices but as per usual they are being ignored by status quo media (but not media like amy goodman and bill moyers). on the issue of healthcare reform, i’d like to give a plug for PNHP (physicians for a national health program) and CNA/NNOC (california nurses association/national nurses organizing committee).

these great organizations are among those which have been working for years to bring national single payer health insurance for comprehensive universal healthcare to the usa.

nobody out, everybody in
no copays, no deductibles, no coinsurance
choose your own doctors and hospitals who must compete for your business

a real fix, not a band-aid to coverup a broken and murderous system.

I was actually talking more about an elected voice there — but yes, there are a LOT of voices out in the rest of the country. What I’d like is one inside the Beltway that actually stands up and says what we all know needs to be said — and then acts on it.

Not holding my breath though, sad to say.

Politicians are against term limits, they want a life time job. But if there were term limits, during their last term in office they could let it fly because they would not have to worry about being re-elected.

i am also concerned about the possibilities of cuts to medicare. there is plenty of money for healthcare but we need to stop subsidizing the private insurance companies with hundreds of billions a year of our money.

Am sympathetic to terms limits (since I live in Chicago where we have a monarchy) but worry that an unintended consequence would be unelected staffers would be as/more powerful than a bunch of newbie legislators, and that would be worse.

You left out the most important step:

Every politician has two goals:
1. Get elected
2. Stay elected
3. Get lobbying jobs for wife, kids, and self after leaving office.

could be, sorry not enough coffee.

I have a column at the Philly Weekly, which has a circulation of about 100,000 readers.

if Obama fucks us on health care reform, i am going to use that column to advocate strenuously for the defeat of democRats in 2010, 2012 and moving forward. I will urge my readers to vote for ANYONE except the republicans and the democRats.

I am so fucking tired of this shit. I did not expect to have my fondest wishes handed to me on a silver platter, but I certainly did not expect to be served a pile of excrement with a sign on it reading “fresh fudge” either.

well, there are a few like kucinich and massa.

buit maybe fdr was able to do what he did because the people were organized and agitating for real change? (and i most certainly don’t mean any of the idiotic health insurance bailout bills our dem leaders and hcan are trying to pretend is healthcare reform).

how can we expect real healthcare reform from deecee if we are not agitating for it? i include myself in this because, unlike the good people at PNHP and CNC, until the past year i haven’t done much to further the cause.

I am not against reform. It does need to be done but not in a bill that is 1,300 pages long.
I think that insurance companies should have to take people with pre-existing conditions.
Also, individuals should be able to pick the coverages they want, not have policies loaded up with a lot of individual state mandates. Insurance companies should be able to offer insurance anywere in the US.
Doctor and hospital fees should be standard and made public. People, working or retired should have health savings accounte. Policies should be for catastrophic coverage. Low income people should recieve “Health Grants” that can only be placed in and used out of their Health Savings Accounts (These could be modeled after Pell Grants for College Students).
Tort refor will help. It has here in Texas and increased the number of doctors.
I know a number of peope who have the $$$ to pay for insurance but refuse. They should be required to sign a legally binding form that they are responsible for all of their health costs.
Hospitals in urban areas should be allowed to have plans that the offer directly to the public – this is done in Houston and the Hospitals have agreements with other Hospitals around the country.

Renowned political cartoonist Paul Conrad on Congressional BiPartisanship; drawn during the Clinton impeachment. Times refused to print it; but then L.A. Weekly did.

GOPers Decrying “Socialized Medicine” Go To Govt. Hospital For Surgeries

Republicans in Congress have raised the specter of a bloated, “socialized,” bureaucrat-run nightmare of a health care system as a means of undermining the White House’s effort at a systematic overhaul. And yet, as Democratic sources are now pointing out, when medical crisis hit close to home, many of these same officials turned to a government-run hospital for their own intensive care and difficult surgeries.

Government medicine is good for Republican leaders but it is bad for you!

I worked with the State Legislature in Florida and the down side of term limits was that the staff was very powerful and only turned over with changes in leadership and even that happened infrequently. Real leaders did not let the staff “run the show” they told the staff what they wanted and it was my way or the highway.

Well maybe try to pace your rage until you see how it turns out. Obama asked Congress to actually do their job and write a bill, just providing general outlines of the end goals for both energy and health care. The House did their job, the Senate foot dragged. What a nonsurprise. Still the effort should have been made, I think, b/c Congress has been a rubber stamp amen chorus for Bush and the Republicans for a decade and need to break out of that rut and start legislating. It’s no good for democracy any other way.

But this is one of his main administration goals so I like that he is going to speak to Congress and actively work them. If it works out all the Obama rage from the left and right will have just been a lot of hot air and wasted energy. I know a lot of people think that should have been done already but I just don’t like dictatorships. I’m a Chicagoan, and sure would like a little more democracy around here.

It does need to be done but not in a bill that is 1,300 pages long.

i certainly agree with you there! hr 676 is about 30 pages.

and actually i wouldn’t object to much of the other points you make, except that it is grossly inefficient. for what the country is paying for healthcare right now (total national health expenditures) we could pay for the healthcare of every person — everything! — just by organizing the financing the way other modern nations do.

i don’t know about you, but it irks me to know that my country is being run like a third word back water when other industrialized countries are conducting their business like modern efficient nations.

It’s refreshing to see CHS and biographer JES underscore the more relevant positive example for today of a strong no-compromise leader like FDR (and I’d add JFK) who stood for important progressive policy and could use the bully pulpit to move public opinion. There has been far too much nonsense on too many lib blogs of late hyping the alleged qualities of a certain president of the modern era known for his bullying tactics and deception. No chance at all that Obama could or would want to emulate that, nor do I think ultimately it would be good idea to want a Dem president to try to act in Cheney/Rove like ways.

Strong but ethical presidents can still be effective. Obama has the ethical down, and also the ability to persuade. He just needs to work on the strong part.

Of course, it never hurt Roosevelt to have Congress composed of more than 70% Dems …

i’m a big sucker for gallows humor. although i do wish there weren’t so many opportunities to use it!

hope you are well christy, and that you have a great day. i’m off for more coffee…

I’m sympathetic to the idea of term limits. Get in, do your thing, and come back to live with what you’ve done.

The practice, though, is worse than unelected staffers running things. Lobbyists (unelected and paid by special interests) actually end up running things. “Hi there, congratulations on winning your election. Let me help you by showing you how things really work around here.”

Term-limited legislators are also vulnerable to influence purchase. When der Governator needed a vote in the Assembly on something or another, he went to a term-limited D from Shafter. He offered her a job in Economic Development in his (mal)Administration. She has no apparent ED background in her bio. She gave him her vote, and stepped down from the Lege into whatever made-up position she was offered. When the Bakersfield Californian asked her what is was exactly that she did, she said she didn’t know.

Term limits for executives seem to work reasonably well, and they do act to prevent tyranny from too much power gathering around the executive. But term limits for legislators have been tried and found wanting.

with all due respect, ,a href=”http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/grijalva-white-house-telling-reformers-it-will-cease-support-for-public-option.php”>did you miss grijalva’s PR?

Last night, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent out a telling press release.

“I have grave concerns about calls reportedly being made from the Administration to health care reform advocacy organizations supporting the choice of a public option insurance plan,” Grijalva said.

Grijalva said the White House is telling health care reformers, “they will cease supporting the public option portion of the upcoming health care reform legislation”

I have already “saved my rage”. If what Grijalva says is true, this fits a pattern of deception:

candidate Obama promised to restore rule of law; president Obama expanded Bush’s radical theories of state secrets

candidate Obama promised to filibuster the FISA amendments act: candidate Obama also broke that promise and voted in FAVOR of the FISA amendments act.

candidate Obama promised to repeal DADT and DOMA: president Obama not only defended them but included language in the briefs comparing gay relationships to pedophilia.

candidate Obama promised to close gitmo: president Obama simply moved them to Bagram

So i have two options now. Perhaps this is all a giant ruse meant to confuse the republicans, with Max Baucus and co pretending to be royal dicks by doing whatever the GOP and the Pharm lobbyists say until the last minute. Perhaps David Axelrod saying Obama is cool with jettisoning the public option is an effort to rile up the base and make it impossible for progressives and democrats (not the same thing) to vote for anything but a public option or face hell at home. Perhaps Rahm Emmanuel calling the progressive caucus “fucking stupid” is part of a well-crafted plan to make the caucus that more determined because they don’t like being called names by a foul-mouthed bizarro Tommy Tune. Perhaps this is all a giant O. Henry set-up writ large.

or perhaps it’s some thing like this: candidate Obama promised health care reform: president Obama delivered mandatory insurance with no public option.

As i learned on sesame street, “one of these things is not like the other, tell me can you guess which one?”

Which scenario fits the pattern, whynot?

Wow, yeah, I can see your rage is very well contained. The state secrets decisions disappointed me as well, but not fatally. The FISA bill Obama voted for (another thing I didn’t like, but I’m not the one that got elected, I’m just a supporter), was v. different that the situation we had before that bill passed and had protections in it the Bush admin had resisted. Obama wants DADT and DOMA to be legislatively corrected, rather than by Presidental decree – don’t you believe he will sign those laws when they are passed by Congress? I know it’s frustrating for things to take so long (as if 8 months is a long time), but I’m generally satisfied with the transition so far, obv. you aren’t, your right of course.

The public option has become infused with a lot of hopes and dreams when what it really is, and what drives the insurance companies insane, is a medicare + something reimbursement that will offer non-profit priced coverage for general health care, emergency and catastrophic coverage. Of course this is a first step down the path to National Health Care for the US, the holy grail of the unions and most people, and the socialist scare of Republicans.

It has to be phased in somehow. Personally I would like all the uninsured people to avail themselves of the public option immediately, with sliding scale pricing down to subsidized for the poor. Also I would like small businesses to be able to access the exchange with a public option right away as well. I’m not the President so all I can do is push for it.

I try not to pay too much attention to the pundits, the insiders, Rahm & Axe, etc. I’m more concerned with what actions are really taking place, which is what has attracted me to this site. It’s disappointing to me that there is so much Obama bashing here but the conversation is crackling smart, so worth it.

Anyway have gone on a long winded answer to say, President Obama has not delivered anything yet, certainly not mandatory insurance w/o a public non-profit option, so you are jumping to conclusions and thusly not pacing your rage, just venting it early.

Christy, GM. Not sure if you are still around. I just learned that Eric Holder is in our town today for the keynote speech at lunch of the National Hispanic Bar Assn.

Not sure if I can go, but I find that there are still tickets available.

Your O. Henry analogy provides an apt and succinct description of what Obama apologists are currently believing.

In the real world, it certainly looks like Obama is planning to sell progressives down the river. We should know by next Wedneday’s speech or sooner.

I have been thinking for many years that the corporations owned congress thru the legal “bribery” of “campaign contributions”. Now that the rethug majority SCOTUS is going to take up a case that is all about unlimited amounts of money and the corps being able to really give the big bucks, well the end is near isn’t it? I fully expect that the laws ment to protect the individual against the corps, along with food and drug safety and protecting the US against strip mining and logging will be changed. The rethugs started the changes, the dems will continue because their votes are already owned by the corps.
For many years I thought that I was along with these thoughts, then I watched Bill Moyers interview with Bill Mahr. He described far better than I can what the problem is, how the corps have moved in to buy both sides in congress. Our republic is now a sham, the peoples votes really mean nothing because the corporate oligarchs own the only votes that matter. Ike, way way back in 1960 was 100% correct when he warned about the military industrial complex. Its really 2 bad that no one listened. I still believe in my prediction that in 20-50 years the US will openly become an oligarchy fronted by a theocratic authoritarian dictatorship will a massive military openly used to further corporate aims around the world. The rest of the world is rightly afraid of us, our military is already being used to further the aims of corps.

Well good then perhaps this Obama apologist can respectfully request y’all not rip him to shreds until then and have a pleasant holiday in the meantime.

Sorrowfully you are correct I fear. Big biz has thoroughly greased both sides of the aisle and in the last decade have become so bold as to write legislation for/with Congressional staffers. A complete fucking disgrace, never covered on teevee (also controlled by big biz). I’ve felt for a long time that if it weren’t for the internet the US wouldn’t even be a majority rule democracy anymore.

So we know the problem, what’s the solution? I fear the 60’s are coming back, and I don’t mean just tie-dye. We could be headed to a lot of civil unrest.

O and the Dems in the pocket of lobbyists (just like the GOP)

Paul B. Farrell in MarketWatch:

Yes, folks, democracy is dead. Oh, the illusion will be kept alive in our history books, in the rhetoric of politicians, in the manipulated minds of America’s 95 million Main Street investors. The propaganda machine works. Like a child’s fairy tale, democracy has been deeply imbedded in our brains for decades; we prefer believing old, familiar stories. They comfort us, even when no longer true. The real democracy, what so many fought and died for since 1776, is dead.

Lobbyists now run America, own America, rule America. Forget the 537 politicians you thought we elected to the White House, Senate and Congress to run America for us. No, they’re mere puppets, pawns for the “Happy Conspiracy,” an oligopoly, plutocracy, cabal, monopoly all-in-one — a private club of America’s richest few on Wall Street, in Washington and in Corporate America.

Voters and elections are irrelevant. Lobbyists decide what’s in the best interests of this elite club. The usual suspects? Try the Forbes 400.

Democracy is dead … lobbyists rule America: 16-point manifesto for the new ‘Lobbyist Nation of America’

cynic

Jean Edward Smith is male.

And his bio of FDR is really fine, too.

The big problem is President Obama is losing the confidence of those people who thought he’d fight like a tiger for their needs and interests. At the election, I and many others thought, ‘Okay, it’s gonna be tough, but finally we’ll see genuine reforms. Investigations & trials. DOMA and DADT repealed in short order. Insurance for the first time in six years…’

Now, honestly, it’s smelling more and more like this is going to be a giveaway, a horrorshow in which the insurance companies are handed obscene piles of taxpayer cash, just so they can keep screwing the sick. Proving once again, power and money trumps everything.

I’d like to be optimistic, but since January it’s felt like one disappointment and betrayal after another.

You recognize it’s gonna be tough but are unwilling to tough it out? The Onion had a cartoon after the election headlined ‘Black guy gets worst job in America’. That’s pretty damn on the mark, I’d say. Pastors on the right are praying someone shoots him. The left calls him a sellout and worse.

He’s trying to get the government to function again. You know, Congress actually representing people, the AG acting independently, the economy back on it’s feet, the unemployed having a safety net stretched under them. Decent foreign relations with other countries. It’s a lot to do and will take a long time.

Also I would like small businesses to be able to access the exchange with a public option right away as well.

I can’t wait to hear details of the actual senate bill presented. I’ve yet to understand why businesses would need access at all if each citizen is choosing their own plan. Does the current discussion still connect insurance with the workplace for tax collection purposes? Why would a business entity need to contribute at all? Wouldn’t it be more revenue friendly if businesses were required to pay a living wage?

And am I on the wrong track? I thought Congress was coming up with plans for the President to review. We haven’t heard a plan from the President at this point because it’s too early in the process, correct?

You are correct, Congress was asked to produce a bill with a few major guidelines/goals from the WH before the summer recess. The Senate failed to complete their work and wanted time to keep at it – Sept. 15 is the cutoff as I understand it.

Small businesses have suffered quite a lot with healthcare costs over the last decade and they’ve passed a lot of those costs to employees. Worse, the cost of providing healthcare benefits has almost certainly stifled hiring by these small firms and other firms have simply dropped coverage for any employees.

Historically employers have paid for healthcare in this country. They have found ways around that in the last decade as costs have mounted – part-timers, independent contractors, employee coverage only leaving out the family, etc. People are better covered under group plans generally, you don’t see rescission and other abuses as often as that fate befalls people with individual plans.

It could be we will get to every citizen having free access to the exchange and making their pick. Probably the transition to that will take a some time and people that completely lack coverage now will have to go first. People that have great group coverage like it and are already yelling they don’t want their employer incentived to cut that off.

I believe you are taking the right approach to wait and see what the bills look like and who conferences. Let’s hope it’s not Lieberman for either side.

Probably the transition to that will take a some time and people that completely lack coverage now will have to go first. People that have great group coverage like it and are already yelling they don’t want their employer incentived to cut that off.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Seems like expanding Medicare to all would allow unions or employers to negotiate more favorable group rates. Do that many existing employees have cadillac policies, or is this a “bird in the hand” decision? It seems more attractive to me to pay for health insurance the same way I pay my taxes in April.

Thank you as well. I think expanding Medicare eventually should take health care coverage negotiations out of union talks completely, but we are a long way from there.

Unions once had the best coverage of any workers, health, vision, dental, drug – you name it they had it. They traded raises and job security for those benefits and many of them lost those bene’s when their companies went under and their pension and benefit plans had to be picked up by the PBGC (pension benefit guarantee corp.). The steel industry is probably the poster child for this, but there are plenty of others. However it’s worth pointing out that the largest purchaser of Viagra is GM.

More likely the resistance comes from the employees of large corporations. They want private plans that improve in terms as they climb the corporate ladder. Small biz has already struggled mightily with insurance costs as we have discussed. Howls of government takeover and keep your hands off my healthcare are really other ways of saying ‘I’ve got mine, fuck the rest of you, fend for yourself like I did’.

Most un-Christian of all those folks. I’m an atheist myself and have more compassion than a lot of those people. But Republicans legislators love the screaming b/c they can pretend to be responding to concerns of their constituents while getting bribed by lobbyists is really why they vote the way they do. Nice, huh?