You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (52)

PLAYS: (117)

The Villagers on the Chris Matthews panel all agree on a couple of points. The dirty f-ing hippies on the left have no right to demand anything of President Obama and were silly to think he’d live up to his campaign promise to reform our health care system. And two, any bill, whether it’s terrible or not that the President signs will be “transformational” and “historic”.

It doesn’t matter to them if it’s a crap sandwich which ends up being nothing but a giveaway to the insurance industry. What matters is that it passes. Andrea Mitchell seems positively giddy at the idea that it will be “criticized from all sides”. That’s a good thing Andrea?

While I agree with them on Afghanistan and that the President did not promise to get us out of there, President Obama did promise some real reform on health care and he also talked about cleaning the lobbyists and their influence out of Washington. This is hardly what’s going on now with Max Baucus and his lobbyists writing the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee.

And Clarence Page conflates going between single-payer and the public option to the compromises being talked about now. Note to Clarence Page. Going from the public option to a trigger—or no public option at all—is not the same as hedging between single payer and the public option. One is an already bad compromise that might lead to reform. The other is just loading up the pockets of the insurance industry by forcing everyone into the system with no price controls.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (853)

PLAYS: (2466)

Last night on Countdown, Eugene Robinson and Keith Olbermann agreed on the risks for Obama: If he doesn't come up with a viable public option, he will very likely face a challenger in the Democratic primary.

Olbermann: But what about the risk of passing some sort of interim measure here and we hear Congressman [Raul] Grijalva, who's the head of the Progressive Caucus having released a statement last night about grave concerns about these contacts supposedly from the administration to health care reform advocacy organizations they are going to cease supporting the public option. What good does it profit a man to win a bill and lose the base of his party?

Robinson: In the medium term and in the long run it doesn't strike me as a great idea. I mean look, you could say okay, this is the best bill we can get. Is the liberal Progressive Caucus going to thwart what is possible in search of the perfect? And so you could put them in that position and you could maybe wrestle them into going along with what they consider a bad bill, but there's a lot else on the table. He's, our involvement in Afghanistan is deepening, we're talking about Iraq, we're talking about Guantanamo. We're talking about a lot of issues on which the Progressive Caucus is going to have a lot to say and I don't think you want them to be in a foul mood.

Olbermann: No, no, no because he's compromised on everything so far and as self defeating as it might be, the Progressive Caucus and progressives would abandon him if necessary if this were to be the policy of this administration into 2012. If it's necessary to find somebody else to run against him, I think they'd do it no matter how destructive that might seem at face value.

Robinson: Well, I think that is possible. We are a more polarized nation right now and I think searching for a mythical center, a mythical compromise between doing something and doing nothing, ah... there's nothing in the middle there, you know. Either you're going to do something or you're not and I think you've got to choose.

Olbermann: The middle has been nothing all this time. This is just a different variant of it.

Meanwhile, the House Dems' Progressive Caucus has fired a return shot across the bow. Last night they delivered a letter to the White House: Not only will they not support a House bill, they will not vote for the final bill without it and asked for a meeting with the president:

We continue to support the robust public option that was reported out of the Committees on Ways and Means and Education and Labor and will not vote for a weakened bill on the House Floor or returning from a Conference with the Senate.

Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, a public option built on the Medicare provider system and with reimbursement based on Medicare rates-not negotiated rates-is unacceptable.(...)

A health reform bill without a robust public option will not achieve the health reform this country so desperately needs. We cannot vote for anything less.

To date, only six members have signed. If they get to 40, we have a very different ballgame.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (962)

PLAYS: (6789)

Eleanor Clift and Clarence Page (two actual liberals for once) beat back host John McLaughlin and pundits Rich Lowry and Monica Crowley's patented GOP talking points on health care reform on The McLaughlin Group. Clift gets in the best line of the day when Lowry tried to claim that a private option would put the insurance companies out of business. Lo and behold, Lowry and Co. seemed to be reading right off of this list of health care reform myths.

Lowry: That's the entire point. Unless this is stripped down radically, that's what will happen, and that's what the liberals want.

McLaughlin: Eleanor.

Clift: There will be 40 to 50 million new customers and a lot of those customers are customers that the private market doesn't even want, and there's plenty to go around that you can coexist with add-ons, and the government is providing, is going to provide a subsidy, a very basic plan and people will buy extras. The insurance industry will flourish but, I'm with Clarence. Since when is this about protecting the insurance industry? This is about protecting people's health care. They're making a ton of money. [..]

Lowry: Do you want your insurer to go out of business, Clarence? Do you want your insurer to go out of business? You want to get dropped from your employer coverage?

Page: My coverage has been going down, Rich, and so have a lot of other people's and I'm not in bad shape....

It was pretty amusing watching Clift and Page basically get Lowry and Crowley to admit the truth: The GOP only wants to protect the private insurance companies. Even if it led to something close to single payer as Clift notes, it would not mean the insurance companies are out of business. To the horror of conservatives and the conserva-Dems who are in the pockets of the insurance industries, it only would mean they'd be making a hell of a lot less money for basic health care and offering supplemental plans to those who could afford it instead.

It was also nice to see someone take one of these talking heads to task when they bring up the Lewin Group and let them know that "non-partisan" doesn't mean "unbiased". I noticed Lowry didn't have much of a response when Clift called him on that nonsense other than to try to keep talking and pretend he didn't hear her.

I'd personally prefer that Congress focused their energies on Single Payer (as we all know, including The Lewin Group, that makes the most sense)--as would everyone who contributes at this site--but that unfortunately is not the political climate we're living in right now. Until we clean up the legalized bribery going on with corporations and lobbyists buying and selling our members of Congress, this is going to be a huge uphill battle. Until that reform happens, if ever, we need to hold their feet to the fire to do the right thing.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOAD (78)

PLAY (114)

...Or reason #7,589 why the Media is hurting America.

This clip is so unfocused that I think it perfectly exemplifies how the media dumbs down the populace so that the average American hasn't a clue what's going on.

Chris Matthews starts the segment by bemoaning that the Obama administration has no really strong spokespeople out there to sell their economic plan. So far, no argument there. The Republicans have been much better in throwing sand in our eyes and giving these easily digestible soundbytes that sound good on the surface. Of course, that's when Matthews goes off the rails a bit and says that the Obama needs someone as clear as Limbaugh to speak for the administration, but as Clarence Page suggests, that's only if you want to convince a very small portion of the citizenry:

MATTHEWS: You know who can talk? You know who can talk? Limbaugh. You don’t have to like the big guy, but you know what he does? He defends capitalism. What he says is, “You, Mr. President, are out there raising taxes and getting rid of deductability and itemization and putting more injury on those of us who are already injured. You’re hurting the people who are driving the truck.”

PAGE: Right, and nobody believes that but dittoheads. The fact is, Bush has already done the same darn thing. That argument isn’t working right now. People know that government is in a spend mode, and by the way, you know we’ve been in….

MATTHEWS: Limbaugh’s numbers are doubled. Barack Obama’s numbers are not doubled.

PAGE: That’s his job, though, look at the numbers. About 18% of the public agrees with Limbaugh. You don’t win elections that way, you get radio ratings. But ever since Reagan, we’ve been on a trend of taxing lower income people and giving breaks to the upper income. Obama has slightly reversed that now, and I don’t see a revolution in the streets.

Nice of Matthews to go ahead and echo the ratings/audience share exaggeration for Limbaugh. Who needs facts?

The panel then admits that Wall Street are looking for immediate solutions with no pain to them. Gosh, that's not an unrealistic outlook at all, is it? The continued focus on the tax increases on the wealthiest 2% of the population is simply intended to scare the rest of us schmoes not making that kind of cash...and as CNBC's Trish Regan admits, won't even come into play until 2011. Rick Stengel has the money quote (literally):

STENGEL: Look, I confess that some of my best friends are investment bankers. You know, I won’t…you shouldn’t hold it against me. But they are… to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They are just looking at the things that help them. They are not looking for the wider economy, the relationship between Wall St. and actual value of companies has never been wider. And by the way, I’d say to Rush Limbaugh, and as he says to his folks, how is capitalism working for you these days? Not very good, right? I mean, these people are hurting and people want to have the government do something.

That's it in a nutshell, isn't it? These "economic experts" like Limbaugh are big WATBs complaining because THEY are hurt. They couldn't care less about the country as a whole. But to further obfuscate the issue, Matthews' Meter Question asks if we should blame the Obama administration for some of the economic doom and gloom:

Um, excuse me? Didn't we just agree that all this hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over the stimulus plan is due to economists looking for an unrealistic quick fix that offers no pain to them, even if it's not in the best interest for the country? How's that the Obama administration's fault. Even reliable GOP mouthpiece Kathleen Parker (who voted yes) admits that the stock market performed worse under Bush.

Once again, the Fourth Estate abdicates their responsibility to inform the public.

Clarence Page

Despite Cheney's disclaimer, he and Bush are `sensitive' too

Published August 18, 2004