The Popularity of The Public Option v. The Unpopularity of Republicans

In honor of yesterday breaking the record for hottest day in Washington State since the beginning of the 20th Century, I'll keep this brief (I've got Pabst to drink, and an industrial-sized fan to pray to).

Glenn Greenwald, one of the best writers on politics, media, and that one outdated document some white slave owners ratified way back in the quaint ole' days of 1789, posted these figures from a recent NYT poll that I hope the media, and anyone who considers his or herself a Democrat or progressive would take seriously


Look at the favorability ratings of Democrats versus Republicans (47% to 28%) in Congress! Moreover, Limbaugh's Party has a 61% unfavorable rating!

Now, despite the incoherent fear-mongering about the public option killing grandparents and so on, look at what percentage of Americans would want "a government administered health insurance plan...that would compete with private health insurance plans."

With a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, along with a President who is advocating for a strong public option to compete with private insurers (what the majority of Americans want), we might expect to see exactly that type of bill passing after the August recess----if our representative system actually works!

But why then are many of us so nervous----especially those of us who've voted for Democrats recently?

Probably because we know, at least deep down, that Matt Taibbi is right when he says: "Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters."

So there should be no more excuses: Dems must quit the fake "bipartisan" consensus (always when Dems are in power, never the inverse of course), Blue Dog-Baucus pussyfooting nonsense, and pass what the people want and need in order to join the rest of the world's civilized countries.

Otherwise, why vote for a party whose actions belie their stated goals, and even their own name?

Democratic? We'll see!

Trying to Stay Positive on a Hot Day

Starting with the uplifting, the beautiful, and then the funny since it's so goddamn hot today...

Having recently discovered a composer I didn't know existed until moving to Prague, I'm posting this phenomenal piece from Bohuslav Martinu, the adagio from Concerto Da Camera, H 285. The first 3 minutes, especially at 2:25 (the leitmotif played throughout the piece), are some of the most beautiful, melancholic, and frightening melodies I've ever heard. Difficult to admit, but I think he's even better than Stravinsky.

I guess this adagio would qualify as both uplifting and beautiful. Necessary for times like these.

And here's something not to be missed: Obama Axing Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon. This may be my favorite video yet, although it also has to contend with this one. (This article makes a perfect companion piece)

Genius on so many levels!

Now, in case you missed Palin's farewell address, here it is performed, as god intended, with the rambling cadence of William Shatner reciting Beat poetry.



It's too damn hot today (95 degrees) to rant about the Senate predictably excluding from their health care bill a public insurance option and even the paltry requirement for large businesses to provide health insurance for their workers. Or new ways the government and military seek to and succeed in breaking our Posse Comitatus laws.



The health care bill stripping/mutation is not surprising because its main author, leader of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Baucus of Montana, is utterly beholden to the medical industries.

In the past six years, nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by Baucus and his political action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical supply firms, health service companies and other health professionals.

With 22 medical groups spending over $1 million in the 2nd quarter alone, one should be prepared for the impending Democratic letdown on health care. Top among these groups:

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, spent $6.2 million in lobbying expenditures. Pfizer spent $5.6 million, and the American Medical Association spent $3.9 million.

And how much has the "health sector" as a whole spent on lobbying since 1998? According to the National Journal: "$3.4 billion, ranking second only to the financial industry."

Ok, so my wife and I have to pay $500 a month for nominal health insurance, even though she works for a large corporation (actual fact), but at least I can soothe the pain (economic repression) by watching videos like this:


See other cuties here.

Lastly, The Daily Show deftly satirized the environmental cap and trade bill's transformation, which perfectly illustrates the same process occurring right now with the health care bill. Would love to show this alongside "Schoolhouse Rock- How a Bill Becomes a Law" to my History/Government students.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jon Stewart Jizz-Ams in Front of Children - Cap'n Trade
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Beer me; it's hot today.

The Post Dies, Obama's "Post-Acquittal Detentions," and Republicans for Consolidated Markets

After inexplicably firing Dan Froomkin, its only actual journalist that understands the profession's true role in society----to find the truth about news events and scrutinize power, both government and private----The Washington Post proceeded to abruptly die. It committed suicide a few days back by auctioning off its connections as a power broker of the Fourth Estate: a long fall from the investigative heroicism of the WaPost of the Watergate scandal and All the President's Men.

Post publisher Katharine Weymouth has decided to solicit payoffs of between $25,000 and $250,000 from Washington lobbyists, in return for one or more private dinners in her home, where lucky diners will receive a chance for “your organization’s CEO” to interact with “Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post” and “key Obama administration and Congressional leaders..."

RIP and good riddance.

Here is yet another encouraging sign of "change" (i..e. continuity with the Bush regime) from the Obama administration: that they are arguing the right to detain non-Americans even after they've been found innocent by a military tribunal or regular court. They are calling it "post-acquittal detentions."

Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

No, believe it: Here, and here also for wise commentary.

Well, remember the furor over Nancy Pelosi stating that the CIA wasn't entirely honest with her and Congress? Now we know that "CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001."

And with the new intelligence authorization bill up in Congress, the White House is siding with Republicans, saying a veto is necessary "if it includes a Democratic-written provision requiring the president to notify the intelligence committees in their entirety about covert CIA activities."

Today, the president only has to inform "top Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate and the senior Democratic and Republican members on each chamber's Intelligence Committee." Not even all members of our congressional intelligence committees, let alone all of our "representative government," have a right to know what the Executive branch does through its extra-constitutional, intelligence/military arm, the CIA.

Nice to see such agreement----"consensus"-----among Repubs and Obama. The former Bush administration would no doubt approve of Obama's conviction for "transparency" in this case, mainly because his actions define the term as

1. the quality of a body which renders it impervious to the rays of light;

2. want of transparency;

3. opaqueness.

Lastly, surprise surprise: According to Health Care for America Now, and based on data from the American Medical Association, 94% of health insurance markets are categorized as "highly concentrated."

So when "conservatives" like Richard Shelby cry that the public option to create actual competition in the health insurance market is the "first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known," and that it would "destroy the marketplace for health care," we, and our representatives should be quick to point out that right now there is NO competitive marketplace! They should be assertively reminded that in opposing a public option, they are actually advocating their support for consolidation, and fostering the increase of corporate, oligarchical power in society. What are some consequences of this "consolidation"?

Premiums have gone up over the past six years by more than 87 percent, on average, while profits at ten of the largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Olympia Snow of Maine went so far as to decry the very fact that a public option would lower the cost of health insurance, which one would imagine should be the goal of legislation to provide more Americans with coverage. This is implicit support for the consolidation that already exists, with its peculiarly unrivaled entitlement to exorbitant profits at the expense of peoples' health.

In an Associated Press interview in Portland, Snowe said it would be unfair to include a government-run health insurance option that would take effect immediately.

“If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market … the public option will have significant price advantages,” she said.

Poor, weak little insurance companies, like WellPoint, which control 78% of Maine's insurance market: My heart just breaks for you companies, as opposed to the "47 million people, or 15.8 percent of the U.S. population" without health insurance (Numbers from 2006 Census).

Democrats better step it up and have a truly progressive health care reform bill, especially now that they have 60 votes in the senate: There are no excuses this time!