Buck Naked Politics

More on Blue Dog Ties to Health Care Industry; Progressives in House Fight Back

bartleby the scrivener |  MSNBC looks deeper into Blue Dog ties to the health care industry they're hell bent on protecting through this "compromise legislation" we're hearing so much about.  While unsurprising, it ain't a pretty sight.   From MSNBC's story:

The roiling debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of Ross and 51 other members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House....

[T]he group has set a record pace for fundraising this year through its political action committee, surpassing other congressional leadership PACs in collecting more than $1.1 million through June. More than half the money came from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries, marking a notable surge in donations from those sectors compared with earlier years, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity....

Rove Had Bigger Role than Thought in Firing U.S. Attorneys

I remember nearly two years ago, when ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resigned amid  scandal -- after nine or ten of his underlings resigned, partly because our Justice Department had become so politicized.  I remember the repeated ignoring of congressional subpoenas by Bush Adminsitration officials who apparently did not want to say what they knew about Justice Department politicization.

Via Memeorandum, the Washington Post reports:

"Political adviser Karl Rove and other high-ranking figures in the Bush White House played a greater role than previously understood in the firing of federal prosecutors almost three years ago, according to e-mails obtained by The Washington Post, in a scandal that led to mass Justice Department resignations and an ongoing criminal probe.

"The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri's Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove's former clients; and Arkansas's Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protege."

See the rest of the story here.  The big question is this: will the Obama Administration seek to hold accountable those officials who blatantly ignored the rule of law and corrupted our Justice Department.

Reducing Executive Pay & Contractor Fraud Would Lower Health Care Costs

by Deb Cupples |  Certain health-care-industry lapdogs who call themselves "Blue Dog Democrats" are retarding health-care reform.  Apparently, the Blue Lapdogs don't want to give us hardworking Americans the freedom to choose between private health insurance and a non-profit, public option. 

Bizarre, I know, given that having choices is good.

Blue Lapdog Mark Ross (D-Ark) claims that he wants affordable health care -- he just wants lower costs. (Huffington Post)

If reducing the costs is all that concerns the Blue Lapdogs, then they should examine at least these three factors contributing to our massive health-care costs: 1) insurance company profits,  2) executive pay at insurance companies, and 3) health-care-contractor fraud.

Every dollar that goes toward insurance company profits or executive pay is one less dollar to pay for our health care.  Period.  A recent report states:

Profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly-traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion, according to U.S. Securities and exchange Commission filings." (HCAN report)

Note that profits are calculated after executive pay (which is a pre-profit "expense").  The table below gives a tiny glimpse of how much money insurance company execs have been funneling into their personal pockets.

Compensation for Top 5 (or 4) Insurance Company Execs (2006-2007)

["m" is short for million]

	2006	2007	2-year Total	% Change
Aetna	. $35.7 m .	.  $40.1 m .	$75.8 m	+ 12.3%
CIGNA	$32.9 m	$43.5 m	$76.4 m	n/a
Humana	$14.9 m	$22.4 m	$37.3 m	+ 50.3%
MetLife	$41.3 m	$45.9 m	$87.2 m	+ 11.1%
WellPoint....	$45.5 m	$33.2 m	$78.7 m	n/a
Totals	$170.3 m	$185.1 m	$355.4 m

Racists Call Obama a Racist; Ratchet Up the Race-Based Criticisms

by bartleby the scrivener | TPM has a compilationof ratcheted-up racist rhetoric now found acceptable to Obama's opponents.  Interesting.  Media Matters has prepared a compilation. 

Annnnd...the Health Care Infighting Wags On, Spreads to the Senate; Waters Warns Blue Dogs of Political Repercussions

by bartleby the scrivener | A bipartisan group of senators, led by Max Baucus, is all set to exclude "a government-run insurance option from the committee’s draft legislation that could be marked up next week."  (The Hill)  For some reason, Baucus et al. are more worried about attracting Republican support than coming together with their fellow Dems to give US taxpayers the cheaper health care we urgently need.  Why is that, hmmmm?  Why is that?

The Washington Post points out that the final product of this bipartisan cabal will shed many of Obama's priorities and make hash of many of his promises. (WaPo) 

Study: Texting Drastically Increases Car Crash Risk

The New York Times reports:

"The first study of drivers texting inside their vehicles shows that the risk sharply exceeds previous estimates based on laboratory research — and far surpasses the dangers of other driving distractions.

"The new study, which entailed outfitting the cabs of long-haul trucks with video cameras over 18 months, found that when the drivers texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting."

"Duhhhhh!"  Is anyone arguing otherwise?  See the rest of the article here.

Still More Specious Arguments re: Health Care Debate

by Deb Cupples | In a Washington Post op-ed, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein states:

"Obama has said that he would favor a British-style "single payer" system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry.

"The Obama plan to have a government insurance provider that can undercut the premiums charged by private insurers would undoubtedly speed the arrival of such a single-payer plan. It is hard to think of any other reason for the administration to want a government insurer when there is already a very competitive private insurance market that could be made more so by removing government restrictions on interstate competition."

What am I missing, here?  There's a great reason for an optional, non-profit, government sponsored insurance program -- at least for us consumers: it would make health care coverage cost a lot less for millions of us hardworking Americans. 

Even private-industry-cheerleading columnist George Will admits that.

I hate to be repetitive, but I don't think the point is being given due attention.

Only 60% Disapprove of Congress: an Improvement over Last Year

Posted by Deb Cupples |  Via Memeorandum:

"A FOX News poll released Monday shows that 30 percent of voters say they approve of the job Congress is doing, while twice as many -- 60 percent -- disapprove. In May, 41 percent approved and 49 percent disapproved."

The implication is that Americans disapprove of Democrats  -- not surprising, given that Fox reported the results.

Then again, a lot of Americans aren't happy with Congress -- especially progressives who feel that the solidly Democratic-controlled House is failing to come through on progressive goals.  I'm not happy with Congress for just that reason, but I still think we have a better shot at getting good things done for taxpayers, consumers and investors than we did back when the Republican controlled Congress steadily deregulated everything it could -- one result being the collapse of our nation's financial system and economy.

Still, the 60% disapproval of Congress that Fox reports isn't all that bad when you look back over time (I mean more than a couple months).  In a July 2007, for example,  W60% disapproved of Congress and 37% approved. 

In July 2008, 71% disapproved of Congress and only 23% approved. That looks like improvement to me.

Incidentally, you can't read congressional approval ratings the same way one reads a president's approval ratings, because Congress usually has lower ratings than a president.  Perhaps that's so, in part, because there's only one president -- while congress has 535 people to get mad at.

The Palin Resignation Speech: Not Hurt, Just Very, Very Angry

by bartleby the scrivener | CBS has got the story on Sarah Palin's farewell to the governorship, wherein she lashed out at the media. 

In her nearly 20-minute speech, which directly preceded incoming governor Sean Parnell's swearing in, Palin had only a few words to say about her successor, but she had plenty of advice for journalists.

"You represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy," she said. "Democracy depends on you, and that is why-that's why our troops are willing to die for you. So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin' things up." ..The heated tenor that Palin employed to lash out at the press and others who she said were "hell-bent on tearing down our nation," was the exclamation point on a dramatic turnaround in her relationship with the media, which had once been something close to symbiotic.  (CBS).

Akmuckraker at Mudflats has the full transcript.  As Akmuckraker says it's all crazy good.

Krugman on Blue Dogs: Why Obama Can't Throw Them a Bone

by Bartleby the Scrivener | Deb's taken a couple of runs at the specious arguments of the "Blue Dog Democrats" in whose money-greased palms the fate of health care reform (and maybe of the Obama administration) currently rests.  Can Obama appease their concerns?  Paul Krugman thinks not.

[H]e can’t — because the Blue Dogs aren’t making sense....

So what are the objections of the Blue Dogs?

Well, they talk a lot about fiscal responsibility, which basically boils down to worrying about the cost of those subsidies. And it’s tempting to stop right there, and cry foul. After all, where were those concerns about fiscal responsibility back in 2001, when most conservative Democrats voted enthusiastically for that year’s big Bush tax cut — a tax cut that added $1.35 trillion to the deficit?

But it’s actually much worse than that — because even as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost.

More Specious Arguments re: the Health Care Debate

by Deb Cupples |  Apparently, the folks running The Politico are dead set against a public option for health insurance -- instead preferring a so-called "free market" approach (yes, the same "free market" approach that has, over the last couple decades, resulted in health care costs skyrocketing into the stratosphere).

Perhaps the folks at The Politico aren't capable of drawing logical conclusions based on objective examination of data from our nation's recent history.

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman tells us:

"Judging both from comments on this blog and from some of my mail, a significant number of Americans believe that the answer to our health care problems — indeed, the only answer — is to rely on the free market. Quite a few seem to believe that this view reflects the lessons of economic theory.

"Not so. One of the most influential economic papers of the postwar era was Kenneth Arrow’s Uncertainty and the welfare economics of health care, which demonstrated — decisively, I and many others believe — that health care can’t be marketed like bread or TVs. Let me offer my own version of Arrow’s argument...."

I'm glad that Dr. Krugman mentions the article, but I submit that nothing more than a grasp of simple arithmetic is needed for us ordinary folks to understand that relying on the so-called "free market" will not result in high quality yet affordable health care.

Please hear me out:

Did Bush Seek to Keep Evidence of Global Warming Secret?

by Deb Cupples |  I like reading foreign newspapers' take on American politics.  Via Memeorandum, the Guardian UK reports:

"Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

"The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week."

The big question is this: why would the Bush Administration even seek to keep such photos secret?  It's not as though people plotting to stage a homeland attack on the U.S. would establish a base camp in the Arctic circle -- at least not people with brains enough to successfully pull off such an attack.

So, why would our ex-President deprive the American people of what were -- at the very least --  cool pics paid for with our considerable tax dollars?

Are Polls and Media Misleading Us re: Health Care Reform?

by Deb Cupples |  The Hill tells us that a group of so-called "Blue Dog Democrats" in Congress feel they've been lied to by pro-public-insurance-option Dems during the health-care reform debate.  I could not discern from the article precisely how they were deceived.  Maybe I read it too quickly.

Ironically, Blue Dog congressional districts tend to be on the poor side -- meaning that Blue Dog congressmen's constituents tend to need more affordable health care.

Rasmussen claims that only 44% of some people surveyed via telephone now support health-care reform -- down from 46% two weeks ago, down from 50% in late June.  Frankly, I don't understand how public opinion could turn so drastically on an issue as basic as health care.

Then again, maybe it hasn't turned.  Rasmussen is, after all, just one pollster.  Yesterday, The Hill reported that only one major pollster came up with results indicating that a majority opposed reforms: Rasmussen.  The Hill also reports that Rasmussen had to "misstate facts" to generate the negative results.

Can You Say "Posse Comitatus"? Bush Considered Using Military in Making Arrests on American Soil

 by Bartleby the Scrivener |  And the revelations keep on coming. Constitution?  Constitution?  Eh, who cares?  It's just "a goddam piece of paper."  As Steve Benen comments, "the list of laws they felt comfortable ignoring keeps getting longer."

Though, as is becoming usual, we find Cheney at the forefront of this charge against the Constitution...along with the other usual suspects at the DoJ, e.g., Addington and Yoo, plus some "senior defense department officials"  while Condi, Mueller, & Co.allegedly argued in favor of not trampling quite so openly over the Constitution and the law of the land, for which kudos to them.  The pro-military advocates relied, as Terry Partridge points out at FDL, on "the Yoo/Delahunty 10/23/01 memo that found the President's powers to fight terror to be almost limitless."

Cheney and Bush Broke Over Libby Pardon? Fascinating Reframe of Bush in TIME Magazine Article

by Damozel | An article in TIME by Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf called Legacy Fight:  Inside Bush and Cheney's Tense Final Days recounts Bush's and Cheney's break over the Scooter Libby pardon that never was.   You all know what happened there:  having had the president commute his sentence, he didn't get the pardon.  The article gives a long account of how Cheney worked to get it for him and how Bush failed to give it.

The most interesting aspect of the piece, according to me, is the way it presents Bush and the Prince of Darkness, Dick Cheney.  The truth is, of course, always more complex than you think it is -- but the insistence in this article (mostly in asides) on Bush's good intentions and his respect for truth, the law, and the judicial system is unsettling, given everything that happened on his watch.  Is this what we have to look forward to:  Cheney portrayed as the source of all darkness and Bush as something quite other?

Grayson Grills Fed Chairman re: $500 Billion Lent to Foreign Banks -- Without Congress's Approval

by Deb Cupples |  Less than a year ago, Congress -- at the urging of ex-President Bush (and ex-Goldman Sachs CEO/ex-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson) -- voted to funnel $700 billion to the same executives who drove our nation's financial system (and economy) into a deeeep ditch.

Tuesday, during a House Financial Services Committee hearing featuring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Congressman Alan Grayson (Orlando) put a bright spotlight on an issue of which I'd been unaware: that federal officials had lent $500 billion (yes, half a trillion) to foreign banks -- without first getting Congress's approval.

Mr. Bernanke didn't do a very good job of answering the questions that Congressman Grayson had asked.  My niece and I were at the hearing but had to leave before Congressman Grayson's turn to grill the Fed chairman.  Thank God for YouTube.

The clip below is only 5 minutes and well worth watching.  It exemplifies yet again why all voters (regardless of party affilliation) should be happy that Alan Grayson is in Congress.

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After the jump, there's a video of Grayson grilling Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit back in February -- again, well worth watching. 

Obama Increasingly "Bush Lite"? Secrecy & Signing Statements

by Bartleby the Scrivener | So much for these promises too:   it worked for W, and the Obama administration isn't about to let go of the privileges claimed by the Bush administration.

Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a letter to the Secret Service asking about visits from 18 executives representing health insurers, drug makers, doctors and other players in the debate. The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy....The Secret Service sent a reply stating that documents revealing the frequency of such visits were considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws. The agency also said it was advised by the Justice Department that the Secret Service was within its rights to withhold the information because of the "presidential communications privilege." (More at L.A. Times)

Even more worrying is the administration's claim that Obama can ignore legislation by Congress if he thinks it "oversteps the Constitution."  (Breitbart.com)

Iran Update: Khameini Warns Opposition that they Could End in "Collapse"; Moussawi Says Hardship is Price of a Better Future

by Damozel  | In Iran, the supreme leader has told protesters to give it up.  (L.A. Times)  In the meantime, "defiant reformists" are still calling for a referendum on the disputed election. (LAT)  The supreme leader had this to say:

“The [political] elite should be careful,” warned Ayatollah Khamenei. “They [the opposition leaders] are in an exam session; a big exam. Failing in this exam does not mean getting one [academic] year behind. It will lead to [their] collapse.

“Anyone under any title and position who pushes the society toward insecurity would be a hated figure in the eyes of the majority of Iranian nation,” he said, in a clear reference to the top opposition figures.  (Financial Times)

Not the President, but the Policy: Obama Administration Blows Gitmo Deadline

by Damozel |  So much for that promise.

The Obama administration's task force on Guantanamo detentions has requested, and been granted, a six-month extension to "flesh out" its plans for closing Gitmo.  (CNN)  The interrogation task force got a two-month extension.  Civil libertarian and attorney Jonathan Turley sums up pretty well the thoughts of this progressive.

In yet another failure to honor its promises to civil libertarians, the Obama Administration has failed to honor its own deadline for the submission of a report on its policy for the detention of terror suspects. The report was expected to give details on Obama’s promise to shutdown the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay...

Inspector General: Banks Used TARP Funds Designed to Increase Lending to Defray Expenses, Increase Investments, Buy New Assets

by Bartleby the Scrivener | It's like that advertisement from a few years ago where the parents give the kid a credit card for "emergencies" at college, get a bill longer than their arm, and rush up to college to find him decked out in brand-new scuba gear and holding a giant pizza.  "One response, which the report described as typical, said the money had been used "to make loans to credit worthy customers, and to facilitate resolution of problem assets on our books." (New York Times)

If you give banks "no strings" money with just some vague stuff about how you hope they'll use it to increase lending, what do you expect?  And hey, it seems to have worked in a way -- it's got some of them back on their feet, even if taxpayers haven't seen any of the trickle-down benefits that we were supposed to see. And the government has rejected the I.G's insistence on greater transparency and more detailed reporting regarding use of TARP funds.  But the Treasury doesn't see the point.