Fuck Obama

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Postby MinM » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:36 pm

I guess transparent gov't was another broken promise.

The group wants the material in order to gauge the influence of those executives in crafting a new healthcare policy.


Obama urges action, not just politics,....Ads by Google
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3 Minutes - Health Reform

Why do we need health reform?

The Health Insurers Have Already Won - BusinessWeek
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit
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Stevens directs industry leader UnitedHealth's strategy on Capitol Hill Stephen Voss

By Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein


As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants such as UnitedHealth Group (UNH), Aetna (AET), and WellPoint (WLP). The carriers have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable. Health reform could come with a $1 trillion price tag over the next decade, and it may complicate matters for some large employers. But insurance CEOs ought to be smiling.

Executives from UnitedHealth certainly showed no signs of worry on the mid-July day that Senate Democrats proposed to help pay for reform with a new tax on the insurance industry. Instead, UnitedHealth parked a shiny 18-wheeler outfitted with high-tech medical gear near the Capitol and invited members of Congress aboard. Inside the mobile diagnostic center, which enables doctors to examine distant patients via satellite television, Representative Jim Matheson didn't disguise his wonderment. "Fascinating, fascinating," said the Democrat from Utah. "Amazing."

Impressing fiscally conservative Democrats like Matheson, a leader of the House of Representatives' Blue Dog Coalition, is at the heart of UnitedHealth's strategy. It boils down to ensuring that whatever overhaul Congress passes this year will help rather than hurt huge insurance companies.

Some Republicans have threatened to make health reform Obama's "Waterloo," as Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has put it. The President has fired back at what he considers GOP obstructionism. Meanwhile, big insurance companies have quietly focused on what they see as their central challenge: shaping the views of moderate Democrats.

The industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business. UnitedHealth has distinguished itself by more deftly and aggressively feeding sophisticated pricing and actuarial data to information-starved congressional staff members. With its rivals, the carrier has also achieved a secondary aim of constraining the new benefits that will become available to tens of millions of people who are currently uninsured. That will make the new customers more lucrative to the industry.

Matheson, whose Blue Dogs command 52 votes in the House, can't offer enough praise for UnitedHealth, the largest company of its kind. "The tried and true message of their advocacy," he says, "is making sure the information they provide is accurate and considered."

Representative Mike Ross, an Arkansas Democrat who leads the Blue Dogs' negotiations on health reform, also welcomes input from UnitedHealth. "If United has something to offer on cutting costs, we should consider it," says Ross, a former small-town pharmacy owner. "We need more examples that work, and everything should be on the table." ...
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Postby chlamor » Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:28 am

Obama's $80 Billion Deal with Pharma Is a Very Bad Deal for Us
By William Greider, The Nation. Posted August 8, 2009.

The White House has cut a deal with Big Pharma that smells like the same old rotten politics that candidate Obama regularly denounced. Tools

So now we know why the president wants everyone to make nice in the healthcare debate. His White House has cut a deal with Big Pharma that smells like the same old rotten politics that candidate Obama regularly denounced and promised to end. The drug industry agrees to deliver $80 billion in future savings and the president promises the government will not use its awesome purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices.

Wow. This is roughly the same deal that George W. Bush cut with the drug makers when he was legislating Medicare's new coverage of drug purchases. It is the same bargain that Democrats in Congress universally condemned as wasteful and corrupt. The deal does not smell any better now that a Democratic president is embracing it.

In effect, Obama wants to give away one of the principal objectives of strong reform. The details were spelled out in today's New York Times and revealed by Big Pharma's top-dog lobbyist, Billy Tauzin, a former Republican congressman who leads the industry association. Tauzin called it a "rock-solid deal," and the White House did not dispute as much. But that is not the last word.

People who believe in real healthcare reform should not be nice about this. They must rise up and rebel against our popular new president's outrageous concession. They must demand that Congress declare the private deal-making null and void. If Congress lacks the nerve to do this, then this exercise in reform begins to look more and more like previous attempts that were eviscerated by the clout of the corporate interests.

The fate of healthcare reform may depend not on the Senate or the White House but on Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. What prompted Billy Tauzin to spill the beans on his deal-making with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was the House measure that specifies government's right to bargain for lower prices. No, no, no! Tauzin said. We've got a deal with the president, who says that won't be allowed.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply responds that the House is not bound by any deals made with the Senate or the White House. Her caucus must back up her words. They should pass the House bill, which will allow the government to do what any major customer would do in the same circumstances -- use its leverage to demand lower prices.

If House Democrats stand their ground, then they will force a debate they can win with the American public. President Obama will have to choose between standing with the drug manufacturers or defending the original purpose of healthcare reform.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/ ... eal_for_us


Everybody was at the bargaining table, except the public !
Posted by: mmckinl on Aug 8, 2009 12:31 AM

Obama had everybody at the bargaining table except the public. Big Pharma was there and so were the health insurance companies, the hospital corporations and the AMA ... but there were NO representatives for the public interest ... NONE ... But Senator Baucus was there ...

And in the Chairman Baucus's Senate Finance committee meetings the advocates for single payer were not even invited. Anybody who brought up single payer was promptly ejected, arrested and charged ...

Obama's support my plan "Obamacare" has been the biggest bait and switch ever presented to the American People ... Obama, Emmanuel and Baucus have been cutting secret deals behind our backs ... all the while pretending negotiations were ongoing ...

Obama has thrown the American People under the bus ...



He's not done yet....
Posted by: Gentle Axeman on Aug 8, 2009 6:28 AM

Single payer...

Public option....

Some noises made as smoke and mirror whilst the sellout was going on...

Will the folks who backed Mr. Obama all starry-eyed while sucking up obvious bullshit please start yelling at this guy....?

You are getting two sellouts for the price of one....To the Health Insurance Industry and Big Pharma at the same time...

Folks....he's not done yet....

Change you can believe in....



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Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby Penguin » Sat Aug 08, 2009 2:08 pm

http://www.freep.com/article/20090807/B ... /908070382
via Slashdot - http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/08/08 ... uted-Sites

ParticleGirl writes with this excerpt from the Detroit Free Press: "GM's unusual, government-engineered bankruptcy allowed the Detroit automaker to emerge as a new company — and to shed billions in liabilities, including claims that governments had against GM for polluting. Environmental liabilities estimated at $530 million were left with the old GM, which has only $1.2 billion to wind down. Administrative fees and other claims will soak up that money, and state and local officials told the Free Press they fear the cleanups will be shortchanged. ... The New York Attorney General's Office, seeking to protect environmental claims for cleanup at Massena and other sites, argued that federal and state regulatory requirements should not be eliminated by a bankruptcy sale. ... But [US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber] ruled otherwise."
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Postby MacCruiskeen » Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:18 pm

Well, a full nine months after the historic US Oscars-Election, only cynics and totally mean infantile ultraleftist macho asshats will even attempt to deny that Barack Obama has shown the world how audacious hope really was. Boy, was it ever audacious, that hope -- positively foolhardy, in fact, if not actually cretinous. At any rate: inspiring.

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(Many people wept.)

What's more, Barack Obama's skin is even browner than Ronald Reagan's!!! That would not have been possible in Martin Luther King's day. We have liberals and progressives to thank for all this. It signifies progress, in the same way that a MacDonald's sign signifies nourishment.

Look at what liberals and progressives have achieved, in less than a year: Obama has already stopped the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, redistributed the wealth from the banks and corporations to the struggling masses, prosecuted the Bush Gang for its filthy crimes, and instituted a national healthcare system the world can admire. And that's just for starters.

Only an infantile ultraleftist macho asshat would deny it.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Postby slimmouse » Sat Aug 08, 2009 10:29 pm

MacCruiskeen wrote:Well, a full nine months after the historic US Oscars-Election, only cynics and totally mean infantile ultraleftist macho asshats will even attempt to deny that Barack Obama has shown the world how audacious hope really was. Boy, was it ever audacious, that hope -- positively foolhardy, in fact, if not actually cretinous. At any rate: inspiring.


A stroke of genius appointment by "the reptilians" though.

I doubt that anyone ( whos sees the way things is as the way they truly are) could deny that.
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Postby Cosmic Cowbell » Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:33 am

MacCruiskeen wrote:Look at what liberals and progressives have achieved, in less than a year: Obama has already stopped the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, redistributed the wealth from the banks and corporations to the struggling masses, prosecuted the Bush Gang for its filthy crimes, and instituted a national healthcare system the world can admire. And that's just for starters.

Only an infantile ultraleftist macho asshat would deny it.


Or expect it all to happen overnight...If I'm not mistaken I do believe the whiny leftist sniveling and sniping started day one and hasn't let up from there. Obviously a lifestyle choice for some...
"There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." ~ A.N. Whitehead
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Postby marshwren » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:11 pm

Cosmic Cowbell wrote:
MacCruiskeen wrote:Look at what liberals and progressives have achieved, in less than a year: Obama has already stopped the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, redistributed the wealth from the banks and corporations to the struggling masses, prosecuted the Bush Gang for its filthy crimes, and instituted a national healthcare system the world can admire. And that's just for starters.

Only an infantile ultraleftist macho asshat would deny it.


Or expect it all to happen overnight...If I'm not mistaken I do believe the whiny leftist sniveling and sniping started day one and hasn't let up from there. Obviously a lifestyle choice for some...


Well, Cosmic, i kind of agree with a caveat--as an accusedly Establishment lovin', Prius-drivin', organic eatin' Obama-symp, i knew Obomb'em wasn't an agent of change but an apparatchik of continuity as early as Nov. of '07, and voted Green (Cynthia McKinney) accordingly (when asked if i would be voting for the Afro-American or the woman, i could say "yes"--to both).

That said, i've always been impressed with the idea that "libruls" are at their best when challenged from the left, and at their worst when confronted by the right; and believe the record of the DP since the 1930's generally confirms this view. The question then is how to challenge from the left to maximum effect--i suspect being an obnoxiously dogmatic, gratuitously insulting asstard isn't the most efficacious tactic. And you're quite correct in saying THAT is more a lifestyle choice than a political position (unless having one's head up their ass qualifies as such).
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Postby bks » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:13 pm

If I'm not mistaken I do believe the whiny leftist sniveling and sniping started day one and hasn't let up from there. Obviously a lifestyle choice for some..
.

No, what is truly despicable is when your disgraceful bought-and-paid-for betrayer of the people has aligned himself squarely with the corporatist oligarchs, you complain that the mean old leftists never gave him a chance.

And for the record, Cosmic Cowbell, you are mistaken. The 'sniveling leftists' were on him from before day one, because they were actually paying attention to what he was doing rather than what he was saying.

It's not difficult to figure out what's needed to confront these interests, despite the shit you hear. All that's required is for Obama be willing to be seen as completely ineffectual within the confines of the current corrupt system. That's IT. Create a standoff and call out every one of the corrupt interests where necessary. Fracture Congress if that's what it takes. Align yourself with the progressives and DIG IN. Then, once the battle lines are drawn, keep applying intense bully-pulpit pressure, in service of breaking through to a different system that the present is already pregnant with.

Is that too much to ask of the man who entered office with the biggest public backing of all time? No, it isn't. He would have the vast majority of the country behind him if he stood up, and the corporate media would nott be able to control the message forever. Things really could have begun to change, even if they tried to kill him.

Therefore, the fact that he's turned out to be the gutless, corporatist errand boy president that leftists understood he almost certainly would before he entered office, is not surprising. But it's disappointing, since there was a different course he could have taken.
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Postby Sweejak » Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:51 pm

Left. right. so. what.

Anyone could see what Obama's path was likely to take, from his choice of advisors to his actual statements, but it's only the so called left that seem to be surprised.
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Postby marshwren » Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:09 pm

Sweejak wrote:Left. right. so. what.

Anyone could see what Obama's path was likely to take, from his choice of advisors to his actual statements, but it's only the so called left that seem to be surprised.


I'd say it's worse than that: in their hatred, loathing and fear of the GOP and its conservative movement/fundamentalist allies (an understandable, but by no means controlling, concern), the 'left' allowed itself the luxery they couldn't afford of 'the audicity of hope', only to be conflicted later by their previous paucity of thought. Having elected the guy (and remember, the alternative was the other Clinton), they are--like the GM dealer who just sold you a lemon--are obligated to make the clunker work. Hence Obomb'em's support among the left; although he IS working overtime to remedy that.

As for the Right, what can any rational person say of them without having to first down a handful of Percocets and a pint of gin to think of something that doesn't come out as a primal scream?
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Postby Sweejak » Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:24 pm

Total Train wreck if you ask me.

Have I posted this before? Among my Obama supporting friends, the ones who still hold hope, they say that Obama is just dealing with systemic realities, he's a quick learner and has a good heart, and hey, you can drink a beer with him. This is almost exactly what I heard from Bush supporters about W.
As far as the so called Right goes, in my view they don't even have the right to complain based on hypocrisy alone.
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Postby chlamor » Sun Aug 09, 2009 6:12 pm

Cosmic Cowbell wrote:
MacCruiskeen wrote:Look at what liberals and progressives have achieved, in less than a year: Obama has already stopped the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, redistributed the wealth from the banks and corporations to the struggling masses, prosecuted the Bush Gang for its filthy crimes, and instituted a national healthcare system the world can admire. And that's just for starters.

Only an infantile ultraleftist macho asshat would deny it.


Or expect it all to happen overnight...If I'm not mistaken I do believe the whiny leftist sniveling and sniping started day one and hasn't let up from there. Obviously a lifestyle choice for some...


Noone was asking for anything to "happen overnight" (though it seems Obama did make death of innocents happen overnight- see drone bombing 2nd day in office for details) in fact we were never expecting anything meaningful on the positive side to ever occur under an Obama administration. This was not an "expectation" per se but rather a well thought out and deliberate recognition based on observable facts.

Not only were these facts easy to see but they also had a long history to them which was certainly unsettling to the blithe Obama groupies who refused to listen no matter how nicely and evenly the material was presented.

Now if you couldn't predict what an Obama administration would do (not the rhetoric mind you) as he went along selecting advisors on his presidential campaign then it would seem you have a very difficult time, or don't take the time, using critical analysis to arrive at a conclusion. The flags thrown up were not only many but they were as bright red as is humanly possible and I am perplexed how many did not see this though I suspect they did not want to.

Such red flags came in the form of Austen Goolsbee, Zbig Brzezinski, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Richard Danzig, Dennis Ross, Rahm Emmanuel and many others which I could list if you'd like.

Now if that wasn't bad enough how in the world could you not have had at least a little bit of a rash when he selected Joe Biden and how could you not have had even a little bit of discomfort as virtually every right-wing pundit under the sun applauded his cabinet selections.

More importantly why were and are so many utterly ignorant of Obama's very conservative record as a politician? They supported this guy so wasn't it incumbent upon them to research the man? how about his record while serving in Illinois? Not only unremarkable but a constant kowtowing to power. He was after all the go-to guy in the Illinois State Senate for the insurance companies as the watered down and ultimately stymied an excellent health-care plan that was on it's way to passage.

And what about his record in the Senate? Not very remarkable as he supported Condi Rice, The Patriot Act and voted for War Funding every time. What was the charm and allure in all of this?

Well what this entire fiasco does bring to light is how politically incoherent and utterly pathetic are most liberals/progressives and as I engaged honestly and calmly for months in my home town where there are more liberals per capita than most anywhere what I found was a most remarkable lack of knowledge on any of the matters concerning Obama and an equal amount of blind idolatry and unflinching support for a man they knew nothing about beyond the familiar slogans.

If that's not a recipe for disaster then what is? And guess what we've got?

BTW 5 Pakistani farmers unloading cucumbers were just blown to bits by US drones. That's more blood on Obama's hands. And what about those who supported him? Do they not have any responsibility in all of this bloodshed?

The occupation in Iraq grinds on and the death toll is increasing apace in the last few weeks. Any responsibility for Barry on that or does that go unnoticed now that BushCo. is out of office.
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby orz » Sun Aug 09, 2009 6:14 pm

MinM wrote:Image


Why is he standing in front of the spaceship from ET?
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Postby 8bitagent » Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:45 pm

chlamor wrote:
Cosmic Cowbell wrote:
MacCruiskeen wrote:Look at what liberals and progressives have achieved, in less than a year: Obama has already stopped the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, redistributed the wealth from the banks and corporations to the struggling masses, prosecuted the Bush Gang for its filthy crimes, and instituted a national healthcare system the world can admire. And that's just for starters.

Only an infantile ultraleftist macho asshat would deny it.


Or expect it all to happen overnight...If I'm not mistaken I do believe the whiny leftist sniveling and sniping started day one and hasn't let up from there. Obviously a lifestyle choice for some...


Noone was asking for anything to "happen overnight" (though it seems Obama did make death of innocents happen overnight- see drone bombing 2nd day in office for details) in fact we were never expecting anything meaningful on the positive side to ever occur under an Obama administration. This was not an "expectation" per se but rather a well thought out and deliberate recognition based on observable facts.


Notice you don't see any big anti war protests or march rallies anymore or scheduled for the future.

I'd have a big sign that read "How many Muslim children have you bombed today Barry?"

Of course that kind of sign would just confuse the liberals and right wingers. As if their predictable back and forth kabuki during the 08 (s)election cycle wasn't embarassing enough...now we get to see these two mindless controlled halves fighting tit for tat on the internets and mediasphere boobtoob over the silliest of minutia.

And the sad thing is? The PTB probably have something extremely ugly up their sleeves, just ready for the right monstrous moment to crash America into the Shanksville Hades of no return.
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Postby bks » Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:58 am

chlamor wrote:
Well what this entire fiasco does bring to light is how politically incoherent and utterly pathetic are most liberals/progressives and as I engaged honestly and calmly for months in my home town where there are more liberals per capita than most anywhere what I found was a most remarkable lack of knowledge on any of the matters concerning Obama and an equal amount of blind idolatry and unflinching support for a man they knew nothing about beyond the familiar slogans.


Yes, exactly. In my experience I saw willfulness, literally a refusal to consider facts that could destabilize support for him.

That's not a political attitude, it's a religious one.
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