backers

Is Scott Walker even all there mentally?

At a press conference Monday afternoon, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) fired back at state Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D), the leader of the 14 Democrats who have fled the state in order to block budget quorum on Walker's anti-public employee union proposals, who this morning sent Walker a letter calling for a meeting at the Illinois state line. And in his attacks on Miller, Walker suggested - with no apparent irony - that perhaps Miller has been having secret phone calls with special interest backers in organized labor.

This from the guy, who just two weeks ago got duped by a prank phone call, thinking it was David Koch - a major special interest. Either Walker is going crazy, or he is a big member of the IOKIYAR crowd.

One of the staunchest bill backers out there seems to be getting fed up with President Obama. After summing up President Obama’s statement today on the future of health care reform as, “Run away, run away!”, Krugman finishes with this:

Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

(h/t Aravosis)

Welcome to my side Paul. It has been obvious for months that President Obama wasn’t so much worried about real health care reform, as he was saying “hey I got a bill passed”. He has flat out lied about his campaign promises and given the cold shoulder to the millions who worked to bring him into office. In short, President Obama proved that he isn’t about change, but more so about business as usual. That is something we have sadly come to expect from our leaders.

Does this mean I won’t vote for Obama in 2012? No. What it does mean is that if we have a primary challenger who I like better I will support them over Obama, but if Obama gets the nominee (as he most likely would) then I will support him. Regardless of how much Obama lets us down now, one thing is for certain – he will be better than any Republican alternative. Now we just need to find a great progressive candidate to run in 2016.

Bob Herbert has a great piece today tearing about one of the problems I have with the health care bill – the Cadillac tax. First off is Bob’s explanation of the system:

The tax would kick in on plans exceeding $23,000 annually for family coverage and $8,500 for individuals, starting in 2013. In the first year it would affect relatively few people in the middle class. But because of the steadily rising costs of health care in the U.S., more and more plans would reach the taxation threshold each year.

Within three years of its implementation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers with employer-provided health coverage in the country, affecting some 31 million people. Within six years, according to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax would reach a fifth of all households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually. Those families can hardly be considered very wealthy.

This is one of those downsides the bill backers have ignored while the bill killers have been touting. The bill backers would argue that the bill helps keep health care costs down, but in all honesty that is an estimate in the nicest of terms. Wendell Potter pointed out last week that the insurance companies are already looking for loopholes to continue to raise their rates. Finding loopholes and ways to game the system is a common practice in any business sector. We wouldn’t have the financial crisis right now if the financial sector played by the rules, so what is to say the health care sector will do the same?

Something I have been saying all along was just repeated on Countdown by former health insurance executive Wendell Potter – there is nothing to stop insurance companies from raising rates.

The bill backers have been touting out charts and tables derived from the CBO report to highlight savings with the new reform. One thing they either don’t realize or don’t want to convey is that the CBO numbers are purely an estimate. A key variable in there will be the insurance companies “playing by the rules”.

As an example we have the 85% medical loss ratio, which states that 85% of premiums must go towards health care. Well administrative costs are considered health care, and there’s a lot of ways for the insurance companies to play with the numbers to get a higher number that what it should be.

And anyone who believes that the insurance companies will play by the rules and not try to figure out loopholes like this is sadly mistaken. I guarantee they already have lawyers and accountants figuring out exactly what they will be able to squeeze past the system, and the fact that enforcing the medical loss ratio will be an entirely new system for the government, we can expect such loopholes and backdoors to be very easy to get in right now.

But I am sure we will “fix it later” because somehow the Democrats are going to magically have a more solid majority than they do now when these problems really start to show their ugly little heads. Meanwhile we will all be forced, by law, to fork over our money to this system.

Seriously – if that is progressive then I am sorry I ever called myself one.

In a WaPo article this morning, they talk about growing concerns of Clinton trying to destroy the entire Democratic party for her own political  ambitions:

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies -- African Americans and wealthy liberals -- who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton's solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party. Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination -- handed to her by superdelegates -- would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

This is also starting to cost her in donors. Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon, ambassador to Chile under Clinton, was considered one of Hillary's top fundraisers (a "hillraiser"), bringing her in more than $500,000. Now he has defected over to Obama because of this. Smaller donors are also following suit, as explained in the WaPo article:

"I think she is destroying the Democratic Party," said New York lawyer Daniel Berger, who had backed Clinton with the maximum allowable donation of $2,300. "That there's no way for her to win this election except by destroying [Obama], I just don't like it. So in my own little way, I'm trying to send her a message."

And yes I am talking about the Democrats:

After weeks of tough talk, Democrats appear resigned to back down again on providing money for the Iraq war.

What happened?

"Republicans, Republicans, Republicans," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "The real problem here is the president and his Republican backers" who have "staked out an increasingly hard-lined position."

Indeed, with Democrats holding a razor-thin majority in the Senate and with 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles, Senate Republicans were in a plum negotiating spot this month.

I wonder how much lunch money Harry Reid lost to bullies while growing up? He is actually making me miss Bill Frist - yeah it's that bad!

Especially Dick Durbin:

According to the Associated Press, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, a self-proclaimed life member of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s “Inner Circle Leadership Committee” has been indicted on charges of financing a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. The AP obtained a resume in which Alishtari states that he became an NRSC Inner Circle Life Member in 2003.

Like an American Express card, membership in the NRSC’s Inner Circle has its privileges, as posted on the NRSC’s own website: http://www.gopsenators.com/memberprograms/innercircle/benefits/

And why isn't the media talking more about these Republican backers supporting terrorism? What happened to that "liberal bias"? I guess when it comes to a Republican being involved then mum is the word.

OH WAIT! That's right - Brittney is in rehab. That is far more important in their eyes </sarcasm>

Yesterday
I
reported on Deborah Davis who is facing federal charges for not showing her
ID to a police officer on a bus during a random check. Today we learn about the
Pentagon wanting to expand it's powers to operate domestically and investigate
citizens of this country: This from the

Washington Post:

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and
analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies,
adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic
security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is
considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the
Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years
ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA
from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including
protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority
to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or
terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an
intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to
share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and
other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to
foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen
investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.