Headline over at Think Progress:

Republicans try to obstruct health care bill.

In other news, water has been found to be wet!

not to be a dick, but after the reversal on FISA, did you expect anything more?

American politics have become shallower and shallower over the past 60 years. Coupled with our incredibly high incumbency rate and the revolving door between congress and high-paying lobbyist jobs, it’s less likely that politicians have to respond to their consituents. Take PA, where Arlen Specter can’t win with his own voters, so the Democrats have embraced him, despite all indications that he won’t be a very good democrat.

And frankly, it reminds me of Yeats’ “Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. “
it was written post-WW1, but certainly can be applied to the breakdown we have here at home.

It’s the unanimous view of the U.S. Senate that we must cover up photos of our mistreating/torturing people….

Before George Bush and Dick Cheney, most Americans would have thought this reasoning is crazy, because it is.

yup – that’s about right.

Scarecrow,

It seems like old times having you up first thing in the AM.*g*

I too believe that Congress and DC are living in an alternative universe where they are unresponsive to their constituents. Obama’s administration is a deep disappointment.

It has become very clear (to me anyway) that the only way to make sure a real public option is included in any upcoming health care legislation is to have one of them there Marches on Washington.

Unfortunately, politicians have to be embarrassed into doing the right thing for their constituents.

Otherwise, the smoke filled rooms and envelopes filled with cash will win.

Again.

The Senate passed by unanimous consent Wednesday a bill that would prevent the release of controversial photos of alleged U.S. abuse of prisoners and detainees.

You can all go back to your business, because we just made it so that it never happened.

It has become very clear (to me anyway) that the only way to make sure a real public option is included in any upcoming health care legislation is to have one of them there Marches on Washington.

which will then be hugely, and very ceremoniously, not covered by a single major American News Source.

Good morning.

Nice of PBS to be “unbiased,” having an industry shill countered by a college professor.

Cindy Sheehan made a rain-delayed appearance at Cafe Bohemia in St Pete last night. Luckily I got a few minutes to talk to her alone before the rain. No handlers with her, just Cindy, who is taller than I thought but very personable and thankful for what folks have done. Gave us some very funny stories from Camp Casey and her meeting with Hadley and others. She’s very proud of the Secret Service’s code name for her: The Tornado. What I didn’t hear was a call to rejuvenate the anti-war movement. The wars, after all, are one of the reasons the economy’s in the shitter. In my short time with her she did say that she was committed to getting us out of Irak/Aghanistan, no matter how long it takes.

There were about 8 Ron Paul/9-11 conspiracy/anti-Fed men at one table who pretty much hijacked the event, imo. The crowd was mostly women but most of the questions came from the RP group, the first being “What do you think of 9/11 Truth?”, followed by more anti-Fed and conspiracy stuff. Questions from the women were the only ones about Irak/Afghanistan/Iran. Strange. There were 7 of the original St Pete for Peace members, myself included, in the crowd. I thought that unusual but after talking to a few of them found that the original organizer has pretty much cast his lot with the Ron Paul supporters. That’s too bad. Cass, my friend from the the early days with the Quakers, has gone back to protesting with the Quakers on Wednesdays. I’ll be joining her next week. Nothing against St Pete for Peace but Chris and others are going in a direction I see as unproductive. All rant, theories and no solutions. Has me a little off center. Hard to walk away from an almost 7 year effort with them.

What’s the more superlative word after censorship? Something from science fiction, I think. Oz? Wonderland? The Twilight Zone? Kremlin? The FDL fav….Brain Bleach.

You just don’t understand. What is important is the fifteen people outside of Letterman’s studio.

Good morning everyone. Filling in for B.T, who was last seen heading towards Northern New Mexico, which is where all sensible Texans go when they’ve had enough of Texas politics and need to escape for a coupla days. However, before he left, he did mutter something about forcing his goofy governor to resign, so he was joining twitter.

So what else is going on? Any good news out there?

Notice that the no torture memo legislation passed on “consent,” which means the cowards wouldn’t even have their votes recorded. Support the troops!

BTW, I disagree with Krugman on regulating systemic risk. It can’t be done. The financial corps didn’t know what they were doing; no outside regulator could do better than that.

Well, we better do it this week, cause I think the “bill” will be pretty much set in stone in a week, what with the calls for calling Senators who are in the pockets, now, of the corporations.
These corporations act like this deregulation has always been the case and how DARE anyone try to take anything away from them…while they put America in the crapper.

I sure like to see the crowds of hundreds of thousands who turned out to fete Obama get UP off their asses and go demand the “change” he promised.

The only “change” I see is the stuff is now going into Democrat pockets, not Republicans. THAT’S why they’re (the R’s) so pissed…otherwise, Obama is doing everything they would have done anyways

I understand your skepticism, but the key is using Al Gore’s internets to a) drum up attendance and b) badger those news sources into paying attention.

I’d like to think a well coordinated effort would get half a million people there easy; maybe more.

And the left side of the internets is becoming pretty well coordinated when it has to be.

Isn’t denial of reality a form of psychosis?

A denial of reality is the underpinning of the U.S. political system.

Third: Who could have predicted that if you set out to reform America’s health care system, but accepted the constraint that you have to preserve its most flawed features — like the private insurance system that leaves millions uncovered, costs way too much and provides lower quality care than other nations without those features — that every one of the leading “reform” proposals in Congress would wind up leaving millions of people uncovered, cost way too much, and likely not improve the overall quality of care in America?

Who could have predicted… well, since you asked, here are a few examples from those who could and did predict (with partial quotes from their statements):

Rose Ann DeMoro (california nurses): Why is Health Care for America Now Giving Up on Real Reform?

The big splash of news and internet coverage for the new Health Care for America Now coalition of labor, progressive and liberal groups is a reminder of the critical importance of health care reform. And a reminder that partial solutions, such as those proposed by the coalition, will only perpetuate, not end the health care crisis.

The groups behind the new coalition are working in concert with the Obama campaign and Democratic leaders in Congress to build “consensus” around a plan that would presumably be introduced in the first days of the next administration, and pushed through to a quick vote before opponents can mount a “Harry and Louse”-style counter attack.

But, in search of a supposedly politically viable plan, the advocates of this approach have surrendered in advance on the only overhaul that will actually cure the disease, a single-payer, expanded and improved Medicare for all reform.

Their good intentions will leave the same failed system in place, and will not even blunt the political opposition from those on the right and corporate interests who will continue to challenge anything that looks like even modest reform.

Healthcare-NOW Board Steering Committee (not to be confused with HCAN):

First, we have to start from a proposal that works. It must make economic and policy sense. We have seen bad policy fail repeatedly as state after state has hoped to reform their health care yet been unable to achieve their goals. The initial surrender to include the private insurance industry in these state bills has sadly undermined all of these well intentioned efforts, and all states are now struggling with the costs of care in these times of economic hardship.

The central role of private insurance companies in the HCAN plan will leave us with the same bad actors that are currently running amok in our health care. We cannot place the fox in the hen house and then hope to regulate his diet. It is in the nature of private health insurance corporations to seek to enhance their profit. (1) The private health insurance system we have leaves 48 million Americans uninsured, causes 18,000 deaths/year, and accounts for half of the bankruptcies each year.

Secondly, we must start from proposed legislation bold and beautiful enough to inspire a nation to rise up in unprecedented action to insist upon its enactment. No good reform can be passed without a grass roots movement that dramatically changes what is possible inside the beltway. HR 676 will bring all medically necessary care to everyone with no co-pays, no deductibles, and no premiums. (2) It will make healthcare a human right and HR 676 a struggle for social justice.

nyceve at daily kos: Has MoveOn lost its mind?

The insurance industry is celebrating today.

How could so many good people be so wrong?

Has MoveOn lost its mind?

Why is a group of top notch, progressive Americans waving the white flag of surrender before the first shot is fired in what will be a take-no-prisoners battle of historic dimension?

We’re talking about the looming healthcare battle.

We’re talking about a very simple concept. Bringing healthcare in the United States up to the same standard as the rest of the civilized world.

Healthcare for all. Guaranteed and affordable healthcare. Single-payer healthcare. Call it what you want.

Our friends at HCAN, and they are our friends, should know better. But I guess they don’t.

Oh, and before I go any further, dear friends at HCAN and MoveOn, you don’t go into battle with one arm tied behind your back.

You fight fire with fire.

David Himmelstein, MD (coauthor with Elizabeth Warren on bankruptcy studies, and cofounder of PNHP):

Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is pushing a superficially attractive health reform model that has a long record of failure – akin to prescribing a placebo for a serious illness when effective treatment is available. They would offer Americans a new public insurance plan and a menu of private ones, with subsidies for coverage for low income families.

This approach reprises the format of Medicare’s ongoing privatization. Despite promises of strict regulation and a level playing field that would allow the public plan to flourish, private insurers would (as they have done in Medicare) predictably overwhelm regulatory efforts through crafty schemes to selectively recruit profitable, lower-cost patients, and avoid the expensively ill. Like the Medicare Advantage program, originally touted as a market-based strategy to improve Medicare’s efficiency, the HCAN plan would evolve into a multibillion dollar subsidy for private insurers whose massive financial power (amassed largely at government expense) would prove a political roadblock to terminating the failed experiment.

there are more, but this is already too long so i’ll stop now.

Really, didn’t the woman who headed ___? back in the Clinton years see the huge risks the CDSs and other derivatives were creating, but she got tut-tutted by Larry Summers and Bob Rubin? What was her name?

There were regulators who were smart enough to realize that if you bet the economy on permanently rising housing prices, you could lose the economy if the bubble burst?

So I don’t think the system was too complex for regulators; they were simply too obtuse to hold their jobs. Good regulation requires good people who actually care about what they’re doing.

doncha know? the goal of health care reform is bipartisanship… not, er… actual health care for all…

Your examples are general principles, and many predicted the inevitable outcome. If you want to stop this stuff from happening again, just prohibit financial engineering, which would be my preferred outcome.

What the regulator will probably do is get into the weeds about how complicated instruments work and try to model whether they are creating systemic risk. (If they take their job seriously. My guess is that the systemic risk regulator will do nothing because the FRB is interested only in monetary policy, not regulation, which is a stepchild there.) If they try to do that, they will fail. It’s not a doable job.

which didn’t exactly answer the question.

heh.

gotta run – have a good morning all.

“while going out of his way to court a group of bad faith liars”…

For myself I see Obama as two personalities; the inspiring orator and the timid, scared of ‘rocking the boat’ president. Perhaps he does see the status quo as fundamentally sound, just a few polishes here, a little new paint there…

In his implementation of policies Obama is perhaps the president with the least vision of any kind since Gerald Ford, from what he has done so far there is a void of any sense of direction other than the inertia of Bush/Cheney.

Yep, among other things…

With such timidity, it is certainly interesting, however, that he is already the culprit to blame for all the ills of our country…with W enjoying his cul d’sac and Mean Dick covering the news. Working great.

Yeah, but those people don’t count, because we said they don’t count. How many times to we have to tell you this . . .

I’ve got about 3-4 posts in my head about how the public plan has to work, based on what we learned about trying to have a public pool and private contracts in the electricity markets. It’s about the money, or more precisely about the accounting. Hacker just did a paper on this, and it was deja vu all over again for me.

The “reformers” talk about setting up competition between two funamenatally different systems: (1) one that relies on employer and employee contributions to private insurers and (2) one that relies a lot of government subsidies, taxes, and employee contributions to both private and public insurers. The focus is on “competition” and the ability to choose, but the hard part is getting the accounting correct.

Once you have choice between two very different systems, you have to think through what happens to the money. Should the employer continue to make the contributions to the system it made when the employer used that system, but then switches to the other system and/or chooses the public plan? Logic says yes, the politics were saying no, and suddenly they realize they ran out of money. That’s just one of many accounting problems that have not entered the public debate.

There are ways to solve all these accounting issues, to make sure you’re not cross subsidizing, creating perverse incentives to dump employees, switch for the wrong reasons, select only well employees, avoid taxes, etc, but they are enormously complicated and have to be very carefully designed. Which means they would be negotiated. Which means there would have been a mess. (Designing those accounting/payment and other detailed rules is where my friends and I lost the Enron wars in California’s electricity market in 1995-96– we warned about the cross subsidies and gaming, and Enron convinced everyone else the games would never happen. And then they did, just as we predicted.)

Of course, there is a much simpler way to solve the accounting/where’s the money problem, and it’s initials are sp.

brooksley born at the cftc. michael greenberger was the lead author on the proposal. and before them was charles bowsher (as comptroller general). greenberger has testified before congress many time on regulatory matters (i heard him last year on oil speculation for example).

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/2141
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/4597

Good Morning Scarecrow and Firedogs,

ooh what a treat to have you with us in the morning Scarecrow. then again, my undercaffeinated state aint ready for so much truth tellin’:D

her name is Brooksley Born – and I’ve been thinking I want both she and Elizabeth Warren to give their impressions of the shiny new reform pkg.

fabulous post

I’m about ready to remove my name as a MoveOn memeber, I’m sure many others have already done it. They want “access” above all else–screw em.

Our electoral system is driven by money which is free speech and so those with money are the pols constituents and not the people who votes they get and the entire district they represent.

There is systemic flaws in the system which prevents the government being responsive to the needs of the people.

There are many solutions long term and interim such as TERM LIMITS.

We need to clear the decks and REMOVE the revolving door between the private sector and government.

And we need to have complete public financing for elections and shorter election cycles.

And take the airwaves back since they belong to the people not private interests who have use them to poison the minds of the public.

Call it corporatocracy or fascism, but we do not have a democracy. Democracies represent the people not the private sector corporate interests.

Whether it’s issues of war and peace, health delivery, finance, energy, media corporations rule our world for profit.

The lunatics are running the funny farm.

I think there’s also a third dimension to his style. He’s an incrementalist, someone who believes you can’t force people to accept an idea before they’re ready for it. So he makes his fine speeches — and I often love them — to move the thinking forward at bit, then he sees how far that gets him and accepts it.

This approach might be acceptable, if the country weren’t in such a mess and the previous administration (and the last 30 years of a very bad philosophy) had not driven the country off a cliff. When that happens, you really do need to be mad and jerk the country back to its senses.

Rahm Emanuel supposedly said, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Ironic.

Yep. Brooksley Born. thanks for the links.

The finance sector is not financing anything but acting like a casino where you take your money to make money. This is mission creep.

Those who want to gamble need to have their own casinos which do not impact the private sector economy… just like casinos. And they should be taxed so that this sort of speculation benefits the people which the well off can try to make money with money.

Let the finance sector return to finance – basic loans to individuals, business and governments… and all the “derivative” and financial instruments be confined to the “casino”.

W certainly used crises aggressively to advance his agenda. That’s about the only respect that Obama’s admin is not W’s third term.

Great suggestion (though like all other great ideas, it has zero chance of happening). Separate the financial industry into two groups: (1)plain vanilla lending & investing and (2)financial gambling.

By allowing his presidency to be defined by the parameters of what lobbyests will allow, Obama is deserving of crticism. The right wing noise machine will crticize him no matter what, it’s his squandering of his november mandate that drives me crazy.

Yeah, but those people don’t count, because we said they don’t count. How many times to we have to tell you this

LOL! probably a lot more times. i’m just too stupid to be that savvy. *g*

…

i’m really glad you’ve read the hacker paper, the details are beyond me but it’s the “enormously complicated” and “have to be very carefully designed” (that even i could see) that set off the warning bells and flashing lights for me. we have a massively powerful insurance lobby and i can’t just can’t see how the regulations don’t end up getting written by them, at least in part. and that’s when we have the dems in charge of the whitehouse and congress. can you imagine what the regulations would be like with the republicans in charge? oh, wait. enron. yes you can and yes you did.

Good morning, cbl2. Yeah, I like Warren. Isn’t it interesting how odd she appears compared to the others. She speaks English, you can understand her, she asks good questions — all strange.

Obama supporters who are “progressive” seem to think he is going to get there but needs to enlist the other side and avoid major policy shifts leftward (to port). They seem to be patient and have the ability to see past his sleeping with the devil and think it is part of a larger scheme to eventually get there.

That may be an optimistic way to look at it. I’d like to see more evidence that progressive ideas are having impact NOW on issues such as the economy, torture, war, health care, and so forth. For now he hardly seems much of an improvement over W, but has a better style.

No?

two things you might want to consider:

1. moveon is not just the leadership, it’s also the members.

2. everyone makes mistakes, there’s no shame in that. the trick is to see what they are going to do about it now.

This is true, but of course the finance sector calls all these instruments “risk management” and not gambling to conceal their insanity.

Excellent, scarecrow! And the comments amplify your work beautifully. Especially liked /s. Will circulate among the reality-based, real world folks. Thanks

karen

With the understanding that the financial gambling sector is on its own. No taxpayer bailouts, or more correctly, no borrowing money from China or other countries to bail them out.

Righto.

The old FDR quote, “I agree with you, now make me do it!” comes into play. Obama is clearly able to see and articulate some decent principles, but we’re starting from way, way back in the battle of rhetoric. Bush/Cheney rhetoric dominated the last decade on our media. Getting people to think in new ways –hell, just to THINK — is like turning a super tanker around. And this has to be done by lots of people and lots of media folks, not just the POTUS.

So while we might be ready for a lot more to be done, it was never clear to me that the majority of Americans were prepared for what needs to be done. they were pretty sure the system wasn’t working, but didn’t have a sufficiently strong framework for how to fix it.

Obama did a lot in the campaign to say, government needs to act; it’s not always the problem; we have to face these problems — that’s where he’s pretty good. But you’ll notice that the Republicans and their media are pushing back on exactly those point — so the dominant frame in our media is a constant theme: aren’t you trying to do too much? isn’t government bad at everything? won’t this bankrupt the country? We here it over and over, every day. It will take legions of people to defeat those attitudes.

hardly seems much of an improvement over W, but has a better style.

No?

Obama’s roots are distinct from W’s. Bush could commit the most horrendous atrocities without blinking because he was raised that way. If Obama divorces himself from his roots he will crack. He has shown no sign of that yet.

Well said.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

thanks to scarecrow for filling in for bt. like old times to read the crow in the morning!

Can’t speak for the bankers but surely ‘I am mad as hell’. The prez seems to be just skirting around progressive issues sometimes striking a chord here and there. There is no middle of the road on a democratic one way street paid for by small supporters.

We hear it over and over, every day. It will take legions of people to defeat those attitudes.

you were spot on above on his incrementalist approach – and yet there are times when he could set it aside, be a little bolder (he has the biggest megaphone afterall) and do some serious ’softening up’ of all you lay out in your 47 above. –

I have it in my head much of this is about the independents (currently the largest voting bloc doncha know) and have checked the polling on this and all too often they synch up – ooh boy, thinking we all need to re register as Independent and continue speaking out

His poll numbers with independents are dropping — a result of the constant pounding by Republicans and the media just lying — and I’m afraid the people who surround him will argue he should be more cautious.

I think he needs to be bolder, but to do that, he also has to get mad, just as he did a couple of times in the campaign. Brief flashes, but he did it. When he starts pointing out what a bunch of jerks the Republicans are, and how they got us into this mess and their whole frame sucks and they have no ideas for getting us out, he can make things change. But, to quote him, he has to be that change.

Jane’s way upstairs with a new post…

Yeah, It’s the same winnowing out of the ranks here in NY. We persevere and try to stay attached to the not-quite pacifists in our groups. My idea for maintaining the group cohesion is to email continuously, editorializing on efforts made for peace, war resistance, diplomacy at every level of society. Carry on!

thanks for the note on meeting cindy. i’m not a believer, but i’ve noted here too that institutionally the organizations who hang in there for peace are associated with the quakers, catholic worker and the like. i love them and admire them all.

Sojourner Truth said, ‘If you hear the dogs, keep going.’ Obama says, ‘If you hear the dogs, invite them over for poker, give them all the meat they want and throw everybody else a bone.’

On the other hand, he doesn’t seem to have a problem seriously upsetting folks who actually supported a lot of what he said he’d do, while going out of his way to court a group of bad-faith liars who’ll let the country fail if he fails with it, and whom 3/4 of the country can’t stand. Strange, that.

True, that.

EPU’d, but nice roundup (said by someone with lots of fencelines) Scarecrow and thanks for the Krugman vid.