And the point would be. . . . .???

Wednesday September 23, 2009

. . . . . .What I struggle with, what really gets to me, is that I know, in my heart and down inside, that this is not the country that I grew up in. Something has radically shifted, and not for the better. It's not metaphor, it's very real. It's not one of those "change happens" things. . . . .. this is not the place we all knew.

.. . . . . . ."Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams

. . . . .The playlist is definitely changed up, whole different feel to it. If you're reading this on the Facebook notes page, and want the music, or my voiceover and commentary, switch to the external site The Desolation Angel, that's where you'll get the full experience. Turn it up!!

. . . .On that subject, yes, that's Merle Haggard in there, who is an absolute radical lefty as far as country is concerned, he supported Hillary Clinton, and supports the current President, and is sick and tired of where the Republican establishment took this country over the previous 8 years, and is still one bad ass dude at 72 years old. Check out the latest Rolling Stone print edition (with Megan Fox on the cover) for an in-depth comprehensive interview with and article about an original outlaw, and the closest thing to a brother Johnny Cash ever had. Yes, Toby Keith is in the playlist too, but he needs to remember something real well. Merle and Johnny were bad-ass outlaws long before he was, and lived it, didn't pose it. And yes, you're hearing Kris Kristofferson and Johnny in there too.

. . . .It's all about the money people, all about the money, with one notable exception, and I've been running down that road for a few days now, and that would completely deranged mental illness, and yes, I do include letting fever swamp religious insanity in there.

. . . .First off, the money. In that same print edition of Rolling Stone, available at your newstand now, is another hard-hitting investigative piece. Reporter Tim Dickinson, who really is risking something has obtained the memos and documents to prove that this summer's "spontaneous", "grassroots" protest against health care reform were anything but, and were carefully crafted, choreographed, planned and scripted with three major sets of players. First, foremost and most prominent, of course, are Republican Sen. John Boehner and House Republican Rep. Eric Cantor, working in concert with Frank Luntz and Betsy McCaughey, who scripted everything, down to who would speak in what order and yell what at each summer town hall. The funding, the second leg of the stool, was provided by two players, neither one surprising, AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans), the largest lobbying group for the health insurance companies, and Phillip-Morris, the tobacco manufacturer who funded the opposition to the Clinton's health care initiative. The third leg of the stool are the two well known groups, Conservative's for Patient's Rights, the health care pressure group founded by Rick Scott, an attorney by training and trade, (CPR has hired, for PR and mass media expertise, Creative Response Concepts, the PR firm responsible for Swift Boating), who founded Columbia, the nation's largest health care firm, merged it with another firm, HCA, chaired by Bill Frist's brother, then wound up defrauding Medicare and Medicaid for the largest amount ever known on record. Upon resigning, he established a chain of urgent care clinics, nationwide (and obviously, has a very vested interest in maintaining the status quo); with the other group being FreedomWorks, Dick Armey's lobbying firm.

. . . .The best part in reading the article and acquainting yourself with the articles is the obvious arrogance shown by all of these players towards their base and supporters, and their smug knowledge that if they spread the right lies, used the right words, they could get an uprising going that would derail any meaningful discussion and debate around the nation's broken health care system.

. . . .And why would they do that? I point back to this, the $1.6 billion dollars in lobbying money thrown at these Senators and Representatives over the last 18 months by the organizations like AHIP and FreedomWorks.

. . . .And they are shameless. This morning, from Cesca:

The Republicans loooooove health insurance companies.

Republicans took to the floor of Congress, the Internet and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page Tuesday in a rush to defend a health insurance company [Humana] that used taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors with the prospect that health care reform will cut their Medicare benefits.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress ripped Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put a stop to the insurer's efforts, decrying what they called a "gag order" and reading the First Amendment on the floor of the Senate.

Can you imagine what America will look like if the Citizens United case goes the wrong way? I mean, corporations already have too many privileges -- imagine what will happen when they have unlimited access to campaigns, too. Seriously, it would more or less be game over.

And what about Humana? The Republicans are defending some real bastards.

"Humana was recently featured in a HuffPost story for denying health care due to lack of an enema. In 2005, it settled a racketeering suit for $40 million. It settled a fraud lawsuit in 2000 for $14.5 million. Since 2000, its profits have soared from $90 million to $834 million."

. . . .Over at Andrew Sullivan, he picks up on Tom DeLay's brutal assessment of the current state of the Republican Party:

So who does DeLay see as the GOP's up-and-comers? "No one," he replied in exasperation. "It's all the same old guys who were in leadership with me, and those old guys aren't the leaders the party needs."

. . . .That's all OK. I'd like them to remain this stupid. Sullivan points out that in the rush to cut the funding for ACORN, the legalese required leaves it wide open to cut defense contractors (the lobbying bread and butter for the Repubs) off completely once convicted of fraud.

For legal reasons, that bill against ACORN was written broadly enough that it could defund defense contractors and other recipients of government money charged in fraud cases. AL gloats:

I can't think of a better way of illustrating the double standard at work here. Republicans have singled out a group to demonize based on the supposed bad acts of a few employees. Based on these incidents, we're supposed to conclude that the entire organization is corrupt and unworthy of continued existence. But when you apply that very same standard to defense contractors, they fair no better than ACORN.

John Cole asks: when we can expect to see this story posted at BigGovernment.com?

. . . .And just to be clear, yes, ACORN needed to be cut off. There is something fundamentally wrong with that organization. As large and spread out as it is, yes, one aberrant case could be expected, but . . . .story after story after story??? C'mon.

. . . .How big a feral pig turd is the Baucus mark-up of a Health Care Reform Bill? Big enough a pig turd that no less than 534 proposed amendments have been submitted so far. The guys over at The Wonk Room, have done some excellent policy analysis and I suggest you go over there and look them through. Now, of those 534, some of the leading Republican names submitted their own:

Republicans offered two separate amendments prohibiting funding for ACORN, reduced affordability credits, and eliminated “all industry fees.” Here are some of the most outrageous:

Amendment/Sponsor	Provision	Offset
Kyl 371	Prohibit the federal government’s takeover of health care.	None required.
Ensign 409	Transparency in Czars.	None required.
Hatch 511	Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN.	No offset.
Ensign 543	Strike the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word “tax” .	No offset.
Roberts 137	To prevent Medicare payment policies which discourage physicians from fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath to maintain the good of their patients as their highest priority, and instead encourage the rationing of health care.	none.
Roberts 144	To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it.	To be determined.
Ensign 156	To ensure that the financial well-being of future generations is not compromised by the activities of the current generation.	none.
Cornyn 163	Ensuring seniors have access to physicians beyond 2010.	Strike the premium tax credit for individuals between 300-400 percent of FPL under Title I, Subtitle C of the Chairman’s Mark.

. . . ..Now, seriously, if you support some of these guys, don't you elect them to go to Washington to be smarter than you? Some of these are straight out of Beck's or Savage's mouth. These guys are mouthing a script. They're nothing more than meat puppets with the hand of their lobbyists and campaign contributors up their back making their mouths move.

. . . .While we're on the subject of justice (we really are!). Dylan Ratigan, the host of MSNBC's Morning Meeting:

The American people have been taken hostage to a broken system.

It is a system that remains in place to this day.

A system where bank lobbyists have been spending in record numbers to make sure it stays that way.

A system that corrupts the most basic principles of competition and fair play, principles upon which this country was built.

It is a system that so far has forced the taxpayer to provide the banks with the use of $14 trillion from the Federal Reserve, much of the $7 trillion outstanding at the US Treasury and $2.3 trillion at the FDIC.

A system partially built by the very people who currently advise our President, run our Treasury Department and are charged with its reform.

And most stunningly -- it is a system that no one in our government has yet made any effort to fundamentally change.

Like health care, this is a referendum on our government's ability to function on behalf of the American people. Ask yourself how long you are willing to be held hostage? How long will you let our elected officials be the agents of those whose business it is to exploit our government and the American people at any cost?

As hostages -- was there any sum of money we wouldn't have given AIG?

Why did we pay Goldman Sachs and all the other banks 100 cents on the dollar for their contracts with AIG, using taxpayer money, while we forced GM and others to take massive payment cuts?

Why hasn't any of the bonus money paid to the CEOs that built this financial nuclear bomb been clawed back?

And more than anything else -- why does the US Congress refuse to outlaw the most anti-competitive structure known to our economy, one summed up as TOO BIG TOO FAIL?

It has become startlingly clear that we as a country, and I as a journalist, had made a grave error in affording those who built and ran those banks and insurance companies the honorable treatment of being called capitalists. When in fact the exact opposite was true, these people were more like vampires using the threat of Too Big Too Fail to hold us hostage and collect ongoing ransom from the US Government and the American taxpayer.

This was no unlucky accident. The massive spike in unemployment, the utter destruction of retirement wealth, the collapse in the value of our homes, the worst recession since the Great Depression all resulted directly from these actions.

Even with all that -- the only changes that have been made, have been made to prop up and hide the massive flaws on behalf of those who perpetuated them. Still utterly nothing has been done to disclose the flaws in this system, improve it or rebuild it.

Last fall was an awakening for me, as it was for many in our country.

And yet, our Congress has yet to open its eyes, much less do anything about it. In fact conditions have never been better for the banks or worse for the rest of us.

Why is this? Who does our Government work for? How much longer will we as Americans tolerate it? And what, if anything, can we do about it?

As we approach the anniversary of the bailouts for our banks and insurers -- and watch the multi-trillion taxpayer-funded programs at the Federal Reserve continue to support banks and subsidize their multibillion bonus pools, we must ask if our politicians represent the interests of America? Or those who would rob America of its money and its future?

As a country, we must demand that our politicians stop serving those whose business models are based on systemic theft and start serving those who seek to create value for others -- the workers, innovators and investors who have made this country great.

. . . .And it continues unabated. Eric Kolchnisky, an ex-analyst for Moody's Investors Service is testifying in front of Congress today that the shoody and fraudulent ratings continue, and that many of the Street's securities are still very risky investments and continue to get "AAA" ratings.

Kolchinsky said Moody's "gave a high rating to a complicated debt security in January 2009 knowing that it was planning to downgrade assets that backed the securities. Within months, the securities were put on review for a downgrade.

"Moody's issued an opinion which was known to be wrong," Mr. Kolchinsky wrote in a July letter to the rating firm's chief compliance officer, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. In the letter, Mr. Kolchinsky cited other instances in which he believes inflated ratings were given to securities.

. . . .No, I'm not going to talk about Quaddafi's speech at the U.N. today. That man is seriously deranged, got up there, rambled incoherently for a while (big countries are bad! big countries are bad!), looked down every so often, shuffled the papers of the U.N. charter for a while, drooled on them, then went back to his Beck-like ramble. Best part of the visit, his getting kicked off of Donald Trump's lawn. Yes, the Donald offered his estate up so that the Libyan madman could set up his Bedouin tent. There's a zoning restriction, though. No tent, so sorry, too bad.

. . . .And of course, what a perfect lead-in to three of my favorite unmedicated, drooling lunatics.

. . . .Finally, someone with a brain and an audience is calling out Glenn Beck. On his webcast with Katie Couric on Monday, Beck said that "John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama" (which I personally agree with, given his choice of running mate, though dribbling out of Beck's mouth, it was stunning) and said that Mcain was "this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was". Joe Scarborough has had enough, and on Tuesday's Morning Joe on MSNBC said, in reference to Beck "You cannot preach hatred. You cannot say the president is racist. You cannot say things that have very deadly consequences. I was in Congress in 1995. I know where this can end." Scarborough made numerous references to Beck's "race-baiting" and "wallowing in conspiracy theories". Joe said that he was starting an "honor roll" of conservatives who call Beck out and concluded by saying "Not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't call him out are responsible".

. . . .Conservative radio host Mark Levin took it a step further excoraiting Beck calling him "pathetic" and "mindless".

There's our 5-PMer, on Fox ... I don't know who certain people are playing to, I don't know why they are playing to certain people ... I think there's enormous confusion and positioning and pandering. It may be entertaining, but from my perspective, it's not. It's pathetic."

. . . .Actually, Beck is easily understandable. All it takes is the magic of digital video, and looking at him on tape. 16 months ago, the American health care system was the worst in the world. Last month is was the best. Back in the fall of 2008, George W. Bush wasn't putting enough money into TARP, last month Obama was a communist for even putting a penny in. He goes on the The View, has a great time, gets along, then goes on the radio to tell that audience what bitches the women were. To his television viewership, Barack Obama is Hitler re-incarnated, but to a webcast, a decidedly different audience, McCain would have been worse. Glenn is an approval whore and an attention whore. This spiritually corrupt fringe Mormon apostate is in absolute mental agony, and I'm sure the demons come chattering in his dreams every night, and he won't be happy until he's taken his audience into the absolute state of fever swamp that he's in and everyone else can share the mental pain caused by his own cognitive dissonance.

. . . .And speaking of cognitively dissonant, Sarah Palin's big speech was in Hong Kong yesterday, unfortunately for her, a tape of her remarks has hit the media, the Wall Street Journal got a copy. Now, this loser and quitter absolutely tore Barack Obama apart for criticizing America on foreign soil. So. . .what's the first thing Wasilla's favorite outcast does? Criticize America, on every policy front. Oh yes, she tired to relate to her audience by telling them that her husband's ancestors probably crossed over the land bridge from Asia (but that was 12,000 years ago, and in her Pentecostal witch-hunting church, the world didn't start until 6,000 years ago!). She repeated her tired, insane, science fiction "death panel" claim, and oh yes, in front of god knows how many Chinese investors in the audience, about the country that holds 75% of our debt said that "China makes us nervous".

. . . The best part of it being pointed out by Michael Cottle, over at The New Republic:

2. In her new role as buck-raker extraordinaire, the darling of wingnut conservatives is pocketing a fat wad of cash from a China-based financial brokerage owned by a French banking conglomerate.

How perfect is that?

. . . .Idiot.

. . . .And we complete today's triumvirate with the naturalized Moldavian attorney/oral surgeon/real estate agent Birther Queen Orly Tait, in recent interview with Tim Dickinson. In which Tait claims that there's "hits" put out on her, that her car's brake system has been tampered with, that people with "vital information" have been found shot, and that a case she'd spoken personally to Chief Justice John Roberts about and was told was "on the docket" was mysteriously "disappeared" and Roberts won't take her calls anymore.

. . .There are your leaders folks, those of you who are Republicans, conservatives, and Right Wingers, your de facto leaders; Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, and Tait.

. . . .Outta here for the day.

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, this rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one gets out alive, so pick a side, make a decision and take a stand.

The Angel