Charles Krauthammer: Insurance Companies Ruined By ObamaCare Will Need a...

Update - Budget Deal Permanently Slashes Military/Federal Pensions and Unemployment

Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte says that pensions for current disabled veterans are cut in the new budget deal:

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Paul Ryan outlined the budget deal he reached with Senate Democrat Patty Murray on Fox News Sunday. 

"We’re not busting sequester caps," Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday." "In just the next two years, 70 percent of the sequester is intact. Ninety-two percent of the sequester over the life of the sequester is intact. The Democrats came into this thing saying ‘get rid of the entire sequester.’"

“We are permanently asking federal workers to contribute more to their pensions so that the hard-working taxpayers who pay for those pensions don’t have to pay as much," he said.

"This is keeping our principle intact," Ryan added. "No tax increases, net deficit reduction, permanent spending cuts in place of the across-the-board [sequester] approach.”

When Ryan says “we are asking federal workers to contribute more to their pensions so that hard-working taxpayers who pay for those pensions don’t have to pay as much”; aren’t federal workers taxpayers too?

Obama has ticked off all the boxes on the Republican agenda.  This Obama/Ryan 2 year budget is the cruelest of all.   

 Washington's reaction to the budget deal:

Nancy Pelosi to Military:  Embrace the Suck

I can't understand what Pelosi finds so funny about millions of people without food, jobs and homes.

Jamie Dimon JP Morgan Chase:  "I sent an email to Patty Murray and Paul Ryan yesterday basically saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ and may the lord bless them because the country is getting stronger every single day".

Stronger for whom?

Those are the words of Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase who has a $23 billion dollar slush fund to pay off fines and buy off prosecutors for stealing trillions from the American People in homes, jobs and savings.   Do you know that 30% of bank tellers receive food stamps?  Just another form of bailing out shareholder profits.

You’ve seen the reaction from Pelosi and Dimon, here’s the reaction from America:

 This heartbreaking call from a lady in Maryland who lost her unemployment benefits:

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Yes, while Pelosi embraces the suck and Jamie Dimon blesses Ryan and Murray, that lady in Maryland is defaulting on her rent and credit for the first time in 40 years.

And this heartbreaking call from Mike in Kentucky:

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Another caller from Arkansas asked about raising the minimum wage this is what you get:

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 Merry Christmas to America from Barack Obama, after all he is the one who promoted an austerity agenda. He's the one that put pensions, medicare and social security on the table.  

Well he's off to Hawaii for the holidays.  Merry Christmas from Jamie Dimon, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, Patty Murray, Chuck Schumer and all the rest of the millionaires whose lives were just enriched by slashing all hopes and dreams of the American people.

By Patricia Baeten  

Ding Dong the Obamacare Witch is Dead Part III

Well the Obamacare nightmare goes on.  This is what you get when a politician claiming to be a Democrat runs for office and then governs, and I use the term "governs" loosely, like a Republican.   Every Republican house of horrors dream has come to bear under Obama. 

Barack Obama is the first President of any stripe to cut funding for Social Security.  First Social Security was cut but freezing all cost of living raises for 3 years and then instituting the highly desired Republican plan of cutting Social Security with a payroll tax holiday.

From a Washington Post article by Amy Goldstein, October 16, 2010 Business Section:

For the second year in a row, the nearly 54 million retirees and other Americans who receive Social Security benefits will not get any cost-of-living increase in 2011 in their monthly checks, government officials announced Friday, renewing debate over whether the system offers enough help in a weak economy.

The absence of any growth in Social Security checks for consecutive years is unprecedented in the 3-1/2 decades that payments have been adjusted automatically based on the nation's inflation rate.

The news that retirement benefits will remain static was part of a trio of developments on Friday that drew attention to lingering effects of the recession. Taken together, the new reminders of the country's economic fragility carry large political stakes, coming 2-1/2 weeks before a midterm election in which the deficit and jobs are paramount concerns among voters.

Yes, Democratic voters demoralized by Obama’s Republican agenda failed to go to the polls to vote in November 2010.  The Tea Party seized the opportunity of low Democratic turnout to usher in a new wave of Republican Governors, Congressmen and Senators to demand of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Barack Obama did what no Republican would dare to do, cut Social Security.  That was followed by another Republican dream, the Social Security payroll tax holiday.  Most people were not even aware of the payroll tax holiday because the extra money they received in their paychecks from the payroll tax holiday was so small it wasn’t really noticeable.  But, they sure were aware when their payroll taxes went up 4% to recoup the 2 years of the payroll 2% tax holiday.

There was this article From Strengthen Social Security.org:

Washington, D.C. — The payroll tax holiday recently unveiled by President Obama and Republican Congressional leaders could lead to the “unraveling of Social Security,” charged Eric Kingson, Co-Director of Social Security Works and an expert on Social Security…

President Obama has proposed reducing the employee’s share of the payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Restoring the 2 percent lost due to the payroll tax holiday would be a nearly 50 percent tax increase on what workers would be paying throughout the year.

Two percent of taxable payroll is what Social Security’s actuaries calculate is needed to put Social Security in surplus for the next 75 years. “There are already many in Washington who want to cut Social Security’s modest benefits, which average just $13,000 a year,” claimed Kingson. “If the tax cuts became permanent and if a future Congress chose not to continue to reimburse the Social Security Trust Funds for the lost revenue, today’s manageable shortfall would double, becoming much less manageable.  

There would be tremendous pressure to make deep cuts to middle class benefits, even as the population was rapidly aging.”

“A payroll tax holiday will also promote Social Security privatization,” charged Kingson. “Once people get to put the 2 percent in their own pockets, they will be more susceptible to appeals that they should be able to put the funds into a private account where it can be gambled on Wall Street.”

“All of these likely scenarios, if they occur, will result in the unraveling of Social Security,” claimed Kingson.

Yes indeedy, the Republican and Obama payroll tax holiday could unravel Social Security.  That’s just what Obama and the Republicans planned.

But wait, even more body slams to people on Social Security under Obama and the Republicans.  According to Fox Business News dated October 14, 2013:

Another year, another small raise for millions of people who rely on Social Security, veterans' benefits and federal pensions.

Preliminary figures suggest next year's benefit increase will be roughly 1.5 percent, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. The increase will be small because consumer prices, as measured by the government, haven't gone up much in the past year.

For the second year in a row, it would be one of the lowest raises since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

The exact size of the cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, won't be known until the Labor Department releases the inflation report for September. That was supposed to happen Wednesday, but the report was delayed indefinitely because of the partial government shutdown.

More than a fifth of the country is waiting.

Nearly 58 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children get Social Security benefits. The average monthly payment is $1,162. A 1.5 percent raise would increase the typical monthly payment by about $17.

So, let’s look at Obamacare.  Obamacare was a creation of the Heritage Foundation.  The Heritage Foundation is a Conservative, Republican think tank and is promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. They call for less Government by, for and of the people.

Obamacare was larded up with every Republican wet dream to destroy Medicare.  It is a way to take money away from Medicare and Medicaid and funnel those funds into private insurer’s profits.

For the American people it’s like being strapped into a funhouse car in the house of horrors and being jolted from one horror room into the next.  First horror house room is the American people with individual policies, losing those policies.

On December 9^th a “reporter” from the Huffington Post was on C-Span’s Washington Journal to talk about Obamacare.  A woman from Georgia called in and said she recently retired and receives $1,024 in Social Security.  She was notified by the State of Georgia that she must sign up for Obamacare.  Her policy through Obamacare will cost her about $400 per month after the subsidy allotted to her.  That entitles her to a policy under the Bronze plan.

Under the Bronze plan she pays $400 and month to the insurance company in addition to what the U.S. Treasury pays the insurance company for her.  Under the Bronze plan she has a $6,000 deductible and after she meets her deductible the insurance company pays 60% and she pays 40%.  She asked, "how is that affordable?"

The Huffington Post writer said the good news is, if she can’t afford it she won’t have to pay the penalty.

Hear that?  She still doesn’t have insurance and will be worse off if she gets insurance, that’s the good news.  

Obama and Republicans say you must bend down the cost curve.  Well, today on C-Span’s Washington Journal a previous emergency room doctor turned journalist, Elizabeth Rosenthal, was a guest to discuss her recent article in the New York Times called “As Hospital Prices Soar a Stitch Tops $500”.

"A day spent as an inpatient at an American hospital costs on average more than $4,000, five times the charge in many other developed countries, according to the International Federation of Health Plans, a global network of health insurance industries.

The most expensive hospitals charge more than $12,500 a day. And at many of them, including California Pacific Medical Center, emergency rooms are profit centers. That is why one of the simplest and oldest medical procedures—closing a wound with a needle and thread—typically leads to bills of at least $1,500 and often much more."

Yes, the Obamacare nightmare goes on.  The Republican for profit, Wall Street mandatory profit based insurance system is thriving under Obamacare.  Unfortunately it is at the expense of an abused, beaten, jobless, broke American public.  But Obama’s Republican for-profit healthcare system is ensured endless profits.  Merry Christmas America.

By Patricia Baeten

CA Supreme Court Judge with Millions in Wells Fargo Stock Rules in Favor of Wells Fargo Mortgage

During information gathering for an article on State Supreme Court Justices’ disclosure requirements called State Supreme Court Justices Reveal Scant Financial Information, the Center for Public Integrity discovered an egregious conflict of interest by California State Supreme Court Justice Kathryn Werdeger.

According to the article by Kytja Weir:

Last December, the California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by a couple who had accused financial giant Wells Fargo & Co. of predatory lending.

One justice, who owned stock in the bank, recused himself from the case. But Justice Kathryn Werdegar, who owned as much as $1 million of Wells Fargo stock, participated — and shouldn’t have.

What makes that conflict of interest by the highest court in California so important is a case that is winding its way through the California court system involving Wells Fargo and the City of Richmond.

Richmond became the first city in the country to offer to purchase mortgages of distressed homeowners from Wall Street banks and other lenders.  The city council approved a plan in April to allow the city to use its eminent domain authority to purchase loans in order to modify them and allow families to avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. 

Eminent Domain is the power of government to take private property for the public good.  The 5^th Amendment to the U.S. constitution was put into law by James Madison to ensure property owners would receive “just compensation” for their property.  Just compensation as defined by the Supreme Court means “fair market value”.

The City of Richmond’s case is based on the 2005 Kelo vs. the City of New London, CT US Supreme Court Case.  In that case the United States Supreme Court ruled in a controversial 5-4 decision, that a private developer could seize the land of private citizens for economic development as long as they paid “fair market value”. 

In the City of Richmond, California almost half of the city’s residential mortgage holders are underwater.

According to Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, “We are stepping in by taking these troubled loans off the hands of the banks, and we’re paying them fair market value for these loans.  And then we’re working with the homeowners to refinance and modify loans in line with current home values.  We call on the banks to voluntarily sell us these loans, and if they don’t cooperate, we will be considering eminent domain”.

 “Wells Fargo, three other banks and even the Federal Housing Finance Agency think otherwise”.

“The banks have filed two lawsuits alleging that the plan is an illegal abuse of eminent domain, which allows governments to seize private property for public use – like a house in the path of a new highway or a piece of land needed for a new park”.

 “The banks argue the plan would "severely disrupt the United States mortgage industry" because many other cities would likely adopt the same program to help homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth”

The Obama Administration’s Federal Housing Finance Agency has sided with Wells Fargo bond holders and the banks against the City of Richmond and its residents. 

However, according to a December 6^th article in the Credit Union Times by David Morrison, the ACLU has filed suit against Obama’s Federal Housing Agency:

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Federal Housing Finance Agency seeking information about the FHFA’s position on the use of eminent domain to reduce the principal amounts of mortgage loans.

The organization brought the suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under the federal Freedom of Information Act, contending that it had asked the agency about how it has developed its position on the use of eminent domain to reduce mortgage principal and, particular, about the role larger banks might have played in developing that policy.

"The FHFA has taken an aggressive stance on this issue in a way that has harmed minority communities. The public deserves to know why," said Linda Lye, staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

The ACLU said that it first asked for the information in October and, after receiving one response from the agency, have not received any more.

In the wake of the city of Richmond, Calif., beginning to take steps toward using eminent domain to reduce the principal on some mortgages, the ACLU charged the FHFA threatened legal action against Richmond or any other city that uses eminent domain to reduce mortgage principals and by threatening to deny credit to people seeking mortgages in those communities.

Imagine that, the United States Government under Barack Obama is threatening any city that uses eminent domain to reduce mortgages and keep people in their homes. Will the California Supreme Court Justices with millions of shares of Wells Fargo Stock recuse themselves?

I guess that Wall Street Banks who funneled a billion dollars into the Obama campaign are being paid off in the trillions.


By Patricia Baeten

The War on Science in the Age of Ignorance

Since Ronald Reagan ushered in the Age of Ignorance in 1980, the Republican Party has dumbed down America through Fox News and Talk Radio.  There is a reason Fox News and Talk Radio are banned in Canada.  It’s the ignorance and hatred stupid. 

Anyone who has seen the movie Hotel Rwanda knows how powerful hatred and ignorance being bombarded over the airwaves is.  Talk radio in Rwanda called the Tutsi’s cockroaches that had to be chopped down by the Hutu’s.  That message was drilled in over and over, day after day until the genocide.  That is no different than the messages that are drilled in over and over, day after day in the United States by Fox News and Talk Radio.

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Remember Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Michael J. Fox and Christopher Reeve for supporting embryonic stem cell research?  Embryos that were created in a Petri dish and frozen for the purpose of reproduction were burned or discarded if not used for reproduction.  Prior to the anti-science George W. Bush, leaps and bounds were made in the science world using the unused embryos for research rather than just destroying them.

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The attacks on science under George W. Bush and the slashing of funding for life-saving research into rare diseases, cancer, brain injuries, and brain diseases like schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer’s plus a myriad of other conditions that affect the quality and quantity of life were devastating.  These devastating cuts have been continued and increased under President Barack Obama.  That’s right, it’s worse under Obama.

On Friday, December 6^th C-Span’s Washington Journal had an entire show on the effects of sequestration on the National Institutes of Health.  NIH is the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world and with the cuts under the Bush Administration and the sequestration cuts under the Obama Administration, the loss of scientists and medical research has been mind numbing. 

Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the NIH was the first guest.  Dr. Collins headed up the Gnome project under President Clinton.  The Gnome project has been called the biggest scientific advancement since President John F. Kennedy’s project to put a man on the moon.

Dr. Collins said “internationally things are so exciting right now scientifically, there’s never been a time of such promise, but frankly things have never been so constrained in terms of resources”. 

Dr. Collins said “this is a historically difficult moment in lack of support for science that began 10 years ago.  In 2003 President Clinton’s Gnome initiative was stymied by the incurious George W. Bush. 

Funding for the NIH went flat under George W. Bush and when adjusted for inflation the cut was about 3% per year.  On top of that, on March 21^st, 2013 the NIH lost $1.5 Billion dollars for research under Barack Obama’s sequestration.  All totaled the NIH has lost 25% of their research money over the last 10 years.

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Dr. Collins said that sequester has done so much damage that scientists are leaving the U.S. for countries that are more enlightened.  The investment in NIH is a wonderful support of the economy.  When you talk about the return on investment of the funds going to all 50 states, you get a 2 fold return in just one year.

According to Dr. Collins, Neuroscience Research is the last frontier in medical research.  The human brain is the most complicated structure in the universe with 86 billion neurons, each with about 1,000 connections.  

The $1.5 billion that has been cut for brain science under sequestration in order to provide tax cuts for billionaires and banks could fund brain disease research to identify abnormalities 10 years before any onset of illness.  What is the cost to our nation for untreated brain and mental illness?  Is that worth low taxes to become an ignorant nation that has no value for its citizens and their well-being?

Obama is not a Democrat, never was, he is a Ronald Reagan Republican.  He has said over and over that he wanted to be transformative President like Ronald Reagan.

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Where presidents like William Jefferson Clinton and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were visionaries seeing man on the moon and science creating a toolkit to repair your body from your own Gnomes, Obama and Reagan saw a waste of money.

Obama is no Kennedy and no Clinton.  He has achieved his goal of becoming the transformational president that Reagan was.  Every human need is for sale to the highest bidder. 

By Patricia Baeten

Ding Dong the Obamacare Witch is Dead Part II

Seems the new improved Obamacare website has the same problems as the old Obamacare website, it’s Obamacare Stupid.   

David Martosko, U.S. Political Editor at the website “MailOnline” gave the new, improved website a whirl.  Here is what he writes:

·       New Obamacare website 'fix' CRASHES just as White House boasts of its success

·       Government programmers designed a 'queueing' feature to help avoid system crashes, emailing users to return when traffic levels are lower

·       That new add-on, too, crashed on Monday while President Obama's chief spokesman was boasting that it would 'improve the user experience'

·       Between midnight and noon on Monday, 375,000 people visited healthcare.gov – a fraction of whom actually purchased medical insurance

·       Amazon.com expects to complete 13 million online sales on Cyber Monday

So here’s the message he got at Healthcare.gov:

Okay, so he decided to leave an e-mail address and this is the message he received:

Know how I know the Obamacare Witch is dead?  When Peggy Noonan on her blog starts calling for Medicare for all, Obamacare is dead.  Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and avid Reagan worshipper is calling for Medicare for all.  That’s right, the speechwriter for Reagan who destroyed healthcare in America, and was virulently against Medicare and all social programs is now calling for socialized medicine.

From Peggy Noonan’s blog:

Back to ObamaCare.

More than four years ago, in July 2009, I wrote a column in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered President Obama some wisdom on health care. Obama’s newly proposed plan—the Affordable Care Act—wouldn’t work, said FDR. In fact, Obama’s proposal put him in a “lose-lose” position…

But FDR had an idea—a sly one, as his ideas usually were. First, he told Obama, drop your current bill. Second, take everyone aback by talking constantly about the national medical program that already exists, Medicare.

The sly fox was telling the young president to show good faith to Republicans by admitting problems, and reassure Democrats by showing his heart and commitment to federal solutions. “Then, at the end,” said FDR, “get your Democratic majorities to make one little change in the program—it’s now open to all. You don’t have to be 65. The uninsured can enroll. Do it in the dead of night if you have to, you’ve got the votes.” Such a program, he said, after so many institutional and structural changes, would of course have to have a new name. “I’d suggest ‘The National Health Service.’”

That’s right even Peggy Noonan can see that national healthcare is the only way to go.  So ding dong the Obamacare Witch is dead.  All we need is for a doctor to look at the clock and make the call.

By Patricia Baeten

America Found Drowned In Bathtub GOP Suspected

Our goal is to shrink government to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub…Grover Norquist

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses 2 points?" … Pope Francis

You hear from Paul Ryan and his generation, the hypothetical generational theft to come if Social Security and Medicare are not gutted for the current baby boom generation ready to retire.  Blah blah blah, we baby boomers have heard it over and over again. 

Well generational theft is real and it’s here.  They are the Reagan generation of instant gratification without working for anything.  They started out selling insurance under Reagan and just kept selling magic beans to whomever they could bilk out of their life savings.  They bleed their parents, and family members to invest in their latest scheme.  They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

They are the real generational thieves, the tail end of the baby boomers born after 1950.  You know who they are.  They are the generation that didn’t have to go to war during the Vietnam era and therefore are always anxious for the next war they won’t have to fight. 

They are the blowhards that say, you have to spend money to make money.  They are Republicans and voted for George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.  They want to privatize Social Security because all those billions of dollars sitting in Social Security could be invested in the stock market for higher returns.  Social Security and Medicare are the old way; they have the new, get rich quick way.

They are the ones that came up with ARM loans so you could buy a Mc Mansion with little to no money down.  The premise they came up with regard to ARM loans was, you always would make more money, so don’t worry about tomorrow.

They always had a new car, kept buying bigger and bigger homes, boats, vacation condo’s, the sky was the limit.  And they were able to keep up that lifestyle by bilking “stupid” people out of their hard earned money.

The baby boomers were the ones who put 20% down to buy a modest home.  Baby boomers took out 30 year mortgages and saved in their 401K for retirement.  They paid into Social Security and Medicare, fought the wars and knew the value of a dollar.  When the Reagan generation wanted to privatize Social Security, baby boomers said “no”, that’s fool hardy.

So the Reagan generation came up with mortgage backed securities.  Those securities were worthless junk but Reganites paid the securities rating agencies to rate them as triple A.  They then sold those worthless securities to teachers unions and government workers unions and municipalities as triple A, low risk, low return, in for the long haul investments. 

Many of them in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s became billionaires on Wall Street selling that crap to Baby Boomers.  Now that the entire pyramid scheme has collapsed they are in our government and protect themselves from prosecution by offering to pay fines in order to remain free to do it again.

The Wimpy Ronald Reagan generation would always pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.  They always had a new get rich quick scheme.  Then when things went belly up on their latest scam they would file bankruptcy every seven years and start again.

Where the baby boomers respect and admire the experience and wisdom of their elders, the Reagan generation looks at them as prospects; stupid people who worked for a living.  When you are a smart Reaganite, you let the stupid work and you make money off of them.

They are the ones who walk into the bar and buy a round for everyone.  The Mr. Big, who you always wonder, where did they get all that money?

Now the bar tab is due, and they blame the $17 trillion dollar debt on the baby boomers, and their desire to retire with security.  They have cleaned out 401K’s and government pensions and now stand with their pockets inside out saying “it’s generational theft to expect our children to work”. 

Rather than prosecuting them for their generational theft of our retirement funds and government pensions, and savings they now want to return to the “cat food” days when all the elderly could afford to eat was cat food.  But now, cat food costs the same as people food, because it is a Wall Street commodity.

The Reagan generation looked at the U.S. Postal Service and saw money to be taken.  Rather than taxpayers of this country expecting their government to provide basic services, the Reaganites want to privatize the postal service into a for profit business.  Instead of citizens enjoying reasonable postal rates for shipping, get ready for that $10 package you need to ship costing $50.

The Reagan generation looked at all that government money going into our public schools and decided to redirect those tax dollars into private charter schools.  They fired tenured teachers with master’s degrees and filled those slots with inexperience teachers.  In private charter schools the accountability they demand in public schools does not exist.  The public schools federal food subsidies are cut and hungry children cannot learn. 

The Reagan generation looked at government workers and all their pension money and went after the largess.  They say the government cannot provide the same level of services that the private sector can for less.   They demand government be cut down by eliminating jobs and give tax breaks to the wealthy. 

The Reagan generation hates government subsidies for Amtrak and starve their budget then complain that Amtrak isn’t efficient and is a waste of taxpayer money.  Over 30 million people use Amtrak. 

So this Thanksgiving there won’t be much to be thankful for, Republicans have cut SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) just in time for the holidays. While Republicans gorge themselves for Thanksgiving, many, many go hungry.

Happy Thanksgiving from the GOP.  They have finally shrunk America enough to drown in a bathtub. 

By Patricia Baeten 

Kaboom! Nuclear Option Goes Off

Oh the horrors, Democrats finally took the nuclear option.  The fainting couches at Fox News are full to the brim.  Viewers are treated to clips of Democrats warning Republicans about using the nuclear option to confirm Bush’s judges, ad nausea.

So, let’s take a little trip down the memory hole.  George Bush lost the 2000 election by over a half million votes and lost Florida in spite of his brother’s and family friends’ machinations.  After James Baker filed the lawsuit Bush v. Gore, daddy’s pals on the Supreme Court made an extra-judicial decision to overturn the election.  Bush and Cheney came into office making a full assault on our Democracy as if they had an overwhelming victory.

Starting with Bush’s pick for Attorney General John Ashcroft, the judicial system in the U.S. was forever pushed far right. 

According to Democracy Now here’s a sample of John Ashcroft’s legacy prior to becoming A.G.:

He persistently attempted to block school desegregation in his state; a federal court threatened to hold the state in contempt for his failure to comply with a court order.

He gave a lengthy interview to the Neo-Confederate magazine Southern Partisan, in which he praised Confederate leaders who fought to preserve slavery, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

He distorted the record of a highly qualified African American state Supreme Court Judge and misled his colleagues in the Senate, successfully sabotaging the judge’s nomination to a federal district court.

He received an honorary degree from Bob Jones University and spoke there just three years ago; the Christian university has a segregationist history and until recently banned interracial dating and marriage.

But was Ashcroft filibustered?  No, he went on to become Attorney General and spent about $8,000 for drapes to cover “Lady Justice’s” naked breast.  He wrote the Patriot Act and allowed the torture of prisoners.  Republicans said over and over, the President has the right to an up or down vote on his choices.

Upon arrival in the White House, Bush fired all judges and began filling those seats with the biggest cavalcade of clowns in this country’s history.  Attorneys from Pat Robertson’s Regent University and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University were prominent in the Bush Administration.  Bush’s nominees had a basic requirement, an extreme religo-crazy agenda. 

Two of Bush’s appointees that Democrats objected to were Janice Rogers Brown and Pricilla Owen.  Both were right-wing extremists.  So Republicans made a deal with Democrats, pass Bush’s picks and we will avert the “nuclear option”.  Those nut cases are still on the court today making judgments on personal religious philosophy rather than established law.

Then there was the controversial December 7, 2006 midterm dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys who were George W. Bush appointees.  There had been a mid-term election and these attorneys failed to indict Democratic politicians ahead of the election.

One of those fired attorneys was David Iglesias, who was the subject of the movie “A Few Good Men” and was played by Tom Cruise.  Iglesias a Republican and a JAG officer had received a positive performance review just before he was fired by Bush.

Iglesias was the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico where Republican Representative Heather Wilson was up for reelection.  New Mexico’s Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Wilson made phone calls to Attorney Iglesias to pressure him to bring charges of corruption against Democratic Senate President Pro Tem, Manny Aragon before the election.  The FBI had been investigating Aragon for possible kickbacks in connection of construction of two courthouses in Albuquerque.

According to a 2007 article by Michael Coleman in the Albuquerque Journal:

Former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias told Congress on Tuesday that Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson made "inappropriate" calls to inquire about public corruption cases.

Iglesias told House and Senate committees the calls from his fellow Republicans marked the first time he had ever received inquiries about an ongoing federal investigation from a member of Congress.

"I got the distinct impression I was to take action before (the general election)," Iglesias testified.

Monica Goodling, a Regent University (Pat Robertson) grad had been in charge of decisions on the hiring and firing of the attorneys.  At a congressional hearing on the political firings of the seven attorneys she admitted judges were hired on the basis of political predisposition.

So here we are today, the Democrats finally invoked the nuclear option.  Finally.   Our Government has been paralyzed by the Republican Party.  We must move forward.

Republicans aren’t interested in compromise, nor are they interested in sanity.  They filibuster everything, from appointments of staff and judges to the most minor legislation.  If you were dealing with sane, reasonable people you wouldn’t have to resort to the nuclear option of passing appointments with a simple majority.  But alas, we are not dealing with sane, reasonable people; we are dealing with the new Republican Party.  Sane need not apply.  Kaboom!

By Patricia Baeten

Ding Dong the Obamacare Witch Is Dead

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has been making the physician rounds on cable stations to sell the fiasco he helped to create called Affordable Healthcare Act.  For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Rahm Emanuel current Mayor of Chicago and former White House Chief of Staff to Obama.  So it is no surprise that the person who was instrumental in creating Obamacare was none other than Rahm’s brother, Ezekiel.

And Ezekiel isn't very tolerant of sick people, the death panels were named after his idea that after a certain age it is a waste of money to pay for life saving operations.  While he is a doctor, he is a bioethicist, which would explain his lack of bedside manner.  

According to Betsy McCaughey’s August 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief":

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician’s duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient’s needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.

Obamacare was a disaster from the get go.  The country was ready for universal healthcare provided by the government we pay taxes into.  It doesn’t make sense that our country would provide healthcare for the very young and the very old and throw the rest of its citizens to the mercy of a for-profit Wall Street based insurance system.

Since the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the insurance companies have made life and death decisions based on profit margins and something called “shareholder” value.  They continued to raise premiums to ensure continued profits for those at the top, while dropping coverage as soon an insured became ill or denied coverage for expensive life-saving treatments based on dubious “pre-existing conditions”.

This ridiculous “affordable healthcare” law was an abomination from the maternity coverage for all to the “give a buddy a government contract”.  Requiring all citizens to buy overpriced, profit driven insurance was never feasible, especially with the ungodly high unemployment rate along with the huge drop in wages. 

A for profit healthcare system is not feasible, “for profit” and “healthcare” are incongruent that is why no industrialized nation has a “for profit” system. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, turn the contract for the IT services over to a Canadian company with a really bad record, but has ties with Obama and his Chicago thugs in the White House.

Obamacare is based on lies stacked upon lies, starting with Obama’s campaign promise of Medicare for all.  His campaign promise was a lie and he knew it.  If one had listened to Obama, they would know he like his predecessor George W. Bush wanted to be transformational like Reagan.  Transformational meaning screw the American people, everything is for profit. 

Reagan’s transformation began with Alan Greenspan calling for repeal of Glass-Steagall as early as 1987.  While a lot of people concentrate on the effects of the repeal on investment banks and commercial banks, credit default swaps and derivatives trading, the repeal opened the gates of hell for insurance based national health care system traded on Wall Street.

If you are old enough to remember the Reagan years, they transformed America into a debtor country with healthcare only for the rich, high priced insurance for the rest.

Now Obamacare is going up in flames like the Hindenburg.  When the House of Representatives passed Obamacare, it included a public option.  The Senate had a sound Democratic majority and could have passed the house bill with a simple majority.  However, the Democrat’s Leader, Hapless Harry Reid said it couldn’t pass the Senate unless it had 60 votes. 

The Senate Democratic establishment of Lieberman, Dodd, Schumer, Reid, Biden et al, took out the public option and voila, the Obama/Lieberman Democrats passed the bill with just a simple majority, no 60 votes needed. 

The bill was crafted by insurance companies without input from physicians, nurses, unions or patients.  With a sleight of hand, these pseudo Democrats assured the insurance industry their profit stream would not dry up under a President Obama.

Most of those Democrats are no longer there, they were soundly rejected and the blue dog Democrats like Brent Stupak have been sent to the pound.  Real Democrats like Al Franken, Alan Grayson, Marcy Capter, Maria Cantwell and Elizabeth Warren will have to take the blame for the handiwork of Obama and his Wall Street Democrats.  Elizabeth Warren and John McCain have introduced a bill to reinstate Glass Steagall, lets hope it passes.

So now this Obama atrocity has destroyed the sick, hobbled healthcare system we had and made it worse.  That is the story of everything Obama has had his finger prints on.  When George W. Bush was president, Newt Gingrich said the Democrats bumper stickers should say “Had Enough?”  So true today.

Look at the “high speed rail system” we were promised.  Obama decided that only states that wanted to participate would get money for high speed rail.  Imagine if Eisenhower’s interstate highway system was like that.  That is the mess you have with Obama’s high speed rail scam.

So this is what you get when the American people are not allowed to pick their candidates.  When the two parties control the primaries and whose votes they will count, you get a president that answers to his campaign donors.  It was true with Bush and true with Obama.  And all that bullsh*t about Obama’s campaign being financed by individual donors is just that, bullsh*t. 

Obama raised over $300 million in October 2008 while over 700,000 Americans were losing their jobs each month.  Those donations were in $200 or less prepaid untraceable credit cards.  That comes to $1 million for every man, woman and child in the United States.

But those banks that printed up those credit cards were handsomely rewarded and continue to be rewarded with the Federal Reserve printing $38 billion a month to bail them out.  Now we all pay the price for a president who has never accomplished anything in his life.  Totally unqualified for the office, he makes G.W. Bush look like Franklin Roosevelt.

Now after the insurance industry rejiggered their insurance plans in anticipation of the 2014 deadline to purchase their products, Obama has decided to throw a wrench in the gears and in an attempt to save himself and his democrats.  He throws out a meaningless, useless fix that can be overridden by State Insurance Commissioners intensifying the horrific mess he created.

There is no way to fix this mess, absolutely no way.  Well I guess we’ll have to stand back and watch this fiasco come to its natural conclusion, the worst law ever passed by the worst congress and worst President in history. I just hope not too many lives are lost in the interim.

By Patricia Baeten

Thank you, all who serve.  Your suffering is more than one can bear to think about and your service and dedication to your country hard for many to imagine.  Thank you you take one's breath away. 

World War II

Vietnam

Afghanistan (Video)

Iraq (Video)

On your day, thank you for your sacrifice, it takes one's breath away.

Thank you.

by Patricia Baeten

Is The Secretive Carlyle Group in Charge of Spying for America?

You have to wonder what Edward Snowden saw that was so horrific and egregious it would make him give up everything for nothing in return.  He was making around $200,000 a year working in paradise, now he will be on the run for the rest of his life.  It really makes me wonder about a lot of things that are going on. 

"You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they're such powerful adversaries. No one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they'll get you in time. 

But at the same time you have to make a determination about what it is that's important to you. And if living unfreely but comfortably is something you're willing to accept, and I think it many of us are it's the human nature; you can get up everyday, go to work, you can collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest, and go to sleep at night after watching your shows."

Edward Snowden

  

I started thinking, how is it that jobs that you thought only your government legally could do are being outsourced on a massive scale to private contractors.  Edward Snowden worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, so I started wondering, who is that contractor and how did they get this government contract?  

The Obama Administration claims they had no idea the spying program existed nor did they know world leaders were having their private communications spied on.

According to an article in the Washington Post by Neil Irwin, “Seven Facts About Booz Allen Hamilton”

Booz has 24,500 employees, $5.8 billion in revenue for its 2013 fiscal year, $219 million in profits and a stock market value of $2.5 billion.

It's majority-owned by the Carlyle Group.  Carlyle, who owns 67.3 percent of Booz Allen's stock, is a global private equity giant having $176 billion in assets managed in 114 different funds.

The article goes on to say that 99% of Booz Allen Hamilton's revenues come from services they provide to the U.S. government.  They reported operating income of less than $200 million on revenue of $5.1 billion.  That’s pretty staggering and what’s even more crazy is that their bottom line was 9 times higher in 2013 than it was in 2010.  That year, 2010 was the same year that the “tea party” came into existence and Republicans took over the House of Representatives.

So the U.S. government is the source of basically ALL of their $5.1 billion in revenue.  And, they are almost exclusively owned by the Carlyle Group.

Sometimes called the Ex-Presidents Club, Carlyle has a glittering array of ex-politicians and big league bankers on its board. Former secretary of state James Baker is managing director while ex-secretary of defence Frank Carlucci is chairman. George Bush senior is an adviser. John Major heads up its European operations. 

In the wake of 11 September came a fear of anthrax attack. One company that benefited was Pittsburgh- based IT Group, which won a number of contracts to clean up anthrax-infected buildings, including the Hart Senate Office Building. Carlyle owned 25 per cent of the firm, which it subsequently sold on. Likewise its investment in US Investigation Services, a company that specialises in checking the background of employees, saw business improve dramatically.

Well, talk about taking lemons and making lemonade.  Not only did they make a shitload cleaning up after the anthrax attack, but they were able to use that as an excuse to go to war and war is where the Carlyle Group really makes a killing.

The Carlyle Group was the subject of a documentary called “Iron Triangle The Carlyle Group” the Bush family, the Saudi Royal family, Osama Bin Laden’s family and Donald Rumsfeld’s inner circle are just some of the high profile figures who have played a direct role in the rise of one of the most powerful and influential and secretive firms in Washington.

So the Carlyle Group has been conducting all the spying and surveillance in the U.S. that encompasses every country and government in the world.    Under the Obama Administration more whistleblowers and journalist have been threatened and prosecuted than under all other presidents combined.  

According to an article in Mother Jones titled “Obama’s War on Whistleblowers”, this White House has leaked information favorable to Obama without regard for National Security while crushing whistleblowers who release information that is not favorable. 

So if these private contractors conduct surveillance on everyone in the United States and the World including World Leaders, what is to keep them from cherry picking information that will further enrich or empower themselves even if it means spying on world leaders or to an extreme, having them eliminated?

The secret information is used by Obama to determine who will be killed in extrajudicial drone attacks.  What’s to keep these private contractors from passing on the names of their adversaries for elimination by the Obama Administration?

In an article written in The Nation by Lee Fang titled “How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Powers”, the dangers of these agencies contracted by the U.S. Government to Spy are enumerated.

Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges?

Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations.

The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online.

The episode also shows that Greenwald, who helped Snowden expose massive spying efforts in the United States, had been targeted by spy agency contractors in the past for supporting whistleblowers and WikiLeaks.

While Palantir boasts that its government-backed technology is geared towards helping the military track terrorists, stolen e-mails from HBGary Federal show the firm and its senior executives were eager to use its platform on behalf of the Chamber, one of the largest corporate lobbying associations.

In the fall of 2010, the Chamber had received unflattering attention, first from a New York Times piece about allegedly laundered money from AIG, and then from my reporting at the Center for American Progress’ Think Progress blog about foreign funds flowing to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity used to run campaign advertisements. 

So according to Lee Fang’s Nation Magazine article, in the fall of 2010 (the year the tea party took over the house) the Chamber of Commerce allegedly laundered funds from AIG and facilitated the flowing of foreign funds to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity to run campaign advertisements.   Are the secret spy agencies funded by the U.S. Government using information to affect the outcomes of elections to ensure an uninterrupted flow of governmental money into their coffers?  I think the answer is yes.

An article in the Oregonian entitled “Wyden, Blumenauer say private contractors play too powerful a role in spy agencies”,

Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer told a Portland audience Friday that the U.S. intelligence network relies too heavily on hundreds of thousands of private contractors who have gained top security clearances.

In addition, Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after their appearance that the panel is close to releasing a report showing that contractors played a major role in the "interrogations and torture" of terrorism suspects.

Blumenauer, who has also been critical of government surveillance activities, said some 500,000 contractors are among the one million Americans who have top-security classifications.

Sheesh, who doesn’t have top-security classification.  Is it any wonder that Edward Snowden feared for his life?  Is it any wonder the Glenn Greenwald fears for his freedom as an investigative reporter protected by the First Amendment?  Why was Michael Savage banned in Britain?  It doesn’t make any sense. 

Why were warnings from Russia about Tamerlan Tsarnaev ignored by the FBI?  Would a terrorist attack on Boston suit the purposes of these private spying contractors?

I think there’s a lot to be learned in knowing more about these “private, secret societies” like the Carlyle Group that are conducting our spying.  We need to know how much these agencies have gained financially since 9/11/01. 

By Patricia Baeten

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