Fact-esque

Clear Channel & Limbo: Wingnut Welfare on a Massive Scale

And yes, both of those puns were deliberate.

If you want to know just how powerful Rush Limbaugh actually is, consider this: Clear Channel is willing to go broke paying his salary.

Drowning under massive debt and desperate to cut more costs, Clear Channel took an ax to its payroll -- again -- and hacked hundreds of radio pros out the door. Program directors, morning show hosts, production pros, news anchors -- all of them tossed over the side. A "bloodbath," one newspaper called it. (In Albany, New York, the entire on-air staff at a Clear Channel music station was sacked; same with a radio outpost in Exeter, New Hampshire)

The most recent blizzard of pink slips (one industry report pegged it at "nearly 1,000") came in the wake of a January purge, in which 1,850 Clear Channel employees were let go. So already this year the company has shed nearly 3,000 employees, or 12 percent of its workforce. Also, last week, Clear Channel's parent company announced it was suspending its matching contributions to employee 401(k) retirement programs.

Granted, CC has made some blithering-idiot-type management mistakes but the biggest one was believing that Limbo is some sort of cash cow who'd bring in enough $$$ all by himself to keep them going. He didn't.

Pigs in Space 30: Thar's $$$ in Them Thar (Mortgage) Bills

Yessir, when you've got a good thing going and you've squeezed it dry, all you gotta do to make the money flow again is "help" the people you just took to teh cleaners. Plus you get to pretend you're a goddam hero. It's a nice perk.

This week, the Obama administration summoned mortgage company executives to Washington to demand they move faster to lower payments for homeowners sliding toward foreclosure. Treasury officials called on the companies to hire and train more people quickly to field applications for relief.

But industry insiders and legal experts say the limited capacity of mortgage companies is not the primary factor impeding the government’s $75 billion program to prevent foreclosures. Instead, it is that many mortgage companies are reluctant to give strapped homeowners a break because the companies collect lucrative fees on delinquent loans.

Even when borrowers stop paying, mortgage companies that service the loans collect fees out of the proceeds when homes are ultimately sold in foreclosure. So the longer borrowers remain delinquent, the greater the opportunities for these mortgage companies to extract revenue — fees for insurance, appraisals, title searches and legal services.

(emphasis added)

We suspected all along that the reluctance of the banking industry to re-finance delinquent homeowners had something to do with $$$. We knew it when they fought tooth and nail to keep the Congress or the Obama Admin from passing laws or setting up banking regulations that would allow bankruptcy judges to reset mortgage deals in court. Now, thanks to the NYT's Peter Goodman, we know a little jore about how the latest scam works.

What, did you think they were going to set it up to help you? They set it up so that yet another layer of fees can be gouged from what little they've left in your account. The Blue Dogs have, of course, helped the banksters to head off any attempt to keep them from raking off your money for the privilege of fixing the mess they made from raking off your money. It's a two-fer.

No conscience, no morals, no ethics. It's The World According to Ebeneezer Scrooge: we exist only as long as we perform the function of victim for the rapists. When we can't do that any more, when we're completely tapped out and the rich have appriopriated all our money, all the nation's resources, and all the planet's useful (read: profit-making) materials, there will no longer be any reason for our existence and we'd best die to decrease the surplus population.

You thought Dickens wrote a cautionary tale, didn't you? Turns out he wrote the Modern Banker's Ethics Handbook.

Blue Dogs Succeed in Making Reform Cost More

Honest to goodness, I don't know how any self-respecting member of Congress remains a member of the Blue Dog caucus.  I know they can't all be stupid but damn, if they don't look like it when they collectively hold up health care reform to work out deals that end up making the whole thing cost more: 

Ross said that together the changes would cut costs in the $1.5 trillion bill by about $100 billion, though the new break for small businesses and the decision to allow negotiated rates in the public plan would also add significant costs, so it wasn't clear that there was any net cost savings from the deal.

Morons.

A Uniquely Third World-America Solution!

Desperate to obstruct the closest chance we've got to real health care reform, rumor has it that the Senate Finance Committee is considering a uniquely third world-America model of care to replace a public health insurance plan option.  It works like this: if you don't have coverage - or even if you do but if care is unaffordable for you - you just show up once a year at an Area Medical Expedition.  The annual one in West Virginia works like this:

The 2009 Remote Area Medical (RAM) Expedition comes to the Virginia Appalachian mountains as Congress and President Obama wrestle with a health care overhaul. The event graphically illustrates gaps in the existing health care system."We're willing to sleep in pickup trucks or cars and deal with the elements to at least get some kind of health care," Reece adds. He earned a six-figure income working for an international industrial supply firm until an accident five years ago left him disabled. Joining him for dental, vision and medical checks are his wife, daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.

 "Tomorrow, I'm going to see the doctor to get my ear and my nose fixed!" grandson Jacob shouts excitedly. His nose appears battered and his ear has an oozing scab.

Problem solved!  And this model won't only work for rural areas, like the West Virginia example.  We in Philly have fond and grateful memories of Montel Williams driving his Big Pharma Bus through our area, tossing pills and insulin out the windows for the lucky duckies who could manage to crowd together within throwing distance:

A dozen people greeted the traffic-cone orange RV as it pulled into the Bensalem library parking lot Thursday morning, even though it would be an hour before anyone could climb aboard.
But they were desperate. The bus was their last resort.
Some like Kim hadn't taken their medication in three months, keeping just enough for an emergency dose.
She has a disorder that keeps her blood from clotting. A bad cut could hospitalize her, maybe kill her.
The drug Kim takes costs $800 for a 30-day supply. She is 18, a recent high school graduate who lost the health coverage she had through her mom.
Kim's story was only one of many heard by trained specialists on the bus.

Problem solved - by "trained specialists" - who needs fancy schmancy doctors?!   And the compassion and dignity practically ooze off the page - like matter from little Jacob's untended ear.  

Fun

They Both Reached for the Gun

Politico does its level best to keep the latest crazy zombie health care lie alive.   Here are the facts:

Myth vs. Fact: Advance Planning Consultations in H.R. 3200

 
Few areas are more vital for honest discussion and careful consideration than end-of-life care for America’s seniors.  Unfortunately, families often do not know their loved ones’ preferences for end of life care and are not confronted with these difficult decisions until an emergency arises. This leaves spouses, sons, daughters and grandchildren unprepared; as a result families struggle to make decisions in the midst of turmoil. 

The House health care legislation includes a provision (Sec. 1233) that provides seniors with better care as they grapple with these hard questions. This provision extends Medicare coverage to cover the cost of patients voluntarily speaking with their doctors about their values and preferences regarding end-of-life care. These are deeply personal decisions that take thoughtful consideration, and it is only appropriate that doctors be compensated for their time. 

 Myths and Facts about this provision 
 
Myth: Patients will be forced to have this consultation once every five years.

• Fact: Advance planning consultations are not mandatory; this benefit is completely voluntary.  The provision merely provides coverage under Medicare to have a conversation once every five years if – and only if – a patient wants to make his or her wishes known to a doctor. If desired, patients may have consultations more frequently if they are chronically ill or if their health status changes.

Myth: Patients will be forced to sign an advance care directive (or living will).

• Fact: Patients will never be forced to sign a living will; there is no mandate in the bill to complete an advance care directive. If a patient chooses to complete an advance directive or order for life sustaining treatment, these documents will help articulate a full range of treatment preferences, from full and aggressive treatment to limited, comfort care only.  Patients can customize these written documents so that their values are fully reflected, helping family members understand a loved one’s wishes so they can be respected.

Myth: Patients will have to see a health care professional chosen by the government.

• Fact: The government will not choose the doctor; physician choice is entirely up to the patient.  The legislation simply has Medicare pay for the consultation if the patient wishes to talk with his or her doctor about their preferences and values.  

Joining the Great Ponzi Scheme!

My son just got his first paycheck.  He paid $8.37 into Social Security and $1.97 into Medicare.   I asked him how he felt to pay into Social Security for the first time.  "Cheated!" he said.  He was kidding.  He's a good boy and I'm very proud of my working class guy. 

Bush III: Obama's Personal Anti-Abortion Advocate & God-Friendly Scientist

I hate to say the same things over and over again but I often don't have much choice: Obama isn't all that different from Bush and it isn't just civil rights or his obeisance to Wall Street. Sarah Posner writes in The Nation that he has just appointed Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), to lead the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kelley isn't exactly a wingnut but she is anti-abortion in a job that requires her to be objective at the very least. (Via T2A)

Crowley Taps Obama's Chest and Growls, O Man Bows

I wasn't going to weigh in on this idiocy because I expected it would fly South as soon as something more interesting came along, like Sarah's new shotgun. But then it turned ugly. Obama felt it necessary to apologize after Sgt Crowley did some standard cop-whining about how he just didn't understand what Mr Gates got all excited about or why he had to take that kind of...abuse.

“I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up,” the president said in an appearance in the White House briefing room. “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently.”

Maybe it is kind of a weenie-ass, Clinton-esque apology with lots of slick, sliding-around, maybe-I-mean-one-thing-maybe-I-mean-something-else language but even that kind of apology was entirely unnecessary.

BDD's or PBD's?

Joe Conason has been doing some homework on the Blue Dogs cheerfully helping Republicans obstruct any sort of health care, even health care that won't actually work, and he's beginning to wonder if we shouldn't quit calling them Blue Dog Democrats and start calling them Pork Barrel Democrats. Seems their fiscal concerns never rise past the level of the lobbyist $$$ they collect and the projects for their home states that they extort as payment for their votes.