Fact-esque

Insurance Industry Paid $20M for Obama

In your heart you already knew this, didn't you?

While some sunlight has been shed on the hefty sums shoveled into congressional campaign coffers in an effort to influence the Democrats' massive healthcare bill, little attention has been focused on the far larger sums received by President Barack Obama while he was a candidate in 2008.

A new figure, based on an exclusive analysis created for Raw Story by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that President Obama received a staggering $20,175,303 from the healthcare industry during the 2008 election cycle, nearly three times the amount of his presidential rival John McCain. McCain took in $7,758,289, the Center found.

The new figure, obtained by Raw Story through an independent custom research request performed by the Center for Responsive Politics -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics -- is the most comprehensive breakdown yet available of healthcare industry contributions to Obama during the 2008 election cycle.

Just thought you might want to know exactly how much it takes to buy a President these days. Just in case you wanted to buy one, you know?

(H/T Avedon)

The Bankster's Depression Unraveled: How They Made Us Think It's Our Fault

Mother Jones is devoting its whole Jan-Feb issue to banksters and how they got that way. "Too Big To Fail" includes articles by economist Joe Stiglitz, the guy who would have replaced Bernanke if Obama wasn't such a sell-out, Kevin Drum on the bankster's outright ownership of Congress, and The Nation's David Corn on the bail-out. He wants to know why we're not pissed.

LAST JANUARY, shortly before President Obama took office, veteran Democratic pollster John Marttila conducted a series of focus groups on a range of issues in the Philadelphia and Baltimore areas. When the conversations turned to the economy, Marttila was shocked. In the middle of the financial collapse, these people—men and women of different ages, incomes, races, and political affiliations—were predictably ticked off. But, he recalls, the "dominant emotional dynamic was self-criticism. They really felt that they had failed. They had spent too much on things they didn't need." The pollster had expected rage at Wall Street and George W. Bush, but the people in the groups barely mentioned Bush. And though they were upset by the shady and incomprehensible machinations of big banks, they were not revved up for revenge. "Their intellectual criticism was directed at the financial world," Marttila says, "but their emotional criticism was directed at themselves." Bottom line: They were not reaching for the pitchforks.

A year later, as Congress struggles with financial reform, populist fury aimed at the one-time masters of the universe has yet to materialize in any targeted manner; there's no mass movement demanding fundamental change. Sure, outrage over executive compensation caught the attention of regulators and lawmakers, and President Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve have taken limited steps to curb pay. But lawmakers have apparently not been fretting too much about public sentiment as they followed the urgings of finance lobbyists and weakened legislation to rein in Wall Street.

We're mad at us for what they did? WTF?

Friday Palin: Blowback from the Teabaggers

I believe we mentioned in last week's episode that the fickle TBers might not take too kindly to the Cuda hooking up with McCain. We figgered that with the new hottie from Mass in town, they'd figger, "Who needs Sarah if she's gonna hang out with people we don't like?" I asked, if memory serves, "How will her fans take this? As a step up or a betrayal?" Well, b's & g's, we have our answer and "steps up" aren't part of it. (Via Mark at Norwegianity)

[W]hen Palin announced last week that she would campaign for McCain in his reelection primary battle against ultra-conservative former congressman J.D. Hayworth, some of her most vocal supporters were outraged that she would endorse McCain, who they see as a Republican in Name Only (RINO).

On Friday, Paul Streitz, the co-founder of the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee — a group trying to get Palin to run for president in 2012 — sent out an e-mail slamming Palin for supporting McCain:

She has now chose to align herself with several bad actors. What should this be called, the Rinoization of Sarah Palin. [...]

She is certainly entitled to write a book and make money for her and her family, but other than what has she has done to support Republican and patriotic candidates. … Perhaps, Sarah was too busy talking to her agent about her Fox deal. Where the hell was Sarah?

Streitz is no longer involved with the Draft Sarah Committee, which condemned his e-mail, but he is not alone in his view. Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin wrote on her blog that “Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Sarah Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement.”

(emphasis in the original)

Uh-oh. Teh Cuda pissed off the Dragon Lady. That's not good. But Sarah is taking command, going on Hannity 's hatefest to identify herself with Hottie Scottie. Or at least try to.

Oh. The Speech. Right.

I dunno. Obama, as predicted by practically everyone, even me, delivered what appears to have been a real barn-burning populist firebreather, lambasting the Pubs for the 60-vote thing and calling them the Party of No and all that. Pretty much a preview of the way the ConservaDem party thinks it's going to run on that will let them hang onto the Congress in the off-year and the presidency in '12.

Mr. Obama appealed for an end to the “tired old battles” that have divided the country and stalled his efforts on Capitol Hill. He promised to focus intently on the issue of most immediate concern to the nation, jobs. And with his top priority, a health care overhaul, delayed in the wake of the recent Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts, he offered a pointed message to both parties.

“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills,” Mr. Obama said in his nationally televised speech. “And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town — a supermajority — then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.”

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. underscored that criticism, and the emotion behind it, on Thursday. He said that both he and the president were frustrated by "the obstructionist ways of the United States Senate on the part of the Republicans requiring 60 votes, a supermajority, for virtually every single solitary initiative we've had." 

I dunno. This might have been helpful 9 months ago, or even 6, but it's coming too late to mean much. Obama has already made it as clear as newly cleaned glass that Wall Street is alright by him and nothing he has said or will say now and forevermore is going to change the fact that he'll do whatver they tell him to do, Praise the Corporate Campaign Contributors. So they've let the Congress bog down so they can run against Do-Nothing Pubs? Like that was actually necessary in the first place? We got that, Barry. That's why we elected you instead of Do-Nothing John McC.

Open the Wrong Door? 7 Years in Prison for You: A Different Idea for the SOTU

So the SOTU is tonight and Obama is planning a rousing speech in which he will try to cheerlead everybody outt of the Depression Bush created and he has done little to expunge.

President Barack Obama will devote most of his first State of the Union address on Wednesday to fixing an economy that has sapped the nation's spirits and eroded his standing, with calls for tax cuts for small businesses and more restraint from a government that keeps piling up debt.

Obama will start on the economy and spend about two-thirds of his prime-time speech on that topic, the one most on the minds of Americans. His goal is to show a dissatisfied nation in plainspoken and specific terms that he understands their frustration and their struggles, and that his vast agenda is in touch with what they need.

You know, the Villagers and the New Democrat/GOP are all frantic about Teh Deficit! EEEK! but I don't know anybody else who is. The economy is the problem along with Obama's blind surrender to Wall Street, presumably in some wishful thinking that they might, you know, leave a little for everybody else (Phat Chance). And according to the NYT's Jeff Zeleny, he realizes that might be a teensy problem so he's going to try a Bush: take the "responsibility" for not moving fast enough while refusing to admit that turning $BILLIONS$$ over to Wall Street didn't change anything very much.

UnitedHealth Takes Next Step in the War Against Its Patients

With the remarkable -and remarkably profitable - success of UnitedHealth Ins Corp's piratical policies, and clearly completely unafraid of any political or legal blowback thanks to its equally successful program of buying Senators with campaign contributions, one of the nation's worst and most predatory health insurance corpo's has just upped the ante by threatening hospitals with ruin if they don't cave in to a patently ridiculous demand.

The fight is between Continuum Health Partners, a consortium of five New York hospitals, including Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, both major teaching hospitals, and UnitedHealthcare, which includes Oxford health plans and has 25 million members across the country, one million of them in New York.

While Congress has been haggling over covering as many as 15 million uninsured Americans, the prestigious hospitals and the major health insurer have been in bitter contract negotiations, not just over rates but also over UnitedHealthcare’s demand that the hospitals notify the insurance company within 24 hours after a patient’s admission. If a hospital failed to do so, UnitedHealthcare would cut its reimbursements for the patient by half.

UnitedHealthcare says the proposed rule is meant to improve the quality of care and cut costs by allowing insurance case managers to jump in right away. The hospitals say that having their reimbursement cut in half is too much to pay for a clerical error, and that the revenue drain would ultimately hurt their patients.

This isn't, of course, about punishing hospitals for "a clerical error". It's about giving UH yet another excuse to deny patient treatment. It's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scam.

Obama Finally Going to Regulate Banks? Sure He Is

Like many left-wing commentators, Robert Reich hasn't yet learned that an Obama promise is One Thing, an Obama action is Something Else. Like, lots of one and none of the other. A list of the promises Obama has made and then ignored or quotes from rousing speeches he's made which he has simply turned around and either ignored or actually violated would be tedious. Pretty much everything he said during the campaign and after his election has been the opposite of what he's done when the time came. Yet Reich seems to have accepted without question that because of Scvott brown, Obama will now be forced to go after the banks and that therefore his recent populist-style speeches are a genuine sign of what we can expect.

Sure they are.

Friday Palin: Um, Palin/McCain 2012?

This is an odd one. Even Politico admits that they don't like each other, and after the lies she's been telling about him and the Frightening Finger of Blame she's been pointing at him, some discomfort would certainly be understandable.

John McCain's family and staff have long since made their distaste for Sarah Palin clear, and her base of supporters aren't natural McCain fans.

But the running mates have remained staunchly loyal to one another, with Palin making an exception for him in her almostly solely conservative endorsements, and McCain refusing to speak ill of her.

It's a partnership that makes sense. McCain's defense insulates her from the staff charges that she's basically unready for the national stage. And McCain needs her on his right flank. 

Maybe McCain needs her but since when has she cared about seeming "unready"? She brags about her outsider status and beams whenever anybody calls her "ignorant". So are her fans and they love her for it. To them, ignorance isn't a negative, it's the reason they want to vote for her: she's just as dumb as they are. That part of Smith's "analysis" is bunk.

Aaaaaand...We're Off!

As predicted yesterday, everybody's ready to a) claim the Coakley loss was due to a too liberal Democrat party, and b) take it as a sign that we have to back off even further on healthcare "reform" because, you know, WE'VE ONLY GOT 59 VOTES!

And so the next stages of both the healthcare kabuki and the disemboweling of what's left of the Democratic party begin on the same day with the same idiot excuse.

Because Coakley Is an ND/OGOP Hack, That's Why

OK. Here's the deal: something has happened in Massachusetts in the 2 years I've been gone. But of all the changes that might have occurred in that time, turning batshit insane Republican isn't one of them. So, like, why? That's the question everyone is asking and here's my answer as an ex-Massite.

They're pissed.

Not just "disappointed", "disaffected", "disgruntled" or any of the other "disses" people are throwing around today.

Pissed.