Interesting Kabuki Theater this week

[AllentownJake]

Unfortunately for the leadership, the masks came off. I just want to know who had the guts in the Senate to blow the whistle on Dick Durbin in his whipping votes against it. Whoever they are, they should be the Presidential Candidate in 2012 and I don't care if it is that "crazy" socialist Sanders.

Watching the hot potato game going on between the House leadership and the Senate leadership in who actually killed this is making me crack up.

It also explains a certain obsession and attack squad against one particular congressman from Ohio who refuses to vote to put the people of his district in danger of mandated insurance, weak sauce regulations, and a supreme court decision that will make the insurance lobby more powerful.

Honestly, I don't want to hear one more democratic politician tell me they support the Public Option. You don't, if you did, it would be in the bill. Everything has been done to weaken and kill this thing since I suspect a deal was made with the administration in August where it went from a critical component, to a nice to have. Cost controls on hospital expenses, equipment, and pharma, all scrapped.

This bill is an unmitigated disaster for the American People, I'm just glad in its final week of debate, the politicians got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and they continue to lie about it. No one who supports this bill has been able to rationally talk about what I see.

Mandated private insurance, a government unable to enforce regulations, and a powerful insurance lobby killing any further reform grown more powerful through the US Supreme Court decision. Yes, I do believe nothing is better than this combination.

As for Dennis, there is a crowd here, who likes to mock his legislative achievements, his wife, something about UFOs, the fact that his position on abortion has evolved, ect. If your hero is Off the Table democrats, that capitulate with republicans when the republicans are in power, and water down democratic legislation when they hold power than well I really have no use for you anyway. Maybe if some of the off the table folks did what they know is right, instead of what they think they have to do to be re-elected, Dennis might have an achievement or two. Hell maybe we wouldn't have a frakking war in Iraq.


I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone. - President Eisenhower.

[ChicagoSuz219]

1. I don't believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater...

Just saw this. Maybe it will interest you...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=letting_go_of_the_public_option

[AllentownJake]

2. The adminstration can't enforce exsiting laws on bankers for some reason

Why should I trust the most "liberal administration in 60 years" to be adequate regulators of an insurance lobby that took down the public option, let alone if we lose in 2012.

[ChicagoSuz219]

3. Because it's the only game in town.

After only 14 months, I'm not ready to throw in the towel.

[AllentownJake]

5. The bill is awful

it is in my opinion harmful to the country economically and in terms of the burden it will impose on citizens.

What am I supposed to do with that belief, when it is combined with the knowledge that it is the result of a deal.

I thank whoever blew the whistle on Durbin, I thought he was one of the good guys.

Oh, and I'm no longer scared.

[ChicagoSuz219]

22. You're either misinformed, or misinforming...

...either that or you're very wealthy &/or have never been without healthcare insurance.

You've hit on almost all of the Republican talking points. Good job!

[BeFree]

4. You're right

The whole system is corrupt and can not be trusted.

Welcome to the nightmare.

[AllentownJake]

6. Don't talk to me about regulations and laws

When you aren't enforcing the rule of law in other sectors of business that have big pocket books.

[BeFree]

10. The system is set...

...against the little people and for the bigshot elites.

Example: bushco got away with murder and torture. If any of us had done one percent of what they did we'd be on death row.

They are on TV bragging about how they get away with it.
Reality TV, there, eh?

[DemReadingDU]

7. I think this healh reform debate has been a diversion

The Public Option is in, it's out, it's in, it's out.

This Senator/Congressman is for it, against it, for it, against it.

Grayson has a bill for Medicare for All.
Again...against it, for it.

Kucinich is a great Congressman, no he isn't, yes he is.

on and on and on. These are all diversions.


But what is really going on behind the scenes? The financial industry is still a mess and could implode at any time. There was a HUGE report about the Lehman bankruptcy that is everywhere around the blogospere, and why did it come out last week?

But what is discussed on TV, is all about debating health reform.

After what I saw happen with the passing of TARP in 2008, the politicians are going to do what they are supposed to do, for them. Not us.

Perhaps the health reform debate is being dragged on and on, is because something major is about to happen in the financial world that will soon make the health reform issue, moot.

Timing is everything.

[AllentownJake]

8. Great minds think a like

There is a lot of bad shit on the balance sheets of the banks, so much bad shit, that the FDIC is reaching out to Public Pension funds to invest in them (I doubt they get the number of suckers..I mean investors to go along).

That and California, Illinois, and New York are in worse fiscal shape than Greece. That has to blow up sooner or later.

The recent consumer spending report was either a statistical anomaly or an outright scam. I really have not seen that many times where the February numbers match the originally reported January numbers, the January numbers are revised down, and someone screams we are growing!

However, the Durbin betrayal is something I got to comment about, as well as the connection to the Dennis bashing on this issue.

Dennis has been saying the correct things for years on issues of trade, the wars, and health care. There is a concerted effort to attack him.

[DemReadingDU]

12. Dennis knows what is going on

I wish he were my Congressman here in Ohio, but I get Austria who replaced Hobson who retired. Then attacks on Dennis are unwarranted.

[AllentownJake]

16. They all know what is going on

Right now what you have going on is a timing delay, the hope is to push whatever is going to happen, past November.

Generally speaking, the people that will cause it to happen, have an incentive to do it before than.

[dixiegrrrrl]

20. Ian't Marcy Kaptur from Ohio?

What I have seen of her impresses me.

[DemReadingDU]

21. Toledo area

I like her too, she had a part in Michael Moore's movie Capitalism.

[Gin]

9. if insurance is mandated and low income people will be on

medicaid....isn't that funded by the states? they are already
cutting back on services...won't this make matter worse?

[AllentownJake]

11. Most of the states are insolvent

Read the reports coming out this week.

Increase in traffic fines (when you take your cops off of police duty and move them to meter duty you got a problem)

Holding of refunds, closing of schools, etc.

The inability for the states to tax the people with wealth adequately because they make political contributions is about to kill the states.

[DemReadingDU]

13. Fines are HUGE in my village

We are known as a 'speed trap', and all minor infractions that used to be given as a warning, are now strictly enforced. Weird things...busted taillight is fined, going too slow is fined, etc.

Crime has escalated. Break-ins of houses, cars, tool-sheds, are rampant. I have 2 dogs now, that bark whenever a stranger appears near our yard.

[AllentownJake]

14. The cops are out issuing traffic fines

Instead of patrolling because the politicians can't raise the funds to keep the system going, and don't have the courage to raise taxes.

Now combine this with the fact that prisons are releasing prisoners, and in any economic downturn crime increases.

People with no criminal records can't find jobs, what do you think someone's chances are with a record?

At the end of the day, a person is going to try to feed themselves.

The system is literally becoming unhinged.

[area51]

18. +1 (n/t)

[jpak]

15. But then again - them grapes were sour anyway

:rofl:

[KG]

17. it's all kabuki theater, all the time.

craven politicians pretending to solve problems. that's why this country is in a mess.

damn few with the moral courage willing to do what really needs to be done fix things.

those with some conviction, shouted down for not playing the part.

[Odin2005]

19. We've been backstabbed.

And some cheer while blood is spurting out of their backs.