Shackled Howie Hawkins appears in Syracuse City Court

Hawkins was arrested around 1 p.m. Wednesday by Syracuse police outside the office of National Government Services at 400 S. Salina St., which houses the care claims office of Wellpoint Inc., a large health insurer. Hawkins said he was trying to enter the building to deliver a letter to the CEO of Wellpoint Inc. demanding that the CEO’s salary be cut and put into healthcare. ...

Results here. TABOR went down to defeat; Yay! Now ME won't slide into the Atlantic, like CA into the Pacific, by subjecting every tax to a referendum. And medical marijuana is legalized; Yay! And the state actually rejected cutting the excise tax on automobiles. That's really three black eyes for the right. (The other question was about rolling back an undemocratic and painful school consolidation program imposed by the governor; voters, I think, decided that it would be even more painful to undo what had been done.)

I'm playing the world's smallest violin. And at this time, I think it a propos to quote, once more, Michael Lewis:

Rumor No. 1: “Goldman Sachs controls the U.S. government.”

Every time we hear the phrase “the United States of Goldman Sachs” we shake our heads in wonder. Every ninth-grader knows that the U.S. government consists of three branches. Goldman owns just one of these outright; the second we simply rent, and the third we have no interest in at all. (Note there isn’t a single former Goldman employee on the Supreme Court.)

Obama, stumping for NJ former Golden Sacks CEO Jon Corzine:

[Obama] told a crowd of about 5,000 people in Camden that Corzine was "not going to rest until not only is Wall Street doing well, but Main Street is doing well, and businesses are hiring again."

"Not only." I just love that.

I saw this entry posted over at Docudharma and thought I'd share the link to it. I'll post as much as I can, but really, it's worth checking out the entire entry. It's by the user known as FreeSociety.

The total vacuum of any principled leadership from President Obama, has inevitably produced the most directionless, anti-consumer, Insurance Monopoly boondoggle fraud imaginable -- which is now masquerading before Congress as "reform".

Elliott Spitzer:

The first structural issue that Phil Angelides and his colleagues should investigate is what corporate boards knew about the state of corporations they governed and why they did so little to protect them. ... Tracing the information flow will also permit us to understand whether the risk analysis was wrong from its inception, ignored by those up the chain, or filtered as it went up the chain.

Via Wired:

America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon.

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.

Fact-esque:

The Obama Admin sent the message loud and clear and Corporate America got it: workers don't matter. Only the corporations get to be saved. They are the focus.

The result is pretty much what you'd expect: even though economists agree that putting money into the hands of people who will spend it is the only way to get out of the morass Bush and the Chicago School created, the corpo's are laying off more workers and cutting the paychecks of those who remain while loading them up with even more work and calling it "a rise in productivity".

Yay! Say, how's card-check coming?

AP actually does some reporting; turns out it's not really banksters who own Timmy; it's just a few banksters, among them our favorite, Goldman Sachs:

The calendars, obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the continued influence of three companies -- Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- whose executives can reach the nation's most powerful economic official on the phone, sometimes several times a day.

What the calendars show, however, is that only a select few can call the treasury secretary.

Same as the old health care system. I'm shocked.

Which is only to say that this is not the end.

Please, no Churchillian oratory, mkay?

That's true also for the House and HELP bills. All these proposals are major improvements for the uninsured and those left out of the employer-based market. That means they're major improvements for those who are hurting the worst. And in constructing exchanges and beginning the hard work of delivery system reform and creating a system of subsidies and an individual mandate, they're building the foundation of a better health-care system. But as they embark on that project, they're leaving most of our current health-care system virtually untouched, which means most of the systemic problems will remain unsolved.

Meet UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley, Opponent of Reform

Last Thursday, fifty protesters, holding umbrellas and candles, stood outside Helmsley's mansion, in the rain, and screened a video that contrasted his exhorbitant income and lifestyle, and UnitedHealth's huge profits, with the millions of Americans who go without insurance or bankrupt themselves with medical bills.

LOLfed:

Bank of America is going to pick an emergency backup CEO this week, in case Ken Lewis should meet with an unfortunate accident before the end of the year. Not that they’re expecting anything to happen to him, of course. And that really IS a pool cleaner’s panel van parked across the street from his house.

Heh.

I meant to post on this awhile back, but RL intervened, and so but I want to lay down a marker, because this is an important story to watch.

It seems Our Betters are in the process of deciding that more of us will never have jobs, like, ever again. Fortunately, few of us will lose our homes, because of HOLC... Well, fortunately, none of us will die sick and poor because we have single payer, so health care is a right... Oh, wait.*

It's a bust out, quite literally, supported by your bailout dollars:*

"Executives at Schwing said its primary lender, Wells Fargo & Co., began tightening terms a year ago, after its three-year loan agreement with the company expired. At the bank's urging, Schwing paid down its line of credit with the bank to $21 million from about $45 million. Then, about two months ago, Wells Fargo began "sweeping" Schwing's operating account of cash in an effort to reduce its revolving line of credit with the company. Schwing had a 20 year relationship with Wells Fargo.