No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Issues of financial reform and regulation can be intimidating to laymen (this layman anyway) because of its insanely complex nature. It is easy to imagine the system as a big Jenga tower, and moving one piece might cause the whole thing to come crashing down. No one wants to be seen as inadvertently - but earnestly! - advocating for a ruinous policy. Of course, that means the opposite extreme is then in play: Turning into Hamlet and endlessly agonizing over what to do at the expense of actually doing something. Not to mention the fact that, not to put too fine a point on it, wide swaths of our leadership has for years now been deliberately advocating ruinous policies both at home and abroad. That should certainly make those of us in the unwashed masses comfortable with forcefully advocating what seems reasonable based on available data. It's not as though we could screw it up any worse.

Still, it would be nice to have a rule of thumb, compass point or guiding principle to go by. Having been a reasonably close observer of the meltdown and its aftermath, here is one I have come up with: It is necessary (but not sufficient) that any proposal be strenuously opposed by Goldman Sachs (GS). In a largely protected industry Goldman appears to be the closest thing to untouchable as we have. It is in Matt Taibbi's already-legendary description "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." It has installed a revolving door between the highest levels of the government and its board room, enjoys privileged lines of communication with the Treasury secretary exceeding even that of our closest allies, was happily positioned as a key competitor died, then days later benefited as a key debtor was drenched in cash (Yves Smith called it a "massive backdoor subsidy to the likes of Goldman"), and as it happens was the second largest contributor to the president in the 2008 election cycle. More so than any other player in financial services, GS always seems to be nearby when bad things happen.

The Hill is reporting that Democrats are 'rebranding' the public option as 'Medicare for All.':

Say hello to “Medicare Part E” — as in, “Medicare for Everyone.”

House Democrats are looking at re-branding the public health insurance option as Medicare, an established government healthcare program that is better known than the public option.

Seems Congress has finally locked on to the fact that Medicare's pretty popular:

While much of the public is foggy on what a public option actually is, people understand Medicare. It also would place the new public option within the rubric of a familiar system rather than something new and unknown.

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Oh Barry, don't be so mealy-mouthed:

If the Fed is Wall Street’s bitch, than Congress is the Street’s whore.

Read the whole thing. He forgot to mention the criminal "news" media, but it's still good.

[I've spent a lifetime looking past misogyny fossilized in language, so I'm letting this one go too, almost.]

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As the Democrats busily work on plans to make us all captive consumers of the private health insurers, the rich are cutting loose from the system. While we'll be stuck in costly Exchanges, the rich will be moving on toward their own privately reformed health system. Welcome to the world of concierge medicine.

K Street preps for healthcare Round 2

“August recess was a missed opportunity. So much discussion was focused on whether or not to create a government-run insurance program. That was a distraction,” said Robert Zirkelbach, the spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

We need Dave Johnson to do justice to this article.

unless you were compromising with yourself. I'm sick of hearing the "public option was the compromise". No, it wasn't. You can't compromise on something when it's the only policy for which you have advocated. The public option, not single payer, is the demand. A compromised public option is likely to be the compromise. Improved and Enhanced Medicare for All, or single payer, was never on the table. It was never part of the negotiations, thus it was never a policy up for compromise.

President Obama appears to have completely "sold out." His approval rating plummeted, not because of Republicans, but because of how he is "negotiating" health care reform. Single-payer should have been used as a bargaining chip.

To compromise both single-payer and a public opton is to trade out health, financial stability and our nation's solvency in exchange for Blue Dog and Republican votes. This is a direct affront, and duplicitous act, against the very people who put him in office and gave him a majority in Congress to work with.

Pitting Profits against Patients is economically unsound, unethical and a conflict of interest. When you think about this, it is outright ghastly. We are paying billions for the Insurance Industry's advertising, exorbitant salaries and billions more for them to lobby against us to increase their profits and remove competition. Without a non-profit government run public option, prices will not be lowered; it would accelerate the increase in % of GDP spent on health care. This will force tax increases to an unsustainable level, heavily subsidize profits for the Insurance Industry, bankrupt our country and the Democrats will be blamed.

CONGRESS: Slaughter vows to vote for single-payer health bill

WASHINGTON — A “single-payer” proposal that would make the government the nation’s only source of health care will come up for a vote in the House in September, Rep. Louise Slaughter is promising her Western New York constituents.

“Single-payer deserves a vote, and I can assure you there will be one,” Slaughter said during a conference call with constituents from Orleans and Monroe counties.

Slaughter chairs the House Rules Committee. The panel will choose which amendments are considered to the health care reform legislation moving through the House.

 Read more…

Good.

Via the AP:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration filed court papers Monday claiming a federal marriage law discriminates against gays, even as government lawyers continue to defend the law.

Justice Department lawyers are seeking to dismiss a suit brought by a gay California couple challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. The administration's response to the case has angered gay activists who see it as backtracking on campaign promises made by Barack Obama.

In the court papers, the administration urges the repeal of the law but says in the meantime, government lawyers will continue to defend it as a law on the books.

 Read more…

A new poll finds Canadians overwhelmingly love their health care and oppose the Canadian Medical Association's proposal to privatize their health care system:

New poll shows Canadians overwhelmingly support public health care  

Group says advocates of private system are out of touch with most Canadians

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 12, 2009

Contact:
Michael McBane, national coordinator, Canadian Health Coalition, (613) 277-6295, www.medicare.ca

 Read more…

Last Tuesday night I emailed Barney Frank(my rep.) after becoming incensed with his recent comments claiming advocating for Medicare for All, which he’s “always supported” was “suicide”. I told Mr.

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Sometimes your words come back to haunt you. I know I had an exchange with someone here about what a jackass Bill Maher is. And, whomever it was said yeah, but sometimes he's right...and I said, no he's a sexist tool who has nothing worthwhile to offer. You only like him when you agree with him, yada, yada, yada. Well, tonight he most definitely has something to offer. If you have HBO, watch. Tell your friends to watch. Tell your neighbors to watch. Tell your Congressperson to watch.

Via PNHP.org

Obama’s doctor on Bill Maher’s show Aug. 7

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The Health Insurers Have Already Won! Thanks Obama! Thanks Congress! Thanks Progressives!

Victory party at Stephen Hemsley's pad!

Via Business Week:

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All presidents are unpopular with a good part of the electorate, but there seems to be little skepticism towards the office itself. There is plenty of distrust and even outright revulsion towards particular presidents based on, for instance, whether one is more outraged by extramarital sex - by a political opponent, not by an ally - or war crimes. (Ironically, Republicans' approach with Mark Sanford has been to censure and move on; their refusal to use precisely that remedy with president Clinton was key in launching the first highly visible netroots site.) I am not even referring to the lunacy now coming into full bloom in some quarters. All those examples are about who a particular president is or what he has done. I am referring more to what a president ought to be able to do, which has trended almost exclusively towards greater deference and larger grants of authority in the last few years.

It is possible to argue, as Dana Nelson details in her book Bad For Democracy, that the presidency has been slowly but steadily aggrandizing since 1832 when Andrew Jackson "detoured from his predecessors who viewed the president as a mere executive by expanding his power when a clear mandate was expressed to him from 'the people.'" The president has increasingly come to be central to American political life and even viewed as the personification of the country. For as troubling as that is, though, we recently seem to also have added the idea that the president can act with impunity as long as it can be rationalized (however fabulously) as in the national interest. Presumably blowjobs are still verboten.

The courts have at times been all too eager to assist in this project, and on Monday the New York Times reported (via) their willingness to do so has unleashed some unintended consequences. The Supreme Court's Ashcroft v. Iqbal decision in May was a civil rights damages lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Javald Iqbal was swept up along with more than 1,000 other mostly Arabic people in America right after 9/11. He claimed mistreatment and filed suit against Ashcroft on the theory that responsibility goes to the top. The Court ruled that essentially unless Ashcroft was physically present and ordering the abuse he was not liable. In other words, in its eagerness to shield the executive branch from being held responsible for this or any other covert lawbreaking it substantially raised the evidentiary bar for lawsuits. Or as the Times described it, the ruling eviscerated discovery:

No Associated Press content was harmed in the writing of this post

Congress will adjourn for the 4th of July. Over the holiday they will be everywhere, parades, festivals, fireworks displays, picnics, everywhere. That is the time to approach them personally and ask them to support single payer, or at least not pass anything that prohibits the states from enacting their own plans.

Tell them that no plan is better than a bad plan.

Check their calenders, they may have their events on their Senate website, or it might be on the campaign website, or it might be on the web site of the local Democratic or Republican committee. Don't let the Republicans off the hook, ask them to support single payer. Believe me, there is a lot of nervousness behind that facade of Republican obstructionism.

A Google poll: I entered the search terms "congress letter email fax phone effective". All right, it's mostly boring, but if you're trying to avoid activist's remorse, it may be worth a look. Also, see if you can find the hidden snark cookie! Here's a summary from the top links; the short version seems to be that the more effort a contact costs you, the more likely the Congressperson's staff is to take it seriously:

Office visits: this is the gold standard of constituent influence. A well-prepared group meeting with the legislator or the staffer responsible for your issue is said to be the most effective contact.

Check out this excerpt from a NewsHour report on the health care debate:

MITCH STEWART: I think having this face-to-face conversation happening across the country is something that's never happened before. And I think our leaders in Washington are going to take note of that.

THOMAS MANN, Brookings Institution: Yes, it's unprecedented in the scope, in the reach.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But congressional scholar Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution thinks the effort won't have much impact on health care reform.

 Read more…

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This week Conor Friedersdorf looked at the murder of Dr. George Tiller and asked if defenders of George Bush's counterterror policies would "be comfortable if President Obama declared two or three extremist pro-lifers as 'enemy combatants'? Should Pres. Obama have the prerogative to order the waterboarding of these uncharged, untried detainees? Should he be able to listen in on phone conversations originating from evangelical churches where suspected abortion extremists hang out?" Considering that the suspect in Tiller's murder is already further along towards a conviction than Abu Zubaydah it seems reasonable to look at what tactics are theoretically available against someone that much more advanced in the legal process.