my Oxwhore

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/6140

HULLLOOOOH PBO
Weild that damn bully pulpit

at them,not at US

When this news first hit the web I got upset like everyone else did. I even left a few comments around the web to let the admin. know how I felt, but as I look a little longer at this issue it seems to me this is little more than Rahm and Barack trying to use the old GOP rule of never speaking ill of another republican. Not that the Dems need any kind of party discipline if you know what I mean. ; )

Rahm should be spending more time courting the left and making sure a few of the promises made to us are kept before he comes looking for favors of any kind. So far the main message to the Left as been, wait, not right now, soon, we’re working on it, it’s a complicated issue all the way to the ridiculous timing of accountability,”not until the second term, if ever”. They would do well to remember Obama came out of no-where to win and the same can happen again if the activists find a need to promote one.

[EPU’d comment, dragged up (& modified) from below. Apologies if it was already addressed in previous posts…]

First of all, good for all who are continuing this fight!

The WaPo report regarding “Obama’s concerns” was authored by Ceci Connolly. Remember that name, and take everything she authors with a grain of salt. In fact, treat her more as a source than a reporter, one who in fact requires second sourcing.

She is one of the infamous ’spite girls’ who practiced vendetta journalism against Al Gore during the 2000 campaign (another one was Kit Seelye of NYT). To learn more about her, do a search on Bob Somerby’s Daily Howler website, where he has been documenting her atrocities against truthful reporting since the late 90s (see here, for example). I don’t know if anyone has ever truly figured out what motivated the nastiness exhibited toward Gore by these Press Heathers, although speculation centers on passing along punishment for the real or imagined sins of The Clenis.

Note that there were also ’spite boyz’ as well, e.g., that Hardball wack-a-loon Tweety, who so often jackhammered into the our political conscience the lying memes issues by the likes of Connolly and Seelye. [I’m not even addressing Faux Newz; their behavior speaks for itself.]

{/rant}

Mary seems proud of getting $11.7M for LA health centers in the stimulus bill. It’d be nice if she’d get behind a plan that would allow ANYONE to choose a public health care plan rather than be at the mercy of the accountants chosen by one’s employer’s health care insurer.

Mary, why go for band-aids on the health insurance industry instead of actively trying to address the systemic problem?

I need to speak with my LA relatives, and suggest they make a few phone calls.

Obama is becoming more and more disappointing. This email I sent to EJ Dionne yesterday pretty much sums up my feelings towards the administration:

EJ,

Read your column today as I always do – you are about the only one on the WaPo staff that I still read routinely.

I am a registered independent who was a lifelong Republican until Newt and Trent started to lead the party and I decided they did not speak for me. I supported Obama both financially and with boots on the ground in New Mexico (I live in Tucson). I am a retired Senior Executive with 32 years in the DoD – mostly in the Air Force.

The things that I feel Obama has not delivered on are as follows:

1. The wars – we need to get out of Iraq (not just return to our main bases, but out and back to the US). I think Obama has been co opted by the Generals just like Clinton was. I was a two star equivalent when I retired and I have some experience dealing with General Officers. It is my opinion that Obama should tell the Generals to either: a) Salute smartly and get on with the job; or b) Turn in their papers. He fired the wrong four star – it should have been Petraeus and Odierno and not McKiernan.

2. DOJ – his DOJ under Holder is no better than the DOJ under the Bush Attorneys General. He should straighten them out, get rid of the Bush left overs and bring some accountability to what happened during the Bush years. He should likewise tell the spooks in CIA to get their house in order or retire (including Panetta who has likewise been co opted by Langley).

3. The Financial mess – he should fire Geitner and Summers and anyone else that has a Wall Street background. This debacle cannot be fixed by the people that caused it. I would suggest he get some women in those positions like Bair and Warren – they seem to have the stomach to get it right. But get rid of Shapiro – she is part of the problem just like Larry and Tim.

4. Clean up the coziness in DC. Refuse to let any of his administration attend any of the dinners, cocktail parties, seminars, etc. that are paid for (nice word is “sponsored”) by anyone outside the government. Tell you press people, etc that you can do without the fancy dinners, etc. His job is to govern, not be a comic at white tie dinners.

The surprise of his administration is Sec Salazar. I had doubts about him but he has proven me wrong. Kudos to him and Ms. Jackson at EPA. The jury is out on health care, energy and climate change.

That is my report card on Obama so far and it comes from a conservative progressive who supported him enthusiastically in the past election but is getting more and more disappointed with his lack of “walking the walk”.

Thank you and I look forward to reading more of your columns.

Signed

I have it figured out. O is repeatly not paying attention to progressives thereby causing us to become increasing hostile and irritated. This motivates the left and we get stronger and stronger. See. It is Obama’s double, secret strategy.

tis terrific news jane, thanx for this post

Very well stated. Truer words….

Regarding support for a strong public option, is it true that Donna Edwards won’t return Jane’s phone calls?

Ms. Edwards should come back to FDL for a discussion on this issue.

I’m completely in line with continuing the ads, and pressure to get this done. The only way to be heard is to speak up!!

I’m also in total agreement with Formerfed. I too worked to get the President elected because of his positions on the war, wiretapping, justice department, wall street, and such and LOOK AT WHAT THAT HAS GOTTEN ME.

Just another politician, saying what he thinks we want to hear so we’ll vote for him, and then ignore us when it’s time to DO.

I have let every democratic fund raiser that has contacted me know where they can go for money. Max Baucus’ office. Until the democrats get their party in line with the 72% of America that wants a public option (to start with), stop giving them money! They seem to be getting all the money they need from the healthcare, pharma, and insurance industries.

It’s time to really push hard for public campaign financing of elections.

You may not be far off, Mary.

When Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he’s reported to have liberal interest groups something like, “You’ve convinced me. Now make me do it.”

In other words, go out and build the consensus among the people that will force the Congress to go along. It’s a polite way of phrasing the complaint of the wealthy: “The problem with politicians is that you can’t buy them. You have to rent them.”

Senators are a little tougher to influence with public pressure, but even they can figure out which way the wind is blowing.

chuck grassley top 20 contributors—
http://www.opensecrets.org/pol…..38;recs=20

and landrieu
900k fron insurance, health care and pharma….
and they are not big in her top 20.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pol…..038;type=C

http://www.opensecrets.org/pol…..038;type=C

grassley $1.3 million from pharma, health care, insurance.

Any senator who has some sort of government sponsored health coverage all her life…… and refuse to even consider a public option….

Right along with McCain, a ton of senators who have had FEBA plans for 30 or more years….

Hi BC, did you attend any of Teague’s events? The report here is that the dissenters showed up in force and refused to allow any dialog, same as happened in ABQ with Sen. Udall. These people are shameful. Heather Wilson actually wrote in on DFNM, what a mess. These people have only one tune, and it doesn’t play well.

Not one single damn compromise. Obama don’t like it, I have no trouble at all with impeachment. 5 months of war crimes are 5 months too many. Try him hang him and maybe Joe Biden will understand that it is not what some slick talking lawyer from Illinois that decides. The last time we made that fuck up and selected a smooth operator from Illinois we got one of the worst civil wars ever fought (no I am not a fan of Lincoln.)

Start a separate bill of impeachment. Get him a real damn message. I’m already sick of his waffling and bullshit that says nothing. I’m furious about gitmo.

None over the weekend.

I was at Harry’s meet-the-people thing at the Old Town Restaurant a week ago last Saturday. It was a zoo — the Teabagging crowd was there in force. Their issue-du-jour was the ACES vote, and they wouldn’t let Harry talk to anyone, including themselves. The ringleader appeared to me to Greg Sowards, who lost the Republican primary to Tinsley. Sowards’ website for his campaign (I think he’s already started running for the Dona Ana County Commission) is shortbaldhonest.com. I believe all three adjectives, but he left one out. Stupid

So, what did Heather have to say?

WaPo is reporting the health care industry is spending 1.4 million a day on lobbying and fighting real reforms in Congress. They have hired 350 former staffers and members of Congress to infiltrate Congress. This is truly War. How do we make it untenable for Congress to deny a public option?

I went to the link you provided and signed the petition, but the link to have friends sign goes to a Breast Cancer in South Carolina petition that has nothing to do with the MoveOn ad…a good cause, but a little confusing…what goes Jane?

Called Senator DiFi’s SF office and for the third week in a row was told she’s “open” to the public option for health care…when I said to the lady on the phone she should be leading, not following, she got a little snippy…I suspect Senator Feinstein is getting a lot of calls on this…

KEEP IT UP! And any CA voters call her SF office (415-393-0707) if you can and keep the pressure on her!

OT the book salon box has Soros scheduled for Wednesday July 7. July 7 is a Tuesday. July 8 is the Wednesday. Some wandering mod might want to inform someone with a view to a correction.

Sebilius questioned why Single Payer is off the table?

Jane – if you’re ever on one of those blogger/Administration calls, you ought to just point out that applying this pressure to the administration is simply taking a play out of PBO’s buddy Cass Sunstein’s playbook; you’re “Nudge”-ing them.

The more vigorously the administration asserts that the ads should stop, the more often they should be run.

Hey BO, talk is cheap. Let’s see some walk, for a change.

from wapo:
pigs at the trough as pharma and health care pour the money into lobbying against public option, they turn to ex-cong’s and the former staff:

….The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

The push has reunited many who worked together in government on health-care reform, but are now employed as advocates for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

A June 10 meeting between aides to Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and health-care lobbyists included two former Baucus chiefs of staff: David Castagnetti, whose clients include PhRMA and America’s Health Insurance Plans, and Jeffrey A. Forbes, who represents PhRMA, Amgen, Genentech, Merck and others. Castagnetti did not return a telephone call; Forbes declined to comment.

By doing precisely what we are doing now. Keep the pressure on. Congresscritters know that lobbyists and corporations can’t vote for them. If they understand that the people are royally pissed off, they’ll tell the lobbyists to tell their corporate masters that it’s game over.

And folks, it doesn’t stop here. Whatever passes is going to have to be tweaked and amended down the road. The second half of what they’ll tell their corporate buddies is exactly what I just wrote. Whatever passes will have be tweaked and amended down the road, we’ll fix it then. When the sheeple aren’t watching…

BC, you can read Heather’s holier than thou comments at democracyfornewmexico dot com under the heading about tea baggers tea totaling.

imo we’ll be damned lucky if whatever passes only needs tweaking and amending.

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/6089

…. going to make some more phone calls now…

I knew Heather Wilson was a tool, but not on that scale.

Agreed, selise.

If what we get is a band-aid on the current system we are flying up crap creek. The kinds of tweaks that the Blue Dogs want are roughly akin to an ER deciding to treat a patient’s acne while ignoring the hemorrhaging femoral artery.

Can someone steer me in the right direction? I wrote a letter to the editor about Senator Grassley and his cold-hearted stance on health care. I did get a call back from them (the Des Moines Register), but they wanted to know where I got the amount of $200,000 that Grassley has received from the health care industry for this election cycle. I have seen that figure time and again, but I can’t find it now. I’ve looked on Open Secrets, but I can’t pin down this election cycle. I’d appreciate any help anyone can give me, since I’m supposed to write them back.

Another bit the dust…..Robert McNamara died today…..

OpenSecrets has it.

That special place.

peterboy @ 12 has a link that takes you directly to Grassley contributions for this election cycle.

OK. CREW (http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/) rates Landrieu as one of two (remaining) senators (the other being Mitch McConnell) on its 20 most corrupt members of congress dishonor roll (Stevens and Coleman were the other two 2008 inductees, but they’re gone now). By any empirical measure of ethically questionable behavior she’s worse than her fellow Louisianian Vitter. She supported a public option six months ago, somebody got to her and now she opposes it. Precisely this type of lobbyist-motivated flip flop is the story of her entire political career. Why are dems still protecting this odious woman?

Well done.

I agree with most everything you wrote.

Thank you both, Southern Dragon and fatster. I didn’t scroll down far enough when I was on the OpenSecrets site. I think I can verify it now.

The Senate is like a huge circle jerk. Everybody is intimately involved with everybody else.

Earlier today Charles Chamberlain of DFA said that they will not stop their efforts, either.

Why should they?? Mary is fighting for big Pharma & Big Health Care Insurance companies and NOT for the people who put her in office. I see her as a Wannabe Repuke with the way she speaks and by her votes in the Senate!! I say primary her ass out of office so Louisiana can have a Progressive Senator who Will try and do things for the people and not for all the Corporate shills!!

Hard to break the Huey Long habits.

Here’s a link to the FEC database on Grassley.

A quick-and-dirty run says 104K from health care and insurance sources. This is for the current cycle only.

Fergot yer linky.

A friend who taught at LSU said that the general attitude in Louisiana seems to be that any politician who can’t take care of herself can’t possibly take care of me.

she’s kind of like a universal and virtual senator-for-sale. Forget about Lousiana corporations – she’s available to shill for whoever pays her, from any part of the country, whatever the issue.

How the heck did that happen?

Linkie to FEC database.

Yeah, it’s way worse than 200K. More like a half million.

Yep, old Southern mentality. Lot of things we need to change in the South.

Now that you’re about to teach your paper how to do basic research on campaign contributions you might suggest a good journalism school to them as well.

F*** J-school. Apparently the only thing they’re taught there is how to take dictation, and write in quasi-complete sentences.

Suggest a good history department.

Thanks. I thought it might be more than $200,000. I’ll change that figure. I’ve been spending the last two hours trying to find sources I can cite, and all I had to do was ask all the knowledgeable people here!

Grassley’s health care contributions are going to go way up. He’s standing for re-election in 2010, so I’m sure his friend$ will want to help out.

I’ll go along with that. Oh, if only my hs history teacher Mr Cohen was still with us. The Howard Zinn of his day.

I’d pass on a summary and link to OpenSecrets, and the link to the FEC database. The FEC database is a little clunky about the queries it allows, but the data are there. In the FEC data you have to define the sources yourself.

I did no additional checking; I flagged the obvious health care and insurance sources. I included all insurance sources, because that industry is incestuous to a fault.

My HS history teacher (Mr.S) was really good, too. Unfortunately, he liked senior girls a little too well…

Whether he’s on a quarterly or monthly reporting cycle I’ll bet his numbers for either the 2nd quarter or June will reflect quite the increase now that the leeches are spending all this dust on Congress.

Me too. *g*

My best friend’s brother was a driver’s ed teacher for years. He too had a fondness for hs girls. I’m really surprised he never got caught.

He looks to be on the monthly cycle. There are contributions from May in the database.

Mr. S did get caught, several years after I left.

Rules for House and Senate candidates are different. I think this is the first election where both have to report electronically to FEC. Previously only House candidates did.

You’re right, the FEC site is clunky, just like their reporting software. My first stint as treasurer for a House candidate I spent hours on the phone with the software guys. Bottom line? Changes come slow cuz there’s no money for software development. Sheesh.

I’m going to give both links, as you suggested.
SouthernDragon, I’d be more than happy to suggest a good journalism school to them at some point–the Des Moines Register has become a useless rag.

I’m having trouble viewing the photograph attached to this article – could some mod help, please?

I don’t see the “CORPORATE WHORE” stamped in Huge Red Letters across her forehead – is this a mac issue? /s

I hope Change Congress and the other groups put out an appeal for more $$ for more TV spots. I’ll pony up my beer money if I have to.

Change Congress got Nelson to change position, or at least say words he didn’t want to say in public, but we have to keep pushing forward.

I don’t buy Landrieu’s Pollyana personna. The only difference between a Blue Dog and a Republican is where they pay their dues, otherwise they are scratchin’ the same ol’ fleas. If I lived in La. I still wouldn’t vote for her because she has not voted in my best interest on legislation that really matters.

Landrieu’s not exclusively a blue dog or a pollyana. She’s just bought and paid for.

Landrieu’s not exclusively a blue dog or a pollyana. She’s just bought and paid for rented for special occasions.

Our politician$ are not for $ale, that would be mercenary.

Even aside from the health care issue, Landreiu is a bad senator. She takes shitloads of money from oil and gas interests and is a faithful servant of their interests. Currently she is waffling around on EFCA, even though organized labor has supported her campaigns in the past. Louisiana progressives have been grumbling about her for years. Let’s hope the ads criticizing her crystalizes into a primary challenge next time around.

Did he say he wanted them to stop? or just that he has concerns?

I have concerns that some of these ads give the wrong impression that Republicans actually support a public option because Republican is the opposite of the Democrats they’re attacking.

Having said that, the ad in Louisiana doesn’t do that as it makes clear Landrieu is not supporting the President on this (which may actually be a good thing for Landrieu in Louisiana politically)

I’m all for pushing the Democrats to do the right thing, but we have to make sure it doesn’t backfire on us.

You heard it in the Washington Post! That means Obama is actually in favor of activist groups targeting wavering or fighting the public option and health care reform. For crying out loud, we all have heard of the “unreliable narrator”. I think the Washington Post has that as their slogan.

Impeachment now. We got problems and we’ve got another goddamn bush. Impeachment for 5 months too many of war crimes might get Biden’s attention that we are NOT FUCKING happy with this growing pile of pig shit.

Landrieu is a perfect example of the assholes that I not only want out of congress and in a federal pen.