President Obama meeting with Senate Democrats Feb. 3, 2010

The consensus is that President Obama is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people.

Regardless of what happens with health care reform, Obama has failed to create a rally cry for America. His campaign message of hope and change played well for candidate Obama, but this is the real world now. Now is the time for leadership not campaign speeches.

What Obama failed to realize is that bipartisanship is not going to happen – not today. He foolishly still thinks that if he gives Republicans enough of this or that, they’ll come around. In doing so, he squandered a super-majority in the Senate, weakened health care reform and has made his presidency into a series of false-starts and missed deadlines.

Obama needed to rally his political party around his agenda, but he didn’t. He should have taken a no-holds-bar approach to passing meaningful legislation. He needed to play hard-nose political party politics.

If he had done that, Republicans and Fox News would have labeled him a radical leftist pushing a socialist agenda, but that happened anyway. In the current political atmosphere any Democrat would be labeled a commie. For some reason, we’re back to red-baiting again.

By trying to be the appeaser in chief, Obama has gained nothing. What he’s left with is a watered-down health care bill, an economy that’s still floundering, a radicalized right that’s reaching deafening decibels, two wars and very little political capital left to do anything about any of it.

Here’s what blogger Dana Blankenhorn said about Obama this week.

Barack Obama has no choice. He must play this hand by Nixon’s rules. You can’t impose new rules until you’ve won enough hands that the old rules no longer apply. That means narrow, partisan majorities, and intense organization of his own people against the common enemy that is the modern Republican Party.

Even though he doesn’t believe Republicans have any ill motives, he must in the near term convince the rest of us they do, or we go back to Argentina and America will never come back.

What Blankenhorn means about “Nixon’s rules” is this.

Richard Nixon’s concept of Conflict held that majorities had to protect themselves from various minorities. Only those who were inside the Thesis deserved protection. Outsiders (and this concept eventually extended to all Democrats) were suspect. Their motives were not those of ‘us,’ they were ‘them’ and they had to be defeated for ‘us’ to be safe.

The notion of “the other” was the foundation for Nixon’s “southern strategy.”

And here’s what New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote about Obama today.

The problem is not necessarily that Obama is trying to do too much, but that there is no consistent, clear message to unite all that he is trying to do. He has variously argued that health care reform is a moral imperative to protect the uninsured, a long-term fiscal fix for the American economy and an attempt to curb insurers’ abuses. It may be all of these, but between the multitude of motives and the blurriness (until now) of Obama’s own specific must-have provisions, the bill became a mash-up that baffled or defeated those Americans on his side and was easily caricatured as a big-government catastrophe by his adversaries.

Obama prides himself on not being ideological or partisan — of following, as he put it in his first prime-time presidential press conference, a ‘pragmatic agenda.’ But pragmatism is about process, not principle. Pragmatism is hardly a rallying cry for a nation in this much distress, and it’s not a credible or attainable goal in a Washington as dysfunctional as the one Americans watch in real time on cable. Yes, the Bush administration was incompetent, but we need more than a brilliant mediator, manager or technocrat to move us beyond the wreckage it left behind. To galvanize the nation, Obama needs to articulate a substantive belief system that’s built from his bedrock convictions. His presidency cannot be about the cool equanimity and intellectual command of his management style.

That he hasn’t done so can be attributed to his ingrained distrust of appearing partisan or, worse, a knee-jerk “liberal.” That is admirable in intellectual theory, but without a powerful vision to knit together his vision of America’s future, he comes off as a doctrinaire Democrat anyway. His domestic policies, whether on climate change or health care or regulatory reform, are reduced to items on a standard liberal wish list. If F.D.R. or Reagan could distill, coin and convey a credo ‘nonideological’ enough to serve as an umbrella for all their goals and to attract lasting majority coalitions of disparate American constituencies, so can this gifted president.

At the end of the day, it may be that his critics were right when they said candidate Obama didn’t have enough experience to be the President of the United States. No matter what you thought of President George W. Bush, he got stuff done. We can’t say that about Obama – at least not yet.

Politico Exclusive

Politico broke a scary story today. They’ve un-earthed a PowerPoint slideshow detailing the GOP strategy to use fear and mockery to stop Obama’s “socialist” agenda. It includes pictures of the president as the Joker, House Leader Nancy Pelosi as Cruella DeVille and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Scooby Doo.

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

Read the entire story on Politico

President Obama

President Obama announced today that it’s time to get health care reform done. He didn’t mention reconciliation directly, but that’s what Obama wants.

Here’s the complete transcript and video of Obama’s speech today. The video and transcript were provided by the White House.

Remarks by the President on Health Care Reform
East Room

1:50 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much, all of you, for joining us today. And I want to thank Julie, Barbara, Roland, Stephen, Renee, and Christopher, standing behind me — physicians, physicians assistants, and nurses who understand how important it is for us to make much needed changes in our health care system.

I want to thank all of you who are here today. I want to specially recognize two people who have been working tirelessly on that — on this effort, my Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius — (applause) — as well as our quarterback for health reform out of the White House, Nancy-Ann DeParle. (Applause.)

We began our push to reform health insurance last March, in this room, with doctors and nurses who know the system best. And so it’s fitting to be joined by all of you as we bring this journey to a close.

Last Thursday, I spent seven hours at a summit where Democrats and Republicans engaged in a public and very substantive discussion about health care. This meeting capped off a debate that began with a similar summit nearly one year ago. And since then, every idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said — (laughter) — and just about everybody has said it. (Laughter.) So now is the time to make a decision about how to finally reform health care so that it works, not just for the insurance companies, but for America’s families and America’s businesses.

Now, where both sides say they agree is that the status quo is not working for the American people. Health insurance is becoming more expensive by the day. Families can’t afford it. Businesses can’t afford it. The federal government can’t afford it. Smaller businesses and individuals who don’t get coverage at work are squeezed especially hard. And insurance companies freely ration health care based on who’s sick and who’s healthy; who can pay and who can’t. That’s the status quo. That’s the system we have right now.

Democrats and Republicans agree that this is a serious problem for America. And we agree that if we do nothing -– if we throw up our hands and walk away -– it’s a problem that will only grow worse. Nobody disputes that. More Americans will lose their family’s health insurance if they switch jobs or lose their job. More small businesses will be forced to choose between health care and hiring. More insurance companies will deny people coverage who have preexisting conditions, or they’ll drop people’s coverage when they get sick and need it most. And the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will sink our government deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. On all of this we agree.
So the question is, what do we do about it?

On one end of the spectrum, there are some who’ve suggested scrapping our system of private insurance and replacing it with a government-run health care system. And though many other countries have such a system, in America it would be neither practical nor realistic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are those, and this includes most Republicans in Congress, who believe the answer is to loosen regulations on the insurance industry — whether it’s state consumer protections or minimum standards for the kind of insurance they can sell. The argument is, is that that will somehow lower costs. I disagree with that approach. I’m concerned that this would only give the insurance industry even freer rein to raise premiums and deny care.

So I don’t believe we should give government bureaucrats or insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America. I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their health care and their health insurance. I don’t believe we can afford to leave life-and-death decisions about health care to the discretion of insurance company executives alone. I believe that doctors and nurses and physician assistants like the ones in this room should be free to decide what’s best for their patients. (Applause.)

Now, the proposal I put forward gives Americans more control over their health insurance and their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable. It builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. I can tell you as the father of two young girls, I would not want any plan that interferes with the relationship between a family and their doctor.

Essentially, my proposal would change three things about the current health care system. First, it would end the worst practices of insurance companies. No longer would they be able to deny your coverage because of a preexisting condition. No longer would they be able to drop your coverage because you got sick. No longer would they be able to force you to pay unlimited amounts of money out of your own pocket. No longer would they be able to arbitrarily and massively raise premiums like Anthem Blue Cross recently tried to do in California — up to 39 percent increases in one year in the individual market. Those practices would end.

Second, my proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves — because if it’s good enough for members of Congress, it’s good enough for the people who pay their salaries. (Applause.)

The reason federal employees get a good deal on health insurance is that we all participate in an insurance market where insurance companies give better coverage and better rates, because they get more customers. It’s an idea that many Republicans have embraced in the past, before politics intruded.
And my proposal says that if you still can’t afford the insurance in this new marketplace, even though it’s going to provide better deals for people than they can get right now in the individual marketplace, then we’ll offer you tax credits to do so — tax credits that add up to the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. After all, the wealthiest among us can already buy the best insurance there is, and the least well off are able to get coverage through Medicaid. So it’s the middle class that gets squeezed, and that’s who we have to help.
Now, it is absolutely true that all of this will cost some money — about $100 billion per year. But most of this comes from the nearly $2 trillion a year that America already spends on health care — but a lot of it is not spent wisely. A lot of that money is being wasted or spent badly. So within this plan, we’re going to make sure the dollars we spend go towards making insurance more affordable and more secure. We’re going to eliminate wasteful taxpayer subsidies that currently go to insurance and pharmaceutical companies; set a new fee on insurance companies that stand to gain a lot of money and a lot of profits as millions of Americans are able to buy insurance; and we’re going to make sure that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share on Medicare.

The bottom line is our proposal is paid for. And all the new money generated in this plan goes back to small businesses and middle-class families who can’t afford health insurance. It would also lower prescription drug prices for seniors. And it would help train new doctors and nurses and physician assistants to provide care for American families.

Finally, my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions — families, businesses, and the federal government. We have now incorporated most of the serious ideas from across the political spectrum about how to contain the rising cost of health care — ideas that go after the waste and abuse in our system, especially in programs like Medicare. But we do this while protecting Medicare benefits, and extending the financial stability of the program by nearly a decade.

Our cost-cutting measures mirror most of the proposals in the current Senate bill, which reduces most people’s premiums and brings down our deficit by up to a trillion dollars over the next two decades — brings down our deficit. Those aren’t my numbers; those are the savings determined by the Congressional Budget Office, which is the Washington acronym for the nonpartisan, independent referee of Congress in terms of how much stuff costs. (Laughter.)

So that’s our proposal. This is where we’ve ended up. It’s an approach that has been debated and changed and I believe improved over the last year. It incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans — including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health care summit, like funding state grants on medical malpractice reform, and curbing waste and fraud and abuse in the health care system. My proposal also gets rid of many of the provisions that had no place in health care reform — provisions that were more about winning individual votes in Congress than improving health care for all Americans.

Now, despite all that we agree on and all the Republican ideas we’ve incorporated, many — probably most — Republicans in Congress just have a fundamental disagreement over whether we should have more or less oversight of insurance companies. And if they truly believe that less regulation would lead to higher quality, more affordable health insurance, then they should vote against the proposal I’ve put forward.

Now, some also believe that we should, instead of doing what I’m proposing, pursue a piecemeal approach to health insurance reform, where we tinker around the edges of this challenge for the next few years. Even those who acknowledge the problem of the uninsured say we just can’t afford to help them right now — which is why the Republican proposal only covers 3 million uninsured Americans while we cover over 31 million.

The problem with that approach is that unless everyone has access to affordable coverage, you can’t prevent insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions; you can’t limit the amount families are forced to pay out of their own pockets. The insurance reforms rest on everybody having access to coverage. And you also don’t do anything about the fact that taxpayers currently end up subsidizing the uninsured when they’re forced to go to the emergency room for care, to the tune of about a thousand bucks per family. You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room. So the fact is, health reform only works if you take care of all of these problems at once.

Now, both during and after last week’s summit, Republicans in Congress insisted that the only acceptable course on health care reform is to start over. But given these honest and substantial differences between the parties about the need to regulate the insurance industry and the need to help millions of middle-class families get insurance, I don’t see how another year of negotiations would help.

Moreover, the insurance companies aren’t starting over. They’re continuing to raise premiums and deny coverage as we speak. For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last for another decade, or even more. The American people, and the U.S. economy, just can’t wait that long. So, no matter which approach you favor, I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform. (Applause.)

We have debated this issue thoroughly, not just for the past year but for decades. Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.

I, therefore, ask leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks. From now until then, I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform. (Applause.) And I urge every American who wants this reform to make their voice heard as well — every family, every business, every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every physician’s assistant. Make your voice heard.

This has been a long and wrenching debate. It has stoked great passions among the American people and their representatives. And that’s because health care is a difficult issue. It is a complicated issue. If it was easy, it would have been solved long ago. As all of you know from experience, health care can literally be an issue of life or death. And as a result, it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

But that’s not an excuse for those of us who were sent here to lead. That’s not an excuse for us to walk away. We can’t just give up because the politics are hard. I know there’s been a fascination, bordering on obsession, in this media town about what passing health insurance reform would mean for the next election and the one after that. How will this play? What will happen with the polls? I will leave it to others to sift through the politics, because that’s not what this is about. That’s not why we’re here.

This is about what reform would mean for the mother with breast cancer whose insurance company will finally have to pay for her chemotherapy. This is about what reform would mean for the small business owner who will no longer have to choose between hiring more workers or offering coverage to the employees she has. This is about what reform would mean for middle-class families who will be able to afford health insurance for the very first time in their lives and get a regular checkup once in a while, and have some security about their children if they get sick.

This is about what reform would mean for all those men and women I’ve met over the last few years who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. When we started our push for reform last year, I talked to a young mother in Wisconsin named Laura Klitzka. She has two young children. She thought she had beaten her breast cancer but then later discovered it had spread to her bones. She and her husband were working and had insurance, but their medical bills still landed them in debt. And now she spends time worrying about that debt when all she wants to do is spend time with her children and focus on getting well.

This should not happen in the United States of America. And it doesn’t have to. (Applause.)

In the end, that’s what this debate is about. It’s about what kind of country we want to be. It’s about the millions of lives that would be touched and, in some cases, saved by making private health insurance more secure and more affordable.

So at stake right now is not just our ability to solve this problem, but our ability to solve any problem. The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future. They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. (Applause.) And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.

Thank you very much, everybody. Let’s get it done. (Applause.)

END
2:09 P.M. EST

Barack Obama Becomes President of the United States

Here’s the complete video of Barack Obama’s inauguration and speech. It seems like such a long time ago. Remember? Hope and change. It was an exciting time, wasn’t it?

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said at Thursday’s Blair House Health Care Summit that health care reform is budget reform. Therefore, he essentially made the case that Democrats can use budget reconciliation to pass health care reform. Both the House and the Senate have a reconciliation rule.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) addressed reconciliation on Tuesday and told Republicans to stop crying.

Blair House Summit

Here’s the exchange between President Obama and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). Barrasso said that Americans simply need to be better health care consumers and that the US has the best health care system in the world.

The World Health Organization ranks the US 37th of all countries and dead last when compared to other industrialized nations. According to a September 2009 report, the US health care system is number one in per capita spending, 39th in infant mortality, 3rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.¹

President Barack Obama

President Obama continues to make the same mistake over and over again. From bankers, to members of Congress and even the American people, Obama keeps hoping everyone will just get along and find common ground.

While Obama keeps waiting for everyone do to the right thing, unemployment continues to go up, small businesses are struggling or failing, people are dying from lack of health care, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and bailed out investment bankers are rolling in taxpayer dough.

It’s time for Obama to stop his audacity of hope campaign – what we need is action, leadership and some asses kicked (I’m looking at you Goldman Sachs and AIG).

Perhaps critics of candidate Obama were right when they said he lacked experience. He’s been in the White House for nine months and he’s accomplished nothing.

Health care reform continues to flounder in Congress.

The war in Iraq is still sucking the US Treasury dry and snatching the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

In Afghanistan, Obama is thinking about sending more troops, but he appears to be hemming and hawing over that decision.

When the banking industry, which created the current financial mess we’re in thanks to laissez-faire regulation, was on the ropes Obama didn’t take that opportunity to force regulation down their throats, but rather he handed them billions and billions of taxpayer money and hoped that they’d play nice and be cool with regulatory changes later. Wrong.

Before Congress started debating health care reform, the president should have laid out his requirements for a bill he would sign. Obama should have started out with single-payer and made the case for it. There’s a good argument to be made for single-payer, but Obama didn’t even try. Instead, he left it all up to Congress to run wild with and boy did they. Now we’re looking at heavily compromised bills that will likely result in a lot of people paying too much money for health insurance that doesn’t cover anything. Thanks, but no thanks.

And what has he done to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Nothing. We can’t win either of these wars because there is no definition of victory. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan, and neither will the US. And what’s the exit strategy in Iraq? Hope?

Obama’s hope machine has run out of gas. Hope is great, we all need a little bit of it from time to time, but it’s no excuse for inaction. This is politics. It’s partisan.

The time for leadership is now, because let’s face it, pretending that partisan politics is something that can, or should, be avoided is no recipe for success. Obama needs to stop his wishful thinking. Conservatives and liberals will not march on Washington, DC hand-in-hand singing Kumbaya – it’s not going to happen. Wake up or step aside in 2012 to make room for a real leader.

Goldman Sachs

Nobody outside of Wall Street elites and the White House inner sanctum knows what’s really going on with the alleged economic recovery. What you do know is that Goldman Sachs is going to be handing out $23 billion in bonuses this year and record profits. You also know that without the hundreds of billions of taxpayer money, Goldman Sachs wouldn’t be rolling in piles of cash while its competition was left to fail (e.g. Lehman Brothers). And if you’ve been reading the newspaper, you know the Obama administration doesn’t care.

Frank Rich wrote about this today in his column “Goldman Can Spare You a Dime.” Rich compares Goldman Sachs to the early 20th century giant Standard Oil – known as “The Octopus.”

When Roosevelt set out to fix what was wrong with the economy that lead to the Great Depression, he didn’t hobnob with America’s first billionaire John D. Rockefeller as Obama has with Goldman Sachs bigwigs. If he had, Rich wrote, palled around with the Standard Oil titan, it’s unlikely the monopoly would have been broken up and the oil company would still have a stranglehold on the economy – sucking out money wherever it could sink its tentacles.

President Barack Obama

But Obama is clearly a friend to Goldman. His administration is filled with Goldman shills like Timothy Geithner and the newly appointed man in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement unit Adam Storch – a former Goldman executive.

For more on this important topic, read Rich’s column

TRANSCRIPT OF RUSH LIMBAUGH ON HIS RADIO SHOW FROM OCT. 14, 2008

Editor’s note: This is a verbatim transcript of Limbaugh explaining how ACORN, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are all involved in a radical leftwing conspiracy to teach black kids to hate America.

From the time of my birth 57 years ago to today, this country has grown and expanded, prosperity has opened its doors for more and more people around the world, not just people born in this country.

We know the stories of asians immigrating and running rings around people born in this country academically in California. We know all about the immigration, legal and illegal, to get into the country. We know that the standard of living has risen. We know that technological advancement is going along at light speed.

And yet, during this period of time, whether it be the last 57 years, or the last 20 years, it seems that the majority of the black population has remained angry, frustrated and behind – they’ve been left behind. They’re acting like they’ve been left behind, and of course we’ve heard that this is because of racism, natural systemic institutional racism in America. We’re unfair. That this country is just horrible and rotten.

Do you ever ask yourself how it is that people not even born here can come here and in a few short years begin prospering in school, they’re own business, and yet people who are born in this country somehow have been raised to hate it – to still think they’re back in the days of slavery.

I actually think, after studying all this ACORN stuff, and reading what Stanley Kurtz has written about this, I actually believe that what has taken place here, in addition to liberal Democrat legislation – such as the great society and the war on poverty, which a lot of people would now acknowledge really busted up the black family by the government taking the place of a husband and father – he’s free to roam around and bear no responsibility. The mother remained the mother, she got the financial assistance from this legislation from the federal government. The federal government became the father. The father didn’t have to hang around in order for the kids to be OK – depending on how you define OK.

And as you study more and more of this ACORN stuff you find that it has been part of an entire movement that has been going for two maybe three decades right under our noses. We thought that it was just liberal welfare policies and all that that kept blacks from progressing while other minorities grew and prospered but no. It is these wackos from Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright to other anti-american afro-centric black liberation theologists, working with ACORN, and Barack Obama is smack dab in the middle of it. They have been training young black kids to hate hate hate this country. And they trained their parents before that to hate hate hate this country. It was a movement. It was a Bill Ayers anti-capitalist anti-american educational movement. ACORN is how it was implemented right under our noses.

They’re doing far more folks than just cheating when it comes to elections and registration. They’re in deep in this mortgage crisis. ACORN and Obama, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the Democrat Party have their fingerprints the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The whole concept of affordable housing was people who can’t afford a mortgage are going to get one, because America is unfair.

It has been a movement. It has been a religion. And Obama and Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers were all up to their big ears in it.

Here’s a video by The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill explaining how Bush and Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, were working together in Iraq to wage a 21st century crusade against Islam. The video is called “Blackwater: Shadow Army.” You can watch it here.

Scahill also documents in his book “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” compelling connections between Prince and shadow elements of the Catholic church such as the Knights of Malta. The Knights of Malta evidently were key players in the original 11th century crusades and supposedly they only answer to the Pope.

Now if we assume that Scahill is correct in his assertion that Bush and Prince were working together, using the “war on terror” as a conduit to wage a modern-day crusade with Prince’s shadow army of mercenaries killing Muslims at will for the purpose of total Christian rule of the planet, what’s Obama’s excuse? Why is Blackwater still operating in Iraq, despite the fact that their contract was not renewed?

Perhaps Obama has allowed Blackwater to continue to operate in Iraq because he too is aligned with Opus Dei Catholic soldiers-of-doom analogous to a character from David Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.”

Unfortunately I don’t have access to Obama, so I can’t ask him that question, perhaps someone in the White House press corps will, but something tells me I doubt it.

With all the allegations of murder, tax evasion and charges of war crimes flying at Prince and his company, it’s surprising that Obama keeps paying him to put boots on the ground in Iraq, but he does.

Scahill’s most recent story about Blackwater court case in the US District Court in Virginia
Here’s the latest on The Center for Constitutional Rights’ case against Prince and Blackwater.

Wikipedia on Blackwater some of the information here is sketchy.
The Knight of Malta Wikipedia page
Here’s the video of Bush getting laughs for calling the “war on terror” a “crusade”
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