Before steamboats proliferated, goods could not easily be moved upstream on the Mississippi River. It was much easier to "go with the flow", as it were, because of the prohibitive cost of sending goods up river. "Sold down the river" was the easier, cheaper, status-quo method of moving your products to markets.

President Obama will propose, I'm afraid, selling the vast majority of Americans down the river, so to speak, as he begins his re-election campaign in earnest with a prime time speech to the nation Wednesday night. I come to this conclusion based on the president's past performances.

To follow my reasoning here, it is imperative to keep in mind the "negotiations" which took place over three major pieces of legislation.

While telling the nation that he wanted to see discount bulk purchasing power of pharmaceuticals for Medicare in his comprehensive health care reform legislation….he was working behind the scenes guaranteeing Big Pharma nothing like that would ever happen. The Obama "I would like to see a robust public option" teaser during negotiations, likewise, was a bait and switch by a working-behind-the-scenes president using the threat of a public option to keep big-spending hospital lobbyists from crushing ObamaCare with negative ad campaigns. Pragmatic? Perhaps. But also duplicitous.

During the Grand Compromise smoke and mirrors from this past December, President Obama told us that unless he agreed to continuing deep tax cuts for the richest 2%, Republicans would allow all the tax cuts on everybody to expire. Nothing he could do but compromise…..the only pragmatic option available. Then, behind closed doors, not only did Obama agree to extending those tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, but he also handed Republicans a reprehensible reduction on tax responsibities for the wealthiest estate owners in America….a giveaway to the top .6%.

Thirdly, in February House Republicans laid down a marker of cutting $32 billion from the remaining 2011 federal budget…..

House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan released a fiscal 2011 budget allocation Thursday that would cap spending at $1.055 trillion and slice $32 billion from current government spending levels this year.

After weeks of what were called "tough negotiations" with House Republicans, this past Friday evening, President Obama stepped in front of cameras to boast about the "biggest annual spending cut in history" after agreeing to accept $38 billion in spending cuts for the remaining 2011 budget.

With that indisputable record of selling progressives, Democrats and American families down the river, taking the path of least resistance to arrive at his re-election destination, here's what's coming starting Wednesday night….

Another impetus to Wednesday’s move is the White House’s belief that a bipartisan “Gang of Six” senators will announce this week that they have reached agreement on a debt-reduction package similar to that of the president’s fiscal commission.

After months of private discussions, the tentative agreement among the three Republican and three Democratic senators would cut military and domestic programs and overhaul the tax code, eliminating popular tax breaks but using the new revenues to lower income-tax rates and reduce annual deficits. It would be the model, if not in all details, for Mr. Obama’s own goals, Democratic officials say.
….

Several presidential advisers interviewed in recent weeks said Mr. Obama has been torn between wanting to propose major budget changes to entice Republicans to the bargaining table, including on Social Security, and believing they would never agree to raise revenues on upper-income Americans as part of a deal.

Obama wants to use "new revenues" from cutting defense and domestic programs to "lower income-tax rates." The "overhaul the tax code" part, what's often referred to as "broadening the tax base", will feature cuts to, or elimination of, mortgage interest deductions which are important to American working class families. Even slicing away at in-surplus Social Security is under consideration.

We are living in a time when federal tax rates are at their lowest levels compared to GDP in 60 years and yet we have 8.8% unemployment…..and Obama wants to lower those tax rates even more in order to deal with the nation's debt problem. A bit of austerity for the little people, more gifts of gold to the already fabulously wealthy….and a black magic, voodoo potion for what ails the nation's economy. Shorter version: Republican boilerplate.

No wonder Paul Krugmann wrote this yesterday….

Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn’t even using that — or, rather, he’s using it to reinforce his enemies’ narrative. …

….his political strategists seem to believe that he can win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.

But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing.

Who cares what the nation needs…..who cares about believing in something…..what's the big deal about taking a stand? Obama needs re-elected and it's just too damn difficult and expensive to get re-elected paddling upstream attempting to deliver desperately needed progressive goods to all Americans.

So he's selling America down the river. It's just easier that way.

Additional reading….here on the dirtpoor plight of CEO's.

Perhaps you've seen MSNBC's new slogan…."Lean Forward."

A year ago on the Blog of Mass Destruction….

December 19, 2009….

With corporately-compromised Democrats leaving potential Democratic voters despondent because of their refusal to get tough and do the will of the majority of Americans, it is conceivable that the…..Republican Party TeaBaggers could rise to snatch the majority in Congress.

American history is repeating itself in much shorter time cycles…or at least it seems to me.

A year ago the will of the people was widely in favor of a public option health insurance inclusion in what Republicans lovingly called Obamacare.

On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

However, as Democratic Senators argued with themselves at the behest of their corporate masters…..they argued themselves right into doing the bidding of those masters, rather than the will of the people.

Americans were also in favor of the government having the ability to purchase pharma products at a bulk discounted rate. That too was rejected by a filibuster proof Democratic Senate.

AARP today announced the results of a national poll showing 86 percent of Americans over the age of 18 support allowing Medicare to have that authority.

As I wrote last December…..if the Democrats refused to do the will of the people, rather than the will of their corporate masters, it was possible that the ragtag, incoherent bunch of slow learners who called themselves the Tea Party could lead the Neo-Confederates back to power in the Congress.

Fast forward to this December. What was the will of the people when it came to extending the egregiously damaging Bush-era tax cuts?

59 percent favor ending the tax cuts for the rich.

Thirty-seven percent of those polled by Gallup want to keep all the tax cuts in place.

Once again….albeit this time minority Republicans had a gun to the head of American people's paychecks…..a majority Democratic Congress voted against the will of the people.

President Obama, as he signed the negotiated ransom kicking the tax cut can further up the road, boastfully announced he would be looking forward to having the same "debate" over tax cuts (which he just caved-in to) in the coming 2 years. Having lost this debate with a 58 Democratic-seat Senate and a huge majority in the House….Obama is cocksure he'll win the "debate" next time….with Republicans controlling the House and deadlocked, basically, in the Senate.

Must be his audacious hope turned up to 11.

So, what's really coming our way in 2011 from a government which refuses to do the will of the people?

The planets are aligning, so to speak…..to finally reward the powerful with what they've had on their Christmas wish list for over 60 years. The chiseling down of Social Security and Medicare.

It took a Democratic president to give powerful people what they wanted with welfare, trade agreements and bankster deregulation. And, I suggest, it will be a Democratic president who will give those same people what they want with SS and Medicare….once again, against the will of the people.

Another corporately-compromised Democratic president will introduce his Republican plan for everyone to "sacrifice" during his upcoming State of the Union address. The same president who just signed a bill this month to add $1 trillion to the national debt…will tell us next month that we have to all sacrifice because the nation has too much debt.

That will set the stage for the next "hostage" situation. Republicans have already arranged their next terrorist caper. It's coming in March or April with the necessity of raising our country's credit limit. The hostage takers will demand that Social Security and Medicare benefits are slashed…..or this time the entire f*cking world economy gets it's brains blown out.

Naturally, audacious Obama will have no other choice but to give in to the demands of the national-terrorist party…..after which he'll tell us he's looking forward to having some new "debate".

Question: Do you think I'm being too pessimistic?

NY Times…

Mr. Goolsbee said the White House was betting that after a two-year extension of tax policies of President George W. Bush, it would be far harder for Republicans to defend the tax cuts for the wealthy in 2012, when the economy is expected to be stronger, thereby weakening their argument that allowing tax rates to rise for the rich would hamper the recovery.

“In 2012, I believe they will have to stand up and defend, on their own merits, that they think these high-income tax cuts work,” he said. “And they will not be able to do that because they don’t.”

I'm sorry. That's some stupid sh*t.

The 2001 Bush tax cuts have been in place for….let's see now….over 9 years. During those 9 plus years jobs growth flatlined. By the time the White House door hit Bush's ass net job growth during his presidency was…..zero.

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.

So, I'm freaking guessing that if any of this bullpucky Goolsbee and Obama are talking about had anything to do with winning an argument based on the recent-history merits….then the argument is over, and has been for quite a while. Cutting taxes, especially those which benefit the wealthiest the most, do not result in new jobs being created.

Obama and Goolsbee are "betting" that 24 more months of the same old manure will make a difference when it comes to who is perceived to be correct in their taxes-on-the-rich policy. And that is a very bad bet….if it's really an honest one. Two words here when it comes to perception: "death panels." Perception is dictated by mostly very wealthy media types. The types who desire to keep the tax rates on their millionaire earnings low.

If the economy does recover a bit, as it is expected to in 2011, then Republicans will successfuly argue, through their hometeam media mouthpieces, that keeping those tax rates low on the zillionaires turned the economy around. How that helps Obama, I have no clue.

This is all just a bunch of foolishness. Obama did not have the right approach to cutting a deal with the Republicans. Instead of going to House Democrats first, for Christ's sake, he went to Republican Senators to make a deal.

The truth is that Obama wanted the tax cuts on the wealthy to be extended…in the very same way that Obama, while telling us he wanted a robust public option in health care reform, had already cut deals with AHIP through Max Baucus which prohibited a public option……Obama probably wants the tax cuts on the filthy rich to continue thinking those rich folks will put their money at play in the economy. All I can say is…..how's that been workin' out for ya' the last 9 plus years?

It is difficult for any liberal to accept the fact that these stupid, stupid people are going to have another go at this trickle down, crackpipe, horsesh*t.

The only evidence needed to know for sure that Obama is making a bad deal here with Republicans, is that the Republicans are boasting about it….cheerleading even.

Josh Marshall says Obama has lost his swagger…..needs to get his swagger back.

The way I see it, swagger is as swagger does, at least that's what Gump's mother told him.

Obama scolding the very people who put him in office…..

So this notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for, for a hundred years – but because there was a provision in there that they didn't get, that would have affected maybe a couple million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for a hundred million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.

The health care reform bill passed without one single GOP vote. Democrats….if they were compromising too much…were compromising too much with themselves when they kept a public option out of the bill. When a Democratic President tells the American people he thinks a public option for health insurance is vital to holding private insurance rates down…which he did repeatedly…and that same Democratic President has a 60 vote Senate majority with which to pass a bill that contains the public option, and yet that President doesn't attempt to use his power to leverage those 60 Democratic votes for the public option he says he's in favor of….then it's not "compromising too much" that's the problem. It's that Obama never really wanted the public option to be part of the deal in the first place.

And that's exactly the case.

Tom Daschle: "It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others. I mean I think that part of the whole effort was based on a premise. That premise was, you had to have the stakeholders in the room and at the table. Lessons learned in past efforts is that without the stakeholders' active support rather than active opposition, it’s almost impossible to get this job done. They wanted to keep those stakeholders in the room and this was the price some thought they had to pay."

Obama's problem has not been that he compromises too much…..it's that he compromises way too soon…..in fact, it can be said that Obama's first step in any negotiation is to give away something valuable to the other side to incentivize them to engage. I've called it unilateral bipartisanship. That is Obama's style. He disarms his "opponents" by first giving them what it is that he knows they really want. In exchange, Obama expects those same opponents to be less combative to his overall policy goals.

And that's what Obama has now done again with his latest compromise with Republicans over tax cuts. The moment the Senate couldn't get enough votes, twice, to break the GOP hostage taker demands….Obama quickly conceded to tax cut extensions for the filthiest of rich….BUT…..he didn't stop there. Behind closed doors, Obama also agreed in advance to give Republicans and their 2% constituency an inheritance tax cut bonus…..an egregiously rub-our-faces-in-it ransom demand from Republicans who knew they were dealing with a pushover.

Not one person on the left thinks that compromise is not essential to the art of negotiation. Liberals expect compromise…..it's conservatives who do not believe in compromise. But what liberals don't expect is pre-emptive surrendering to the other side before a fight can be had over the merits.

Obama, who ran on lofty words of being a transformational leader, has proven to be little more than a Third Way, Clintonian incrementalist…..partially because he is a pre-emptive, back room compromiser…..who, apparently, doesn't like it very much when that fact is pointed out.

Finally today: I am looking for an answer. It is true that George W. Bush passed his deep tax cuts in 2001 using the reconciliation process. The reconciliation process only requires 51 votes in the Senate to pass legislation. Is there a legitimate reason why the reconciliation process cannot be used in the current Senate to pass tax cut extensions only for those under $250K?

Robert Gibbs throws a Sarah Palin-like temper tantrum….

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

March 12, 2010, Blog of Mass Destruction: Different President, Same Lawlessness:"President Obama, despite his many campaign attacks on the "lawless" Bush-Cheney regime, has continued those same Bush policies."

But you see….saying that the decisions made by President Obama are similar to those made by George W. Bush…..is evidence of illegal drug use, or insanity.

No, not evidence of drug use or insanity…..instead, evidence of some liberals paying attention and stating the facts.

Glenn Greenwald….

…. he (Obama) has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus.

Drug testing may be in order,….but after looking at Greenwald's links…..I'm thinking those needing to piss in a cup are found inside the White House.

Candidate Obama, rightly, badmouthed the lawlessness of a neo-conservative Bush presidency. President Obama has only continued that neo-conservative lawlessness, and in a few cases, even broadened the lawlessness.

But just calling folks who point out the truth about Obama's presidency, "crazy", or in need of drug testing……wasn't quite enough for Mr. Gibbs. Oh, no. Obama's communication secretary just had to go all full-metal jacket wingnut.

“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

“They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

That is the kind of stuff the Fox crowd, the Dittoheads and the Palinistas say. Unhinged and untruthful stuff. The truth is…..us "crazy" liberals, who are in need of drug testing, would have been "satisfied" with a simple, not-for-profit, public insurance option in the health care legislation….you know, an unrealistic incremental step like that. A step which I'm sure candidate Obama called "change we can believe in."

By throwing in the phrase "eliminated the Pentagon", Gibbs is playing directly into the phony narrative spun by every conservative cretin who ever stood before a microphone: Democrats, liberals are weak, passive, pansy-asses when it comes to national defense……and our 'real' agenda is to turn the American government into a quivering compound of appeasing and passive Amish.

The fact that Obama cannot convince liberal thinkers that he knows what he is doing in his escalation of the Af-Pak conflict shouldn't translate into Limbaughian exaggerations that those liberals want to "eliminate the Pentagon." But that's how Rush, Glenn, and Sarah do it…..and it seems to work…..so I guess Gibbs was just going to school off of the feces-flinging, wingers.

Throwing Dennis Kucinich's name out as a slam on liberals was just so extra-special. Kucinich is the only elected official who had the spine to introduce articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney. That silly Kucinich thought that even wartime presidents and vice-presidents were not above obeying the law and the Constitution…..quaint notions, I know……but notions which President Obama, just like Bush and Cheney did before him, has rejected entirely in his approach to CIC duties.

What should be the attitude, the mindset of liberals vis-a-vis the mighty and magnificent power of a President Obama? According to Gibbs, liberals should just restrain their criticisms and be….grateful!

Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.

The only word missing was "real"…..you know, like Sarah's "real America."

I am a liberal outside of Washington. I am grateful that John McCain and Sister Sarah were defeated resoundingly in 2008. I am grateful that America elected a president who understands English and can speak it rather fluently. I am grateful that our president isn't considered by the rest of the world to be an embarrassment.

But I'll be damned if I'm going to be grateful, thankful, for baby-step pragmatism, much of which runs contrary to his own campaign promises, and of which, most has been done to appease a non-appeasable Republican Party.

Not going to be grateful for that. Never.

Remember the good ole' days when presidential candidate, Barack Obama, was described by less-than-honest Republicans and conservatives as the "most liberal senator in the Senate?" Remember that?

This liberal is still waiting for a few of those, you know, "green shoots", of new liberal goverance in America, to sprout. I'm relatively sure at this point that I'll be waiting a long time.

We're 15 months into Obama's presidency…and it should now be clear to anyone paying attention….that Obama is a moderate, centrist leader.

Yesterday, this "most liberal ex-senator" unilaterally surrendered to yet another big corporate interest group. Obama now joins the cerebral and Very Serious, ex-1/2-term-governor-puffball, Sarah Palin….and the WTF, Republican National Committee Chairman, Michael Steele….in the wingnut chorus of "drill, baby, drill." The "most liberal" Obama has lifted the ban on a good portion of offshore oil drilling.

Will drilling more offshore lead America to a place of independence from foreign oil? Don't make me laugh. Lifting the ban on offshore drilling will not make one bit of a difference in addressing our dependency issue.

Why, then, would the "most liberal" ex-senator, now president, announce such a surrender to wingnut talking points?

Some say that Obama has made a deal with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Huckleberry-SC). I guess the idea is that Graham will now work with Obama on climate change legislation. I suppose that Obama really learned his lesson during the health care debate-breakdown of 2009. Or maybe not.

President Obama worked with not-interested-in-working-together, Republicans all of last year….and wound up with ZERO GOP votes for a much needed national health care reform bill. Obama was patient, allowing people like Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Olympia Sowe (R-ME), and Mike Enzi (R-WY) to drag their feet in Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee Gang of Six….from which came health reform's end product.

What Obama received in return for being unilaterally bipartisan….was 8-10 months of getting his political teeth kicked in by enraged conservative fools holding signs, busting up townhalls, and threatening violence…..all enthusiastically replayed nightly by corrupt, corporate media. That's what Obama received for being unilaterally bipartisan.

So, here we are again. Apparently, the Democrats think it's time to move on climate change and energy in the Senate….and caving to Republican talking points is Obama's first move.

But The Reverend has a slightly different take on what Obama is doing.

Few people know why it is that the Gang of Six,….3 Senate Democrats and 3 Senate Republicans,…..were anointed by Obama as the channeling-source for his health care bill. The NY Times has revealed that President Obama, before the process got started, told Max Baucus, Chair of the Gang of Six, to negotiate directly with hospital leaders…..get them to give in, compromise, not actively fight the final legislation….and in return Obama's promise, via Baucus, to the hospitals was a guarantee that a public option would not be included in the final bill.

Moreover, we now know that Obama sat down, privately, with Billy Tauzin,..Big Pharma lobby honcho and former congressional member….and cut a deal before congressional work on health care reform began in earnest. That deal extended a promise that Obama and Congress would not negotiate for lower drug prices for seniors through bulk purchasing or reimportation in return for a promise from Big Pharma that they would cut some $80 billion from their pricing structure over 10 years.

The final bill had no public option….and no bulk purchasing or reimportation of drugs provisions.

I think what President Obama is doing by allowing more offshore drilling is similar to what he did with health care reform. He's giving Big Oil what they want up front, probably in return for Big Oil's handshake agreement to not actively fight the Democrat's climate and energy legislation.

My deepest cynical self thinks that what Barack and Rahm are really doing is securing future corporate contributions to Democrats by giving the Bigs what they want right now. It's the worse kind of surrender and enslavement to the very industries who have, regrettably, become too big to be governed.

Expect something very similar in any bank regulation "negotiations."

In the early morning hours today, the Senate voted 60-40 for cloture on…..

….a major package of health care amendments–and by doing so, signaled that the Democratic caucus is unified, and ready to pass a far-reaching reform bill straight down party lines.

The Senate is now expected to hold more procedural votes on Tuesday and Wednesday before finally voting on the bill late Christmas eve.

58 Democrats and 2 Independents voted for cloture…..all 40 Senate Republicans voted to filibuster…to stop the bill from moving forward to a final vote. Obstructionists to the bitter end.

The political lines have been drawn. Republicans are banking on their obstructionistic behavior against any health care reform to pay off in 2010 and 2012…..Americans needing health insurance be damned.

Democrats are counting on passage of the bill to be viewed as an honoring of the new Democratic President's featured campaign promise to address the nation's health care crisis.

From Bill Moyers via CrooksandLiars.com….

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and The American Prospect's Robert Kuttner joined Bill Moyers to discuss the health care bill which appears to be on its way to passing the Senate now…..

BILL MOYERS: Let's start with some news. Some of the big insurance companies, Well Point, Cigna, United Health, all surged to a 52 week high in their share prices this week when it was clear there'd be no public option in the health care bill going through Congress right now. What does that tell you, Matt?

MATT TAIBBI: Well, I think what most people should take away from this is that the massive subsidies for health insurance companies have been preserved while it's also expanded their customer base because there's an individual mandate in the bill that's going to provide all these companies with the, you know, 25 or 30 million new people who are going to be paying for health insurance. So, it's, obviously, a huge boon to that industry. And I think Wall Street correctly read what the health care effort is all about.

ROBERT KUTTNER: Rahm Emanuel, the President's Chief of Staff, was Bill Clinton's Political Director. And Rahm Emanuel's take away from Bill Clinton's failure to get health insurance passed was 'don't get on the wrong side of the insurance companies.' So their strategy was cut a deal with the insurance companies, the drug industry going in. And the deal was, we're not going to attack your customer base, we're going to subsidize a new customer base. And that script was pre-cooked so it's not surprising that this is what comes out the other side.

BILL MOYERS: So are you saying that this, what some call a sweetheart deal between the pharmaceutical industry and the White House, done many months ago before this fight really began, was because the drug company money in the Democratic Party?

ROBERT KUTTNER: Well, it's two things. Part of it was we need to do whatever it takes to get a bill. Never mind whether it's a really good bill, let's get a bill passed so we can claim that we solved health insurance. Secondly, let's get the drug industry and the insurance industry either supporting us or not actively opposing us. So that there was some skirmishing around the details, but the deal going in was that the administration, drug companies, insurance companies are on the same team. Now, that's one way to get legislation, it's not a way to transform the health system.

That's the criticism by progressives of the health care reform legislation. Can you imagine what the "faith based", conservative bunch of critics will come up with between now and November 2010?

I agree with other progressive bloggers that the mandate to purchase for-profit insurance combined with the Medicaid expansion and subsidies….most of which doesn't start for 3-4 years…..as Ground Zero for attack by detached-from-reality conservatives aided by a corporately-compromised Village media.

We've been treated to a veritable circus in 2009 over health care reform. Most of this circus was performed by the creatively-imaginative unhinged right who directed the national "discussion" with the aid of FOX and it's many Friends, which set the tone for the entire Village's "news" coverage.

Pragmatically, the reform will do many positive things. More Americans will be insured, pre-existing conditions addressed, deficits reduced slightly, Plan D "donut hole" reduced, etc.

Politically, as Josh Marshall suggests, because most reform will not begin for 3-4 years, the reform could be disastrous for the Democratic Party…..possibly beginning with the 2010 midterms.

One thing is certain…..at least, as far as The Reverend is concerned…..our rotted, dysfunctional, whore-like, corporate media…..as it has done during all of 2009…..will repeatedly entertain and exhaust every conservative criticism, no matter how wingnutty…..concluding, and bemoaning, that the Democrats blew it.

Speaking of predictions, I'll put mine up against anyone's…..

From June 15th, 2009…..

"….I firmly believe that any health care reform coming out of Washington, inevitably, will exclude a public option and, most likely, will tax employer-provided health care benefits as well. Love to be wrong about that."

Of course, it's not over until the fat lady, you know, steps to the microphone….but it kinda, sorta, looks like I was right.

The last two mornings my Roadrunner has been working like an old Ford with a bad carburetur……every time I would try to save my work, it was lost. Lots of very vulgar words were spoken.

If you didn't see Keith Olbermann's special comment last night urging Congress and the president to scrap the current rubbish known as the Senate health care reform bill…..you should.

On Tuesday, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean had this to say about the reform bill coming out of the Senate…..

"This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill."

Yesterday, Dean continued doing something that Villagers and corporately compromised politicians detest….speak the truth on teevee….

"This is a bigger bailout for the insurance industry than AIG," former Democratic National Committee chairman and medical doctor Howard Dean told "Good Morning America's" George Stephanopoulos today. "A very small number of people are going to get any insurance at all, until 2014, if the bill works.

"This is an insurance company's dream, this bill," Dean continued. "This is the Washington scramble, and I think it's ill-advised."

..{..}..

"We've gotten to this stage … in Washington where passing any bill is a victory, and that's the problem," Dean said. "Decisions are being made about the long-term future of this country for short-term political reasons, and that's never a good sign."

"at this point, the bill does more harm than good."

"I've been involved in this all along. I put up with a lot of stuff I didn't like because I thought at the end of the day what was good about the bill outweighed what's bad about the bill," Dean said. "I don't believe that anymore."

Every word Doctor Dean said is 100% truth.

The response from Democratic Senators and the White House?
Slam Howard Dean.

The most common Democratic rebuttal to Howard Dean sounded like this….

"I disagree with Howard Dean," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News. "Howard Dean is a medical doctor. He has to know what it will mean when 30 million Americans are finally going to have health insurance, that peace of mind and protection for the first time in their lives. For many of them, that is a dramatic step forward."

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) took it a step further….

"It's nonsense and it's irresponsible and coming from him as a physician, it's stunning," Rockefeller said during an appearance on MSNBC.

Robert Gibbs used mockery to diminish Dean's accurate statements…

"I would ask Dr. Dean, how better do you address those who don't have insurance: passing a bill that will cover 30 million who don't currently have it or killing the bill?" he added. "I don't think any rational person would say killing the bill makes a whole lot of sense at this point."

The number one Democrat, President Obama, waxed all Bushian….

“If we don't pass it, here's the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they're going to drop your coverage, because they just can't afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

Because Barack Obama wanted to create the perception that he was a bipartisan leader, early in the process he sucked up to GOP Senators like Grassley (R-KS), Enzi (R-WY) and Snowe (R-ME)…..whose intent from the beginning was to prevent anything from being passed. Obama did not insist that Congress stay in session back in August…no sense of urgency coming out of the White House then.

Obama campaigned stating that he preferred a public option to help drive down insurance prices. He campaigned against Hillary's mandate for everyone to buy insurance. Now he's against the former and for the latter. Obama tells us that if nothing is passed, insurance premiums will go up…..when the health insurance industry has already stated that costs would go up regardless.

The President uses Bush/Cheney-style scare tactics for political purposes. He has failed to lead in this long drawn out debate. Obama has shirked his duty to get rough with corporately-compromised Senators and House members. Repeatedly, he has failed to instruct Congress on what he would and would not accept. Only the strong survive in today's American political arena and in the health care reform "debate", Obama has not been strong.

Now, political perception is all that matters to Obama. Having allowed the process to be strung out so long….only now is there a genuine sense of urgency coming from the White House.

Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have the right idea….table this Christmas present to Big Insurance and Big Pharma….and go the route of reconciliation where 51 votes are all that are required to pass genuine health care reform for the American people.

If the Republicans. and the Village that loves them, don't like it and throw a fit…..they can go pound salt.

UPDATE: Just in case the Democratic plan hasn't angered progressives enough….Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) wants to insure that he has control over women's uteruses before he lends his support….

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said on Thursday won't vote for the Senate's healthcare bill unless further changes are made.

Nelson said that modifcations to the bill, including provisions to curtail federal support for plans covering abortion, are needed to win his vote.

UPDATE 2: Must read….

UPDATE 3: Glennzilla has zeroed in on the real issue. Take the time, it's worth it.

The Obama White House and Congressional Democrats are hurriedly wrapping the huge Christmas present they're preparing to give to their bestest friends forever….for-profit coporate health care insurers.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, is doing most of the holiday wrapping this year….

Obama administration officials were not pleased when word leaked out earlier today that the White House was leaning on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman on a public option alternative–and they gave their counterparts on the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. an earful about it. But in the end, sources are unanimous: The White House wants Reid to hand Joe Lieberman the farm.

Emanuel didn't just leave it to Reid to find a solution. Emanuel specifically suggested Reid give Lieberman the concessions he seeks on issues like the Medicare buy-in and triggers.

"It was all about 'do what you've got to do to get it done. Drop whatever you've got to drop to get it done," the aide said. All of Emanuel's prescriptions, the source said, were aimed at appeasing Lieberman–not twisting his arm.

Think about that. "Drop whatever you've got to drop to get it done."

To get what done? Certainly not real national health care reform. That's not what's getting done. More likely, what Rahmbo was referring to as "it", is the sweetheart deal corporately-compromised Democrats are preparing to hand over to big health insurance and big pharmaceutical. Have a jolly old corporate Christmas, huh?

Joe Lieberman, the most vile, obnoxious, full-of-himself, bastard Senator ever to foul the air of Congress, is paying the Democrats back for their kind gestures towards him after he was booted into Independent status in Connecticut. Just the kind of prickish fellow that Joe is. If you recall, Unholy Joe lost the Democratic primary in his home state in 2006. With the help of many Republican voters, however, the Unholy One returned to the Senate, only this time as an Independent.

Joementum campaigned for McCain/Palin in 2008, and was a featured speaker at the RNC last fall. That wasn't enough for lily-livered, Slinky spined, Senate Democrats to strip the Unholy One of his committee chairmanship or to bar Joseph and his Many-Colored-Turncoat from caucusing with the Democrats.

At this point, Rahm and Barack simply want to pass anything they can claim is health care reform. 60 Senate votes are needed. UnHoly Joe first threatened to filibuster any public option….so majority, yet cowardly, Senate Democrats gave Joe what he wanted. No public option. Now Joe will filibuster any expansion of Medicare for 55-64 year olds…..and so Rahm and Barack pressured Harry Reid yesterday to give The UnHoly One what he wanted. No Medicare expansion.

Now with no public option and no Medicare expansion, "it", as Rahm referred to the health care reform bill…..is only a windfall of mandated new customers with tax dollars in hand to give to for-profit insurance corporations. That may have been Rahm and Obama's plan from the beginning.

Yes, more Americans will have health insurance as a result of this awful piece of corporate-friendly garbage. But prices will rise steadily above the rate of inflation, taking more of everyone's yearly budgets while enriching the insurers beyond anything they've ever dreamed.

"Drop whatever you've got to drop to get it done." Now we know what "it" is. "It" is simply more of what we've witnessed over the last 20 years. Elected officials framing and passing new laws that primarily benefit America's largest for-profit corporations.

During Bush/Cheney it was the Medicare Plan D program which benefitted pharmaceutical and insurance corporations while tricking seniors with "donut holes" and mind-boggling-yet-oddly-similar-looking "choices."

Now it's the Appease Joe Lieberman For The Sake Of Health Insurers Bill.

Here's the question for today. If Republicans were in the majority and passing a health care reform bill (think Plan D), how would the legislation look any different from what Democrats are about to vote on in the Senate? Other than the fact that Democrats are insisting on not increasing the deficit with this new corporate giveaway….I can't think of one issue theoretical majority Republicans would have changed.

Rahm and Barack, as Karl Rove did before them, think they know how to hold a permanent political majority in American halls of power. Co-opt corporate money. Do whatever huge monied interests want you to do so that those corporate interests will continue to finance your national political party.

Karl Rove was wrong then…..Rahm and Barack are wrong now. But either way…Americans are the ones still getting lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings.

Now it's getting embarassing.

As I predicted, the Senate has jettisoned the public health insurance option……not that this is a surprise in any way. Many Senators work directly for big medical-pharma-insurance corporations who pay for their elections. Nothing personal against those Americans who need health insurance, mind you……it's just not in their corporate clients' interest……profits and so forth.

The misdirection play that Senate Democrats are running right now to provide cover for canning the public option is called "Medicare buy-in". Yeah, we lost the public option, but we're going to get Medicare eligibility at 55 as a tradeoff…and maybe we can get more poor folks on Medicaid too…….so we're, you know, getting something.

Horsepucky.

If you are between the ages of 55 and 64, don't call Medicare just quite yet…..

Negotiators are considering limiting consumers to those who would qualify for high-risk insurance pools already set up under the Senate’s health care legislation. This would mean primarily those who have been uninsured for a certain amount of time, have a history of poor health or are unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition.

It's all misdirection and cover for passing an exclusively health insurance favoring piece of legislation. Without a public option there are NO cost controls…none. For-profit health insurers will reap a new customer bonanza without any future cost constraints. Pharma doesn't have to do any negotiating with government over price. Insurers can charge as much as three times more for higher risk customers. When a country permits its largest corporations to virtually bribe its Senators….this is all we can expect to get in return.

Now that President Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) has won the day,….the public option having been kicked to the curb as he wished,….ole' Kent's new job,…. as he tirelessly works for those who put him where he is today,… is to come up with some even better ideas for helping his clients deal with this nonsense about Medicare for 55-64 year olds. Not so fast, says President Conrad…..

“from a national perspective, you’d have to be concerned about the effect on the national pool,” referring to the concern that the 55 to 64 year old population added to the Medicare pool tends to be a sicker population. When asked how he’d resolve these issues, Conrad said that he’d propose having the Medicare buy-in be treated as “a separate pool” that could have negotiated rates, rather than those set by the existing Medicare program.

Kent forgot to mention how allowing 55 and over to buy-in to Medicare would be yet another windfall for his clients, big medical and big insurance. 55-64 year olds are a very unprofitable age demographic of health insurance customers. Maybe, those unprofitable customers can be pawned off on the government, hell…..leaving insurers with only the most profitable age demographic customers from which they can reap well-deserved higher profits from all those millions of new customers they will be fleecing serving. Well, hell yes.

But what if Medicare gets so big, momentum will be created to allow Medicare for all? Then what?

President Senator Kent Conrad is the Senate's Duracel Bunny, always going. Conrad wants any new Medicare wannabes 55-64 kept in their own, you know, smaller pool. Not much volume clout that way….and therefore, not a threat to pricing supports. Doesn't allow for Medicare-for-all momentum to build. Keep them separate from Medicare. Damn good job Kent. It looks like you're worth every penny of what those silly regular folks call, you know, bribes.

So, misdirection and bribes it is…but wait….there's more…

This afternoon, Jay Rockefeller said that the new proposal to expand Medicaid coverage for those who are 133% to 150% above the federal poverty line was dropped during a meeting of key legislators this morning. “I was sad this morning,” Rockefeller told me and a few other reporters. “We walked in, and it was 133[%] to 140[%], then it’s staying at 133… So we didn’t get anything.”

No Medicaid expansion either. No sense in giving poor working Americans any false hopes about their chances for getting health coverage. What was it? 24 hours? As the misdirection play worked out, very short-attention span Americans heard that Democrats dropped the public option but were going to get Medicare for more Americans and Medicaid for more Americans in return. Today, no Medicaid expansion…and limited, watered down Medicare for 55 -64 year olds…..which won't be affordable anyway.

That's what those warrior Senate Democrats pounded out in negotiations. Such brave warriors we have……we should all be oh-so-grateful for our brave and selfless conservative Senate Democrats.

They're fighting you for you.