Was it a bug or a feature?

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We’ve often railed about the completely illiberal notion of forcing people, under the threat of a rectal exam by the IRS, to part with their hard-earned scratch to line the pockets of for-profit entities, in ObamaCare’s case, the health insurance industry.


We may not be railing for too much longer if the following case of AETNA becomes a larger trend and Big Health simply drops out of ObamaCare.


Hello, single payer!


From CNBC:

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC on Wednesday that Obamacare has failed to attract the uninsured, and he offered a scenario in which the insurance company could be forced to pull out of program.

He said that so far, Obamacare has just shifted people who were insured in the individual market to the public exchanges where they could get a better deal on a subsidy for coverage. "We see only 11 percent of the population is actually people that were firmly uninsured that are now insured. So [it] didn't really eat into the uninsured population."

Add to that it’s not the right type of uninsured. Indications are that there are simply not enough young healthy people signing up, the so-called young invincibles, who won’t be a drag on the healthcare system but whose money is needed to offset the cost of the old and sick. This is the adverse selection we have been talking about for years now.


So what’s going to happen? Back to the article:

The company will be submitting Obamacare rates for 2015 on May 15.

"Are they going to be double-digit [increases] or are we going to get beat up because they're double-digit or are we just going to have to pull out of the program?" Bertolini asked in a "Squawk Box" interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Those questions can't be answered until we see the population we have today. And we really don't have a good view on that."

Let us help out with that answer: Yes.

We simply cannot wait until that May date and the shrieks of protestation and threatening language that will emanate from the White House and from the offices of Health and Human Services, and, in particular, the HMFIC of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius. This will be fun.


More from AETNA’s honcho:

For Obamacare to work better, it needs more flexibility and choice of insurance programs, Bertolini said. "We need to make it a lot more simpler for people. There needs to be more choice. When you get more choice, you make it more of a market and you get more people in the program."

You know, if only some people were around to warn that top-down, centralized planning would actually restrict choice and flexibility. Yes, Bertolini is certainly correct: getting the government out of the equation will greatly improve the situation but that horse is out of the barn with scant chance of corralling and returning it to its original locale. We will forthwith refrain from the use of any other tortured analogies.




Years from now, when we look back at how it is we got to a single-payer system, we will ponder this: was it all part of the grand plan to design a federal healthcare system that after a few years or even a decade or two, simply imploded unable to hold up under its own weight or was it simply due to monumental incompetence and hubris thinking that the strings of 1/6th of the nation’s economy could effectively be pulled by the smartest kids in the room?



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Programming note: we will be out of pocket for a few days but hope to be back up and running by Thursday or Friday.

Definition of the day

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What you are about to read was once derided by a political set of people not all that long ago:

CORPORATISM: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.

And in other totally related news:

How big of a headache has the implementation of Obamacare and the subsequent health insurance cancellations become for the Obama White House?

Big enough for the president to call on health insurance executives to help him explain the situation to upset Americans.

The White House is asking insurance companies to explain to millions of Americans the cancellation letters they’re receiving in the mail.

President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, met Tuesday with CEOs from some of the largest health insurers. The White House says McDonough updated the CEOs on fixes to healthcare.gov and problems with enrollment data sent electronically to insurers. McDonough also solicited input on whether the system is getting better.

The White House says McDonough urged insurance companies to “ramp up communication and education efforts” to those who have lost their insurance.

Millions have received cancellation notices, sparking outrage because Obama repeatedly promised that those who liked their health care could keep it. The White House says many of those losing coverage have better, cheaper options through the new exchanges.

No conflicts of interest here, right? Just what sort of pressure is the White House exerting on Big Health and how much of it is being exerted?


Are you comfortable with Big Health and Big Government being in bed together to the extent that they are? You would not be mistaken if you felt that the well-being of both are hopelessly tied together at this point.


Of course, the cynic in us would say that this sort of arrangement is precisely the sort of thing Republicans would play politics with and hold hostage during the next budget showdown and that is precisely the problem. The public-private enterprise that is the Affordable Care Act serves only those two entities and not the needs of the individual. Millions of Americans who have and will have their current insurance plans cancelled transitioned are finding this out.



This from Roger L. Simon:

Liberalism as practiced in today’s America is a chimera, not actually an ideology but an alliance of interest groups controlled by elites for the preservation of their (the elites’) wealth and power. The interest groups often seem to be working against their own advantage by being so affiliated (e. g. African-Americans are in the worst shape in years under Obama), but not the elites who have been able to thrive. These elites are also able to appear altruistic to themselves and others while behaving in manners that are hideously selfish and atrocious to the common good. Liberalism is not so much an ideology in our society as it is a shield, a defense mechanism for a lifestyle.

(italics, ours)



We scarcely recognize modern liberalism and it's once-adherents. What ever cronyism or in-bed-together arrangements (remember Haliburton and Enron?) is not recognized during this administration as the saintly good intentions and infinite and benevolent wisdom of the current crop of our betters in D.C. trump any sort of principle our liberal friends once professed to possess.


As it stands, we will call them out for what they are: hypocrites.

A bake sale would appear to be so much more dignified.

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... if not more ethical and/or legal.

It's been well-documented in these pages just how poorly the Affordable Healthcare Act (aka ObamaCare) roll-out is coming along as the ranks of those who wrote and/or voted for the law have been playing CYA of late with respect to, in their words, the coming "trainwreck".


Now, count the Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius (pictured), as one of those going into panic mode because she feels a hugely controversial and high-profile piece of legislation that became the law of the land over 3 years ago is not being properly educated to the public. In fact, things are so bad that she is being reduced to going hat in hand to solicit donations from not only tax-preparers but the health insurance lobby itself in order to jump start a broader public awareness campaign for Obamacare.


Quick side note: About 2-1/2 years ago we wrote of Sebelius fretting over the lack of public awareness with respect to the law. 2-1/2 years later and they really haven't done a damn thing to improve the situation. 2-1/2 years later and they're still thrashing around in the shallow end of the pool. Heckuva job, Kathy.



From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has solicited sizable donations from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block, the tax preparation service, as part of a multimillion-dollar campaign to ensure the success of President Obama’s health care law, administration officials said Sunday, even as a leading Senate Republican raised questions about the legality of her efforts.

The foundation is expected to contribute as much as $10 million, while H&R Block is expected to make a smaller donation of about $500,000, the officials said.

The senior Republican on the Senate health committee, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said the fund-raising “may be illegal.” He likened it to efforts by the Reagan administration to raise money for rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, after Congress had restricted the use of federal money. Aides to Mr. Alexander said Sunday that he would ask the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, to examine the propriety of the Obama administration’s fund-raising efforts.

Repeat the following slowly: Funds are being "solicited" from tax preparer services for a law that will be enforced by the federal tax agency, the IRS. For those of you in Placentia, California, that would spell "conflict of interest".

And that's a nice touch by the Senator from Tennessee: always invoke a scandal from the other side's bête noir for a proper display of bipartisan skepticism.




Back to the article:

The Department of Health and Human Services said that Ms. Sebelius’s actions to supplement money appropriated by Congress were proper and would continue, despite criticism from Republicans. After first denying that administration officials had engaged in fund-raising, the department confirmed Friday that Ms. Sebelius had made calls soliciting support from the health care industry, including insurance and pharmaceutical executives.

Jason Young, a spokesman for Ms. Sebelius, said she had suggested that health care executives and others support the work of Enroll America, a private nonprofit group that shares the president’s goal of securing coverage for people without insurance. Several people who received solicitations said that current and former administration officials had suggested seven-figure donations.

An insurance executive said that some insurers had been asked for $1 million donations, and that “bigger companies have been asked for a lot more.”

Again, let's ease ourselves into the way back machine and touch on the relationship enjoyed between Sebelius and the health insurance industry. As soon as the ink was dry from the President's signature, health insurance companies faced with covering more people and more people with more mandated coverage provisions, warned that insurance premiums would necessarily rise significantly because of this. This did not set well with Sebelius as she engaged in some not-so-subtle bullying of her own.


From September of 2010:

President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.

"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.

"Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.

(italics, ours)


We suppose we can't blame her for being mildly chapped as the Health lobby itself was also in those backrooms writing up the legislation. Imagine the sense of betrayal amidst the cozy corporatist arrangement enjoyed by Big Health and the federal government.


She later backed off that threat but the damage had been done as the message was made entirely clear: Mighty fine health insurance company you got there. It'd be a shame...


So, considering this highly, err... passive-aggressive relationship between the two entities since the passage of ObamaCare we now have this:

While Ms. Sebelius asked for support from health care executives, she did not make “a direct fund-raising appeal” to entities regulated by the government, Mr. Young said. In any event, he said, under a decades-old federal law, the secretary can encourage support for private nonprofit entities promoting public health.

Terrific: on one hand we have a high-ranking administration official threatening the livelihood of private businesses for speaking frankly and on the other we have that same person looking for financial support from said private businesses. We'd be impolite to call this a shakedown but does this administration have any idea how horrible the optics on this look? Any idea whatsoever? We'd also call this relationship adversarial but since they're in bed together, can we just call it a bad marriage? A bad marriage made permanent by a horrible law?


If those folks who claim they live in the reality-based community want the rest of us to put our tin foil hats away, they're going to have to do a better job than this. Within the same calendar week that the IRS has admitted to bureaucratic harassing of conservative groups, we have the federal government soliciting donations from tax-prep agencies and private entities to help fund a public-awareness campaign for their miserable law.


And what if those "offers" are refused? Do you want to tell the person who once threatened your business livelihood you aren't going to be her patsie? Do you want to tell the entity that regulates your business that you do not wish to voluntarily fund its folly?


For those of you who question the inherent dangers of a corporatist style of governance favored by this administration, here it is writ large and with feeling.

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Your California high-speed choo-choo update

Before a single length of track has been laid, the short yet sad and corrupt saga of California's high-speed choo-choos continues apace.


The contracting consortium of Tutor Perini-Zachry-Parsons was recently awarded the bid to lay down the first 29 mile section of track between Fresno and that other bustling burg of the Central Valley, Madera for the sum of $985.1 million. For those of you who broke out your Rand-McNally atlas Google Maps and did some number crunching, this works out to $34 million/mile.


(Please bear in mind, and this is worth repeating every time we speak of this foul subject that the near-$1 billion awarded to TPZP is strictly for the tracks; the stell itself. Contrary to the language of the ballot initiative voted on by Californians back in 2008, there is no money in the $68 billion budget for electrifying the tracks nor is there any money for the actual choo-choos, nor is there any money to purchase land upon which the tracks will be laid. This explains why more realistic estimates of the entire project are in the $100-120 billion range.)



Before we go any further, it might please you to know that Richard Blum, the husband of California Senator, Diane Feinstein, is the principal owner of TPZP. Just put that one in your back pocket before continuing.

It was revealed that TPZP was the low-bidder in what amounted to a five team race for the contract award. TPZP also scored the lowest of the five in technical merits which is based on safety measures, engineering, scheduling, quality of design, project approach and solutions to possible construction problems.

There would appear to be a problem with this as the L.A. Times explains:

In March 2012, the rail authority's board set up a two-step process for weighing the bids. In the first step, the bidders were supposed to be narrowed to three based only on a technical evaluation.

Only the bids submitted by the remaining contenders would be opened.

The winner was to be selected on a combination of price and technical scores.

Those of you in Placentia, California are probably thinking to yourself, how the hell did TPZP make it out of the first round if they scored lowest on the technical side? This would be sound thinking and sound thinking for which the California High Speed Rail Authority has come nowhere close to answering.

More from the Times:

Fellenz (the Authority's lead attorney0 said at the time that "non-substantive" changes could be made in consultation with board Chairman Dan Richard.

The agency changed the evaluation process in July, according to an agency spokesman. The official did not provide details of the internal process used to alter the criteria.

But he said the state potentially would save hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the decision to change the evaluation criteria.

We don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility to question the validity of "non-substantive" when the bidder with the lowest technical score, the lowest bid and with um, you know, other stuff wins the contract award outright in clear contradiction of the original contract award process.


Elements within the TPZP consortium have, for years, had a sketchy reputation in the government/defense contracting arena in regards to squeezing the contracting entity via "change orders". Change orders are unanticipated obstacles or difficulties in the contracted work that was not budgeted for in the bid.

There are legitimate change orders and then there are the change orders where the government will simply roll over and pay the contractor because of a lack of will and/or resources to challenge the claim. TPZP has made a habit of the latter.

And dig this:

According to the New York US Attorney’s office: “Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday (March 9, 2011) found Zohrab B. Marashlian, the former president of Perini Corp.’s Civil Division, an international construction services corporation, guilty of fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The charges arose out of Marashlian’s false representation to New York government agencies that Disadvantaged Business Entities (DBE’s) were performing work in connection with major public works contracts, when, in reality, Marashlian had non-disadvantaged businesses favored by Perini Corp. do the work.” Tutor Perini paid Marashlian $14 million in salary while all this was going on. Two days before Marashlian was to receive a multi-year prison sentence he committed suicide. A fellow employee is currently doing a long prison term for the same case.

Perini has been caught doing such things over and over again. They are absolutely ridiculous in California projects. … According to the Seattle News some of the Perini headlines read: “In February, Tutor-Saliba and Perini agreed to pay $19 million to settle racketeering and fraud allegations in a San Francisco airport project.” … “The companies are embroiled in an 11 – year legal battle over $16 million in extra costs on a Los Angeles subway job.”

Go to the link above for more Blum/Feinstein/federal government Kevin Bacon-ness.


Before a single length of steel has been laid in a former pistachio field in the Central Valley, California's high-speed choo-choo project is proving itself to be the apex of cronyism, favortism, malfeasance and government/private enterprise hand-in-glove corporatism. At the end of the day, train wreck analogies won't even suffice.



H/T: drozz of The Double Standard












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Word of the day

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You know you're dealing with good times when you engage in a parlor discussion with your brothers regarding just what is the proper term to describe the state of today's national economic model. Crony capitalism, corporatism or...

Justicialism: (n) a fascistic theory of government in Argentina under the Peron administration involving government intervention and economic control to ensure social justice and public welfare; Peronism



Recall who it was that Nancy Pelosi said stood in opposition to ObamaCare:

“Here's the thing: the American Affordable Care Act stands there with Social Security, Medicare, health care for all Americans as a right, not a privilege," said Pelosi. “It was opposed vigorously by two forces: one, the health insurance industry, and secondly by anti-government ideologues who do not believe that there should be a government role in clean air, clean water, as well as health care in our country."

Just how much was the healthcare industry in opposition to ObamaCare? This much:

Newly released emails give an inside look at how the White House got the pharmaceutical industry to pay for millions of dollars in ads in 2009 promoting the president’s controversial health-care overhaul bill.

The emails also show that the money for the ad campaign from drug-industry companies, health-care lobbies and unions went through nonprofit groups that didn’t have to disclose their donors. One such organization, Healthy Economy Now, was created in the spring of 2009 in conjunction with White House officials and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee according to the emails.

“As a 501(c)(4), Healthy Economy Now can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and association…. we are not required to publicly disclose donation amounts,” wrote Nick Baldick, a longtime Democratic strategist who worked with the nonprofit group. Mr. Baldick didn’t return a call requesting comment.

His letter was written after an April 15, 2009 meeting on health-care overhaul strategy and promotion, convened by then-White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, and held at the DSCC, according to emails. A lobbyist for the health insurance industry was also looped in for planning.

Mr. Messina is now Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign manager. He didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A clever phrase we became aware of during the legislative crafting of ObamaCare goes something like this:

If you aren't at the table, then you are on the menu.


The healthcare lobby knew that with the Oval Office and both houses of Congress in control of a single party, their options were limited but they were still going to bring force to bear to get their pound of flesh.

The emails show that drug makers hesitated to agree to pony up a lot of money for the ads without proof that their desires and concerns were reflected in the deal with the administration. One email from a Democratic consultant to PhRMA sent to other PhRMA folks on June 3, 2009, said that the start of the ads, and the “spend” on airtime “depends on how things develop.”

PhRMA spent $10.2 million on Healthy Economy Now’s ad campaign, according to the House committee’s statement Friday on the emails. When Healthy Economy Now went dormant during the summer of 2009, it was replaced by another non-profit, Americans for Stable Quality Care, to which PhRMA gave $59.4 million, according to the committee.

And with respect to the social justice part of the equation, as even the most ardent supporters of ObamaCare will admit if forced, ObamaCare wasn't/isn't really about lowering the cost of healthcare, rather making sure we all have equal access to the same crappy healthcare.




Justicialism: (n) a fascistic theory of government in America under the Obama administration involving government intervention and economic control to ensure social justice and public welfare; Peronism


That sounds about right.

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Solyndra: explained? (UPDATED)

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(please scroll down for update)


So many different directions to go with but suffice to say that explaining how private equity's private dollars are utilized versus how $535 million public/tax-payer dollars and over one-thousand jobs are flushed down the toilet of crony capitalist wastefulness is a tough sell to a White House press corps that finally appears to be taking an interest in this scrap that Team O wants to fight.

(warning: we may have outlawed waterboarding but this is still going to be a torturous 51 seconds for White House press secretary, Jay Carney)






uhh... what we think he is trying to say is that even when picking winners and losers loses, the President is obliglated to spend even more money to re-train, re-locate or otherwise prop up the lives and careers of people in which he had no business in the first place. Being a paternalistic big brother is a full-time gig, people. Just ask Julia.

We do feel bad for Carney, however. Explaining away the failures of corporatism and crony capitalism is never an easy gig, especially when it's not you but your boss that's responsible. Maybe we can help out Carney and find his boss a new gig on K Street or the rubber chicken circuit come November to put an end to this crap.





(UPDATE #1)


Maybe this guy can explain it:

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Mitt Romney arrived at the shuttered headquarters of Solyndra Inc. this morning, a surprise visit that was shrouded in secrecy and part of the presumptive GOP presidential candidate’s attack on President Obama’s record on jobs creation.

“Two years ago President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus,” said Romney, stepping off a bus and onto the public sidewalk in front of the Solyndra buildings just outside Silicon Valley. “Well you can see that it’s a symbol of something very different today.”

“It’s a symbol not of success but of failure,” he said. “It’s also a symbol of a serious conflict of interest. An independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family – to campaign contributors. This building, this half a billion dollar taxpayer investment, represents a serious conflict of interest on the part of the president and his team.”

“It’s also a symbol of how the president thinks about free enterprise,” said Romney. “Free enterprise to the president means taking money from the taxpayers and giving it freely to his friends.”

Hitting Obama for failing to understand and respect free enterprise? Check.

Hitting Obama for not job creation but rather job destruction? Check.

Hitting Obama for cronyism. Check.



This was Romney's first campaign event since he clinched the GOP nomination and Solyndra provided the perfect backdrop in which to highlight the failings of the Obama administration.


Exit question: For you O-bots out there that decried the corporatism of the Bush administration: How do you square the circle of the current administration that has turned corporatism into an art form?

Video clip of the day

Reason.tv went down to lower Manhattan last week to check out the Occupy Wall Street protests and this is what they saw.






We've been kind of rough on the OWS crowd and perhaps unfairly so as though we sympathise with over-arching complaint of corporatism/crony capitalism (something that we have railed against in full throat on these pages) that is the coin of the realm here in America currently, we see a generally anti-free market/anti-capitalism and, at times, authoritarian values system that informs the movement and that will, of course, draw our suspicion and ire as warranted.


Labor unions and the Democratic Party will attempt to co-opt the movement but as the video shows, what cogent message is there to co-opt? And as far as the establishment Democrats are concerned, who cares? as long as a lap dog media gives it heavy rotation and allows it to become a distraction from the failed statist/cronyist policies of a failed administration.

Occupy Wall Street: "Hey, look over there!"

A few thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement...


As we wrote yesterday, we are sympathetic to some of the gripes that appear to be central to the Occupy Wall Street's message as they parallel our opposition to the bailouts and corporatism/crony capitalism that have been the business as usual of both the Bush and Obama administrations. However, there is a latent anti-capitalism that informs the movement by which we cannot abide.

And what may have been a well-intended grass roots movement by a very loose collection of liberal-leftists, anti-Fed populists and anarchists rallying against Wall St. "greed" is morphing into a somewhat organized distraction from the spectacularly failed statist domestic policies of the Obama administration. There is evidence that MoveOn.org is attempting to co-opt the movement.

After largely staying out of the protests thus far, “MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort,” reports Crain’s New York Business.

The Obama front organization has supported the demonstrators by way of its website coverage, but this marks the first time that MoveOn will actively engage to organize ‘Occupy Wall Street’ events which its members will attend.

As for the opinions of those in the movement itself, Adam Kokesh talks to a few occupiers in D.C. and as you'll see there isn't much of a coherent theme as to what the occupiers actually want done, although Kokesh seems just as intent in getting his point of view across as he is in allowing the occupiers to express their opinions.



We will credit Kokesh, however, at the 7 minute mark for attempting to address the role of the government in the crony capitalism equation that always seems to go missing in rallies and protests of this nature. Occupying Wall Street is fine but doesn't it stand to reason that you should be doing the same on Capitol Hill and in front of the residence of the biggest crony capitalist around at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.? One doesn't get the feeling, however, that any of the people interviewed won't be voting for Obama in 2012.

And then there was this:

The zeal for totalitarian government amongst some of the “protesters” is shocking. One sign being carried around read, “A government is an entity which holds the monopolistic right to initiate force,” which seems a little ironic when protesters complain about being physically assaulted by police in the same breath.

One sign to be sure but the one gentleman in the overcoat in the video seemed to hedge towards this philosophy and as we saw during the debate over ObamaCare, the reigning-in of the power of government just ain't what it used to be for liberals.


So, are the people that are part of this movement taken aback by what appears to be a high-jacking of this movement by a Democratic front group or are they totally cool with being co-opted and being used as campaign tools for the re-election effort of the Corporatist-in-Chief.

It makes perfect sense for the President to not only welcome this Occupy Wall St. movement diversion but to get one of his front groups to start pulling the strings behind the scenes. After all, his jobs bill, which is a re-hash of the failed Porkulus bill of February 2009, is DOA as there are not even enough votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate and majority leader Harry Reid has come out and said that the jobs bill that absolutely has to be passed now! will be taking a back seat to more pressing legislative matters.

So, after all that, for the smartest man ever to be elected President, demagoguing the rich and demonizing Wall Street by proxy is all he's got left.

Nice car company you got there... shame if anything happened to it

About a week and a half ago we posted a Ford Motor Co. commercial that took a not-too-veiled swipe at the bailouts received by Ford's domestic competition, General Motors and Chrysler.

Ford driver "Chris":

“I wasn’t going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufacturer that’s standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That’s what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta’ pick yourself up and go back to work. Ford is that company for me.”

If you clicked on the link, you would've found that the video has been removed by the user.



Hmmmm....

As part of a campaign featuring "real people" explaining their decision to buy the Blue Oval, a guy named "Chris" says he "wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government," according the text of the ad, launched in early September.

"I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work."

That's what some of America is about, evidently. Because Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early '09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.

With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can't have that.

The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision.

In other words, where presidential politics and automotive marketing collide — clean, green, politically correct vehicles not included — the president wins and the automaker loses because the benefit of the battle isn't worth the cost of waging it.

Whether or not Ford supported and/or still supports the bailouts with respect to this situation is completely irrelevant. This represents yet another danger of corporatism/crony capitalism: the inherent thuggish nature of cronyism when the competition starts making you and your "winner", in the "picking winners and losers" schemes, look like a loser.

If you want just one more reason why the government should stay the hell out of private sector matters, count altering the business practices of the "competition" with innuendo and/or outright threats as that reason.


And we did warn driver Chris of his imminent proctology exam by the IRS. We would not want to be this guy, right now.

Predictably, not at all really about health care

Just a reminder: If you are not at the table, you're on the menu.

WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and three other health insurers, criticized by Democrats during the overhaul debate, are seeking to influence how the new law will be implemented, and possibly change it, by campaigning for supportive congressional candidates.

Senior government-relations staff from UnitedHealth, WellPoint, Humana Inc., Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. have been meeting for at least two months to discuss the plan, which may include creation of a $20 million war chest, said two people familiar with the matter. The group also is debating whether Karen Ignagni should remain head of the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, said a third person familiar with the discussions. All declined to be named, as the talks are private.

The strategy sessions mark the first major public split from within the trade group, known as AHIP, over how to address the overhaul. The five largest publicly traded insurers may be unhappy with how the group represented them in the debate, said Paul Keckley, of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.

We're a little pressed for time but read the linked article if you can as it will only serve to re-enforce how much legislation, these days, is merely about picking winners and losers and vilifying the for-profit health insurers, unless of course, they throw some campaign cash your way.

Distinctions

Of course you right-wing types are just pro-business and are tools of corporate America.

You've heard it and you've chafed against it because you knew that wasn't the real you but, just the same, you could not quite articulate how being pro-markets was not the same as being pro-business.

B-Daddy is here to help you with that, here.

Can monkeys bring together the Tea and Coffee Parties?

B-Daddy has some more info on the Coffee Party, here and comes up with some pretty telling info as to their goals, motives and backings. Not that you would be able to tell what it is these people are all about by reading their "About Us" at their home page. Yes, they have a national homepage.

Coffee Party USA aims to reinvigorate the public sphere, drawing from diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives, with the goal of expanding the influence of the People in America's political arena. We do not require nor adhere to any preexisting ideology. We encourage deliberation guided by reason amongst the many viewpoints held by our members. We see our diversity as a strength, not a weakness, because we believe that faithful deliberation from multiple vantage points is the best way to achieve the common good. It is in the responsible and reasonable practice of deliberation that we hope to contribute to society.

We know what is going to be bookmarked on our insomnia reading list from here on out. Honestly, what the heck did that paragraph above really say?

We want to give these folks the benefit of the doubt, particularly if the tea party can find some common ground but as you will read at B-Daddy's piece, it's going to be awfully hard.

They are big on money in politics and in particular the concept of "corporatism", or the hand-in-glove partnership between government and private industry (picking winners and losers) decried by the (now extinct) class of good government liberals like Thom Hartmann, author of the book What Would Jefferson Do?

Hey, we're all for getting rid of "corporatism" or as we refer to it around here, crony capitalism or economic fascism but is the coffee party's corporatism merely code speak for bashing Wall St. to the exclusion of ignoring the federal government's complicity in the financial and mortgage meltdowns? When we hear phrases like "The government is not the enemy", which is big in the Coffee Party lexicon, that question is all but answered.




P.S. B-Daddy has garnered a comment from a Coffee Party participant who seems like a very reasonable fellow. He thinks there is common ground in money in politics (campaign finance reform) and gerry-mandered districts.

Since money in politics is directly proportional to power in politics/government that might be a tough nut to crack. To wit, we see as a Coffee Party goal, more of McCain/Feingold which did absolutely nothing to stem the flow of money and which only rerouted the flow on its way to the same destination.

Districting, however, is an abomination and is a spoil of whatever party is in power. We have previously said we would prefer a team of monkeys armed with crayons and letting them loose on a map of California rather than the way districts are now hacked up. Hey, we may be on to something. It's some progress.

Coffee and/or Tea?

Two Sundays ago, we informed you B-Daddy was contemplating attending San Diego’s inaugural Coffee Party event at Lestat’s in (ab)Normal Heights. He went and his excellent account of the proceedings can be found here.

Not really sure what it is they’re after or attempting to accomplish. They’re big on emphasizing civility which is cool but that overarching theme is an obvious attempt to differentiate themselves from the state-controlled media-driven template of the Tea Party as the angry mob without (yet) having to stand for anything.

We know what they will eventually stand for so we will save you all the suspense: They are disaffected liberal-lefties who are disappointed Obama’s statist policies haven’t moved along swiftly enough. Fancy that.

But is there any common ground that can be found between the two groups? That depends on them. We’ve been beating the drum on this for quite some time but a good and honest liberal who railed at the “corporatism” of the Bush years should be equally if not more outraged by the corporatism of the Obama administration. What else would one call the hand-in-glove partnership of the government and two of the three U.S. auto manufacturers without any apparent exit strategy than corporatism or as we like to refer to it, crony capitalism and economic fascism.

We wait to be surprised but we have a sneaking suspicion that the Obama administration’s governing penchant for picking winners and losers in the private sector won’t be a pressing concern of the Coffee Party movement.

Wow us, guys.

Thank goodness, he’s black

As viewed through the prism of a statist, what else gives them cover for the Obama agenda? After all, wasn’t it the statists/progressives who were caterwauling about the cozy relationship the Bush administration had with big business and in particular Big Oil and weren’t we constantly scolded by the same people about the public/private sector hand-in-glove “corporatist” relationships developed between Wall St. and Capitol Hill.

What are we then to make of a forced government take-over of General Motors and Chrysler, the specter of which was compounded by a rather curious deference being paid to the unions at the expense of the secured creditors during the bankruptcy proceedings?

And what are we to make of this tax on the bailed-out Wall St. firms in light of the fact that the government’s special pets, the aforementioned Big Two and the government sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, also the recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars of bailout tax dollars, will be exempt from “paying their fair share”?

What also is to be made of these horribly conceived and dubiously executed demand-side incentive dog and pony shows like Cash for Clunkers and home-owner assistance programs where the government is again injecting itself in an unprecedented manner into the private markets (another indirect source of Fannie, Freddie and Wall St. bailouts)?

Faced with a government take-over of the healthcare industry where personal choices and freedoms will certainly be curtailed, has the statist broke out his "Keeep Your Laws Off My Body" t-shirt and marched in full-throated opposition?

But we’re asking all this of the wrong people. “We” all know how we feel about it, so we are asking it of the statists and progressives - those supporters Obama’s Bailout Nation and the debt-bomb it is creating?

We’ve received the answer. In light of the overwhelming evidence showing the Bush administration’s incipient crony capitalism being child’s play compared to the economic fascism or “corporatism” as practiced by the Obama administration, is there any chastening or at least a sober recognition that these are not the people they’ve been waiting for? Hardly.

You’re all just a bunch of racists!

Temple of Mut and one of the organizers of the San Diego tea party takes a look at the tea party movement one year on from its inception, here.

A progressive's plight...?

... or just a statist unwilling to confront reality?

So, just what was that we were hearing about the Republican Party forcing out the moderates and radicalizing the Party?

It is very important that progressives help defeat Coakley. Please read my explanation. The more power the folks in the Democratic Corporate Suck Up wing of the party gain, the more we will have to fight to make the party move to the left. I do not think that many progressive Democrats understand that putting such people as Coakley into power is worse than having a Republican in the seat. Just being in the Democratic Party does not and will not ensure a progressive agenda. Do you not see that? So, if you get her into the seat, what makes you think she will be any better than Lincoln, or Nelson, or Lieberman! It will, in fact, ensure that there will be NO progressive agenda. It was not the Republicans who failed us of late. It was the Democrats. We will never succeed as long as the Dems can talk liberal and vote corporate.

That from the liberal blog, FireDogLake.

Far be it from us to pile on our political opposites for attempting to fashion their party into something more to their ideological liking – that’s a struggle currently ongoing within the Republican Party with no small amount or degree of crocodile tears from the punditry and hand-wringing from the country clubbers decrying the negative effects of these "purgings".

However, color us confused with this particular progressive’s plight: Perhaps we’re oversimplifying the matter but one would think that a massive spending bill in porkulus, the “rescuing” of the auto industry and the proposed take-over of the healthcare and energy sectors would represent the very epitome of a progressive/statist agenda.

If the blogger from FDL is concerned with the cozying up the administration has appeared to have done with Big Finance and Wall St. as a practice in corporatism, then we are still perplexed because the realization of a progressive agenda most certainly depends on a large degree of this corporatism (or, if you prefer, "crony capitalism" or "economic fascism") where the “equality of results” so cherished by progressives is achieved by this public/private co-mingling where any unfairness or social injustice can be eliminated by fiat.

Help explain to us where we may have missed the boat on this one.