Cedric's Big Mix: 2012-09-02

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Joe prepares for life after the White House

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

IN POSSIBLE ANTICIPATION OF NEEDING NEW EMPLOYMENT IN 2013, VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN HAS TAKEN TO PROMOTING HIS NEW SMALL BUSINESS, "I'VE GOT A LITTLE BUMPER STICKER FOR YOU. OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD, AND GENERAL MOTORS IS ALIVE."

WELL KEEP THAT PRINTING PRESS GOING, JOE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE A LITTLE BUMPER STICKER FOR YOU AS WELL, "I GOT NO JOB AND I CAN'T FEED MY FAMILY."

LOTS OF LUCK WITH THAT NEW BUMPER STICKER BUSINESS, JOE.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Old Whore Tom Hayden resurfaced to distort, lie and smear. Tom Hayden is a joke. He is so much of a joke that Barack Obama publicly and repeatedly derided what he termed "Tom Hayden Democrats" in 2007 and 2008. Possibly demonstrating that men who abuse women are nothing but big cowards, Tom Hayden's never called out Barack but instead worked overtime to talk up the man who has repeatedly and publicly mocked him.

Hijacking the E-Train to Crazy Town and packing plenty of stupid, Tom rabidly barks at everyone including Paul Krugman -- anyone who might question the politics of Barack Obama -- in total or partial as he tries to whip people in line for his abuser Barack Obama.

Dirty whores don't speak for the campaign. Which is why Tom Hayden goes on at length about ObamaCare and how it was up to politicians and the people are just too stupid to grasp this but last night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Barack was stating it's not "what can be done for us, it's about what can be done by us."

There are many decisions Barack's made and actions Barack's taken that I will hold against him. The lunatic ravings of Tom Hayden, however, are not on that list. Here Tom is molesting the topic of Iraq:

Many in the peace movement did not believe it then and dismiss it now. To the extent this is a rational objection - and not blindness - it rests on two arguments. First, some claim that Obama was only following the withdrawal plan already agreed to by George Bush. It is an interesting question for future historians to uncover what shadow entity orchestrated the Iraq-US pact between the end of Bush and the coming of Obama.

Oh, history will be the judge? Seriously? I seem to recall most of us on the left ridiculing Bully Boy Bush when he responded to questions about the Iraq War with statements like that.

That aside, it is logical to conclude that the immanence of Obama's victory pushed the Bush administration to wrap up the best withdrawal agreement possible before the unpredictable newcomer took office.

It isn't logical to conclude any such thing. If the opinion of the people of the world didn't matter to Bully Boy Bush before starting the illegal war, if the opinions of world leaders didn't matter to him, why in the world would the election of Barack matter?

People like Tom Hayden live in their own fact free world. Never having spoken to even one person who worked on the SOFA, Hayden 'just knows' exactly how it happened. The SOFA replaces the UN mandate for the occupation. The UN mandate was yearly -- each year it had to be renewed. Nouri renewed it on his end twice. Outraging the Iraqi politicians both times. The first time (the end of 2006), he insisted he wouldn't do that solo again, that he'd get approval from Parliament. But then he turned around and did the exact same thing at the end of 2007.

The Bush White House realized early on (late 2007), that an agreement that replaced the UN mandate would need to run longer than one year because there was too much anger over these yearly renewals. For that reason, it was a contract that ran three years. Even something that basic is beyond the Tom Haydens. They bought into the lie -- and how popular it was -- that Nouri was sticking it to the White House and dictating the terms. Other than the amount of 'rewards,' Nouri didn't dictate a thing. And the SOFA was written prior to the November 2008 election. (Is Tom even aware of that?) November was about fine tuning it and about surveying Parliament and greasing palms (the Parliament was adament that they would be voting on this contract).

Tom:

In addition, Obama increased his previous withdrawal commitment in February 2009 to include virtually all American forces instead of leaving behind a "residual" force of 20-30,000.

Tom's spinning so hard that even he has to admit the reality in the next sentence:

It is true that as the endgame neared, Obama left open the possibility of a residual force after American ground troops departed, saying he would be responsive to the request of the Baghdad regime.

Yes, Barack gave an interview to the New York Times as candidate about residual troops. I remember that very well. And you know what I remember most about that?

From the November 2, 2007 snapshot:

On the subject of Iran, Barack Obama appears on the front page of this morning's New York Times. War pornographer Michael Gordon and Jeff Zeleny who lied in print (click here, here and here -- the paper finally retracted Zeleny's falsehood that should have never appeared) present a view of Barack Obama that's hardly pleasing. Among the many problems with the article is Obama as portrayed in the article -- and his campaign has issued no statement clarifying. The Times has the transcript online and from it, Barack Obama does mildly push the unproven claim that the Iranian government is supporting resistance in Iraq. Gordo's pushed that unproven claim repeatedly for over a year now. But Obama's remarks appear more of a reply and partial points in lengthy sentences -- not the sort of thing a functioning hard news reporter would lead with in an opening paragraph, touch on again in the third paragraph, in the fourth paragraph, in . . . But though this isn't the main emphasis of Obama's statements (at any time -- to be clear, when it pops up, it is a fleeting statement in an overly long, multi-sentenced paragraphs), it does go to the fact that Obama is once again reinforcing unproven claims of the right wing. In the transcript, he comes off as obsessed with Hillary Clinton. After her, he attempts to get a few jabs in at John Edwards and one in at Bill Richardson. Here is what real reporters should have made the lede of the front page: "Presidential candidate and US Senator Barack Obama who is perceived as an 'anti-war' candidate by some announced that he would not commit to a withdrawal, declared that he was comfortable sending US troops back into Iraq after a withdrawal started and lacked clarity on exactly what a withdrawal under a President Obama would mean." That is what the transcript reveals. Gordo really needs to let go of his blood lust for war with Iran.

And then over at Third that Sunday (November 4, 2007), we offered "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq" which was taking the transcript and writing the report as the Times should have covered it. Tuesday November 6, 2007 (see that day's snapshot), Tom Hayden finally discovers and writes about the article with rah-rah for Barack because he didn't read the transcript (and he actually misread the printed article) resulting in this garbage. After we called him out, he would write another article suddenly 'discovering' the transcript and find that things were not as sunny as he'd made out to be.

Point being, he's no one to trust for facts.

Tom-Tom's thrilled Barack doesn't have 'residual troops' in Iraq but for Barack to have residual troops, the SOFA would need to be extended or replaced. With nothing to extend it or replace it, it had to be followed. That's how a contract works.

Tom:

Here, some on the left seized on these remarks to later claim that Obama had to be forced by the Iraqis to finally leave. There is no evidence for this claim, however. It is equally possible - and I believe more credible - that Obama was simply being Obama, knowing that the Iraqis could not possibly request the Americans to stay.

Dissecting diplomacy, like legislation, is like making sausage, in the old saying. Obama certainly knew that he would gain political cover if he could say with credibility that he was only following Bush's withdrawal plan and Iraq's request.

There is evidence for that claim. I know Tom doesn't care for Arabs. Remember it was only during his Iraq War makeover that he finally 'apologized' for being a tool of the right-wing Israeli government while he was a small-fry state legislature who stupidly thought he would end up president done day. There was Tom, cheering on the murder of Palestinians. He really hasn't changed his anti-Arab views. Try to remember that when everyone was telling Jane Fonda that Rollover was an iffy project, Tom was telling her it was political, prescient and important (in the film, the world's financial downfall is caused largely by greedy, you know this is coming, Arabs). If Tom weren't so 'allergic' to Arabs, maybe he'd read the Arab press. You can find many articles that argue Iraqis forced Barack to back down. Those articles generally note that Iraq refused to grant immunity to US service members and that the White House had already made that a deal breaker.

Having ignored the mountain of articles on that point, Tom wants to then argue:

A more bizarre left criticism of Obama on Iraq is that the war itself never ended but instead morphed into a secret war with tens of thousands of Americans fighting as Special Ops or private contractors.

Is he drunk again? Is that it? I have no idea. But last week, Sean Rayment (Telegraph of London) reported:

More than 3,500 insurgents have been "taken off the streets of Baghdad" by the elite British force in a series of audacious "Black Ops" over the past two years.

It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organisation known as "al-Qa'eda in Iraq" have been killed by the SAS.

The SAS is part of a highly secretive unit called "Task Force Black" which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS.

3,500 killed over the last two years. Seriously, Tom-Tom, you're going to ignore that? You who tries to reference the Honduran death squads in how many articles on Iraq? You're going to ignore that 3,500 Iraqs have been 'taken off the street' as a result of being captured by US and British forces? And that "several hundred" have been killed during this time?

The wars on Latin America in the 70s and 80s targeted which groups? The citizens the oppressive regimes wanted to shut up. And we're not bothered by the news from the Telegraph?

And this isn't 'conspiracy' talk. This is what's been reported by the few reporters who've bothered to report. In December of last year, while everyone was filing 'withdrawal, Ted Koppel filed an important report on Rock Center with Brian Williams (NBC).

MR. KOPPEL: I realize you can't go into it in any detail, but I would assume that there is a healthy CIA mission here. I would assume that JSOC may still be active in this country, the joint special operations. You've got FBI here. You've got DEA here. Can, can you give me sort of a, a menu of, of who all falls under your control?

AMB. JAMES JEFFREY: You're actually doing pretty well, were I authorized to talk about half of this stuff.

Back during Vietnam when he had a little bit of guts, Tom Hayden wouldn't have accepted this as 'withdrawal' but today he's just an old whore. In fact, didn't Tom-Tom just affect outrage over 600 US troops in Honduras? (He did, click here.) As Barbra Streisand tells Robert Redford in The Way We Were, "Hubbell, people are their principles." How sad for Tom Hayden that he no longer has any principles.

Friday, September 07, 2012

Can't seal the deal

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

ON TUESDAY, BARRY O'S CAMPAIGN, VIA JIM MESSINA, PROMISED THAT BARRY O'S SPEECH WOULD TAKE PLACE IN THE OUTDOOR STADIUM AND THE NEXT DAY THE SAME CAMPAIGN WAS ANNOUNCING THE SPEECH HAD BEEN MOVED TO THE TINY INDOOR TIME WARNER ARENA. IT'S NOT JUST THE BROKEN PROMISES FROM 2008, IT'S ALL THE BROKEN PROMISES SINCE THEN.

LAST NIGHT HE CALLED FOR ANOTHER TERM TO 'FINISH THE JOB' BUT MANY AMERICANS BELIEVE THAT FOUR YEARS SHOULD HAVE PROVIDED SOME REAL RESULTS FOR BARRY O TO HAVE POINTED TO.

THE FACT THAT THE FOUR YEARS DIDN'T PROVIDE THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THAT THERE WAS TIME TO DASH OUT OF THE COUNTRY SUCH AS WITH OPRAH WINFREY FOR A FAILED BID ON THE 2016 OLYMPICS OR TIME TO PLAY GOLF YET AGAIN.

BARRY O DECLARED THAT AMERICAN WASN'T ABOUT "WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR US IT'S ABOUT WHAT CAN BE DONE BY US" -- YET ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO PUSH THE BLAME FOR HIS INABILITY TO GET THE JOB DONE OFF ON THE AMERICAN VOTERS.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Tonight in North Carolina, President Barack Obama will formally be crowned the Democratic Party nominee for president. Will a sitting president speak in a presidential manner or will he echo the strident partisan tone, the ugly us-and-them that has so dominated the DNC? If he's trying to remind people of what they saw in him in 2008, he'll be presidential and not divisive.

If he's going to be presidential, that will need to include thanking Bully Boy Bush for Iraq and not playing glory hog. At Never Gives Credit But Loves To Rip Us Off (so we don't link to them), Stephanie Gaskell is yammering away in that idiotic manner that's so popular at the news-lette. She seems astounded that Republicans might argue Bush deserves credit for ending the Iraq War.

This is not difficult, this is not hard.

Barack Obama promised the American people troops would be out of Iraq ten months after he was sworn in. A promise broken. When did they leave? At the end of 2011.

Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden opposed the Status Of Forces Agreement of the Bush administration. They dropped their opposition to it, right after Barack was elected president -- going so far to vanish their opposition from the campaign site. But they both campaigned on opposing the SOFA. They campaigned on it, Barack show-boated on it and I can quote snapshot after snapshot on Joe's remarks on the SOFA.

So what ended the Iraq War? (It hasn't ended but let's pretend.)

The SOFA. Did Barack negotiate it?

Nope.

It's the Bush administration. It's Condi, and Bush and Cheney and Stephen Hadley and others.

They're the ones who ended the Iraq War.

The only way Barack gets credit is if you believe as Senator John McCain did. Remember what he believed? From the November 16th snapshot:

What McCain stated he was hearing from Iraqis -- including Nouri al-Maliki -- was that the US would not provide a plan. Graham, Lieberman and McCain all noted repeatedly that they spoke to Nouri, that they spoke to the Kurds, that they spoke to Osama al-Nujaifi (Speaker of Parliament, Iraqiya member and a Sunni). There was not opposition from these groups, the three stated repeatedly. This was Lindsey Graham's point in his first round of questioning. He walked it through slowly with Panetta and then noted that he'd gone slowly and done so for a reason, he stated that when you had all of that support (and Panetta agreed on the Sunni issue, the Nouri issue and on the Kurds that they would have -- the Kurds -- gone for as many as 50,000 US troops), how did you fail to make a deal? McCain felt that the White House didn't want to make a deal and presented that feeling as fact. Graham agreed with him about the failure and wanted to point out that the whole thing -- Iraq plus Afghanistan -- seemed to be done for votes and that it was interesting that Panetta was willing to talk about and explore the Iraqi political situation but no one wanted to talk about the American one. From his remarks in the hearing, Lieberman agreed it was a failure but did not form an opinion as to why it failed.

This was their argument, they repeated it over and over. They never once said, "We can force Iraq to do this!" Or that Iraq should have been forced. Their argument was that they speak with these politicians (including Nouri) often and that they knew what the Iraqi politicians were open to and that they couldn't believe that with what Iraq was willing to go along with the White House couldn't get a deal. If they're right about what the Iraqi politicians were willing to go for (I believe them because I've heard similar from the administration), then that was a significant moment and one that history books will review -- as McCain himself noted. I disagree -- again based on what I've heard from administration friends -- that the White House intended to torpedo the agreement. But that's my opinion and I could be wrong (and often am). McCain may have hurt his own argument by presenting it so forcefully -- you'll note that the presentation and not the substance is what the 'reporters' focused on. Had he turned it into a question -- the way Lindsay Graham did -- it might have led to many headlines. Then again, it's a lazy press. Most likely they would have just seized upon another trivial moment to run with. (We don't have space for a full transcript. But some of McCain's remarks on this were included in yesterday's snapshot and Kat's report last night included much more from McCain where he made the argument that the Iraqi leaders wanted US troops but the White House failed when they repeatedly had no plan to present.)

We're referring to the November 15th Senate Armed Services Committee hearing which heard testimony from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and from General Martin Dempsey, Chair of the Joint-Chiefs of Staff. This hearing was covered in the November 15th "Iraq snapshot," the November 16th "Iraq snapshot," the November 17th "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Scott Brown questions Panetta and Dempsey (Ava)," by Wally with "The costs (Wally)," by Kat in "Who wanted what?" and, at The Third Estate Sunday Review, in "Editorial: The silences that enable and kill," "Enduring bases, staging platforms, continued war" and "Gen Dempsey talks "10 enduring" US bases in Iraq." By contrast, with the exception of Elisabeth Bumiller (New York Times) and Laurence Vance (LewRockwell.com), the press misreported and trivialized the hearing.

Now if you're willing to join with McCain and accuse Barack of deliberately attempting to destroy his own negotiations, then Barack deserves credit.

Otherwise, Bully Boy Bush is responsible so Barack may need to share half that already laughable Nobel Peace Prize with George W. Bush.

I have no idea why anyone would want to claim 'credit' for Iraq because Iraq's falling apart.

And people are complaining about the lack of any American influence. Eli Lake (Daily Beast) interviewed Sheikh Ahmad Abu-Risha about the Sahwa ("Awakenings," Sons Of Iraq) and reports:

Rather, he is most concerned that his relationship with the U.S. military has appeared to halt. He said he was assured by U.S. military leaders that he would receive regular visits from senior figures and diplomats to discuss the relationship that began in Anbar back in 2006 and 2007. "There is no contact right now," he said. "They don't visit at all. Ever since the United States withdrew, we haven't gotten anyone to visit."

Jeffrey, who left his post as ambassador at the end of May, said the meetings have not yet happened because without the U.S. military in Iraq it's difficult for U.S. officials to travel to Anbar. "We have every intention of maintaining contact with the awakening and other people," Jeffrey said. "We had several meetings after the military completed its withdrawal with tribal sheikhs from the greater Baghdad area, but it's been hard to get people out to Anbar because of the security situation." A White House spokesman declined to comment for the story.

At the right-wing Commentary, Max Boot notes Eli Lake's report and concludes:

No surprise, that lack of contact and travel; it was precisely what numerous observers, including me, expected would happen when U.S. troops would pull out. But State Department and administration spokesmen spent years assuring anyone who would listen that even with the troops gone, a mega-embassy relying on some 15,000 contractors could continue to carry on vital missions. Now the falsity of those claims has been starkly revealed: U.S. diplomats, devoid of military support for transportation, find it hard to get out of their own embassy in the old Green Zone, thus leaving the old Awakening leaders to find for themselves even as Prime Minister Maliki's increasingly sectarian security forces increasingly persecute high-profile Sunnis including Vice President Tariq al Hashemi.

And of course it's also very difficult to spearhead a diplomatic mission when you have no Ambassador to Iraq. We are aware of that, right?

Not only is Iraq falling apart but Barack's Ambassador to Iraq quit. I'm sorry, Barack's second ambassador quit (James Jeffrey) as did his first (Chris Hill). Two in four years. Iraq needed stability. Barack wasn't able to provide it.

Thursday, September 06, 2012

Never gets those manicured nails dirty

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

"NOTHING NEW TO OFFER" WAS THE THEME IN CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA ALL WEEK.

THE QUESTION WAS, "DO WE HAVE ANYTHING NEW TO SHOW YOU?'

OVER AND OVER, THE ANSWER CAME BACK, "HELL NO!"

IN A MARATHON SPEECH LAST NIGHT, FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON TRIED TO MAKE THE CASE FOR THE "BRASS"-LESS BARRY O. ON AND ON HE WENT, GIVING NEW MEANING TO THE TERM "WINDS OF WAR," AS IF HE COULD FILIBUSTER THE AMERICAN VOTERS, SHOUT THEM DOWN, FORCE UNEMPLOYMENT AND RECESSION TO RETREAT IN THE FACE OF THE SHEER BULK OF HIS WORDS.

AND IT WAS THE KIND OF FIGHT AMERICANS SAW THROUGHOUT THE 90S, PART OF THE REASON THEY PUT THEIR TRUST IN BILL CLINTON. IT WAS LUDICROUS AND NEVER ENDING AND ONLY SOMEONE WHO WAS WILLING TO FIGHT FOR AMERICANS COULD GO ON THAT WAY.

IF BILL CLINTON WERE RUNNING FOR A THIRD TERM AS PRESIDENCY, HE COULD HAVE SEALED THE DEAL LAST NIGHT.

BUT HE'S NOT AND AS THE AUDITORIUM ERUPTED IN APPLAUSE WHO SHOULD STROLL ON TO THE STAGE LOOKING LIKE HE'D JUST AWOKEN FROM A QUICK NAP BUT BARRY O REMINDING EVERYONE YET AGAIN HOW THERE ARE THOSE WHO DO AND THERE ARE THOSE WHO JUST FEEL ENTITLED.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Yesterday the embarrassing Democratic National Convention began. Ruth Conniff (The Progressive) was late in getting her whoring on but this is the woman who bragged on KPFA that she didn't know anyone who'd fought in the Iraq War. Didn't know them and apparently didn't want to get to know them because it's really not that hard, Ruth. Nor are facts though Ruth is a fact molester who should be on a neighborhood watch. Writing today, she gets her whore on in a number of ways. First, she praises Michelle Obama's embarrassing speech. As Marcia noted yesterday, "The Washington Post reports that Michelle Obama explained today her role in the DNC convention tonight was to explain her husband. That may be but there's something very sad about the fact that anyone has to explain who the president is and goes to the fact that he is so hollow at his core and so meaningless." Four years later and she had to explain, to the American people, who her husband was? Apparently all that golfing didn't leave much of an impression.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act does not, as Michelle Obama claimed, "help women get equal pay for equal work" at all. As Rebecca pointed out last night, all that act does is let you sue a little longer. If Barack wanted equal pay for equal work, he could have pushed that. He didn't. But now he wants to inflate his meager resume?

Michelle got creative with this claim as well, "That's why Barack has fought so hard to increase student aid and keep interest rates down, because he wants every young person to fulfill their promsie and be able to attend college without a mountain of debt." No, that would be Dr. Jill Stein's desire, the Green Party candidate. Barack doesn't give a damn.

From the left, Nancy Hanover (WSWS) explained that back in May:

The dirty secret in all of this, carefully hidden in the media, is the active role of the Democratic Party and specifically the Obama administration in the assault on higher education. At the most fundamental level, the Democrats have colluded with the Republicans in the systematic starvation of education while diverting society's resources into endless wars, tax cuts for the rich, and bank and corporate bailouts.

Despite Obama's claims that he is doing all he can to "make college more affordable," he has implemented a whole battery of measures to attack student borrowers—a broadside attack on the young generation.

Effective July 1, 2012, the federal government has ended the in-school interest subsidy for graduate and professional students with Stafford Loans. This relatively little-reported event was enacted as part of the 2011 Budget Control Act. It will substantially increase the cost of graduate school, already notoriously expensive, and will add an estimated $18 billion to student debt burdens over 10 years. Seventy-six percent of US graduate school students borrow to cover tuition, and their yearly costs vary from $15,000 to $45,000 for tuition alone.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2012 eliminated the grace period benefit (a six- or nine-month window after a student leaves school when no payments are due) for loans made in academic years 2012-2013 and 2013-2014, automatically increasing the net cost of the loan.

Also effective immediately and retroactively, students are only eligible for six full-time years of the Pell Grant, a decision primarily affecting low-income adults working their way through college. The measure will eliminate benefits for 63,000 recipients. Also, students may no longer receive two Pell Grants in a year or receive summer school funding. The government has also modified the amount families are expected to pay, the Expected Family Contribution, so that fewer students will be eligible for the grants.

Smaller Pell Grant awards of $277 to $550 have been cut completely. Also eliminated are the Pell Grants for students who pass the "ability to benefit" test but have not been awarded a high school diploma or GED.

The convention itself is an assult on education by being held in anti-teacher Charlotte (anti-teacher, anti-union) and by the little film attacking education which then featured a panel with human education leper Michelle Rhee. Change.org may have been forced to drop Rhee and her lunatic fringe group (which wants to end the "public" in public education to allow for a corporate take over) but damned if Barack didn't make sure that piece of trash had a prominent spot at his convention.

If you're like Ruth Conniff and barely pay attention to the world around you, not only do you not know anyone who served in Iraq, you also don't recognize an assault on education when it's right before your eyes. If only Ruth could work as hard as she did in 2004 when she wrote that hit piece on Ralph Nader for her trashy magazine.

Ruth wants you to know that, "The most progressive side of the Democratic Party was on full display (after Rahm Emanuel left the stage)." Really? What about when Tammy Duckworth was on the stage?

Is anyone less informed than Ruth Conniff?

Tammy Duckworth was hand picked by Rahm to run in 2006. A lot of people forget that race now or just remember it because Tammy lost big on what should have been a Democratic seat. But Emanual and Tammy thought she could run in this district (that she wasn't living in) and jump over Christine Cegelis who had taken on Henry Hyde in 2004 and come close to toppling Hyde. Now it was supposed to be Christine's race. (If you're late to the party on this, there are many articles you can refer to but the strongest is probably Matt Renner's September 2007 piece for TruthOut. If audio archives existed, we'd point to Laura Flanders radio show in 2006, during the primary where she talked up Tammy Duckworth like crazy only to have her listeners explaine that the progressive candidate in that race was Christine. To Flanders credit, she didn't rage or act like she was perfect. She acknowledged her mistake and booked Cegelis onto the show.)

But the problem was Christine actually was and is a progressive. For example, she wanted an end to the Iraq War -- a clear difference between herself and Tammy Duckworth -- one no one's supposed to comment on today. If there's anything more oblivious than Ruth Conniff, it's POLITICO which is surpised that "Right applauds Tammy Duckworth's speech." That's not a surprise, she is a right-winger.

What is a surprise is that a member of the failed Veterans Administration could run for office and not have to answer as to how the backlog has repeatedly increased in the last four years. That is truly surprising. She felt comfortable slamming GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not mentioning Afghanistan but can someone explain why this fromer Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs at the VA didn't mention the backlog?

That number is huge and it's so huge that the VA tries to backpeddle and present it as less than it is. Most recently we saw that in the July 18th House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations hearing. VA's Undersectretary for Benefits Allison Hickey was testifying. From that day's snapshot:

Jason Chaffetz: Madam Under Secretary, Mr. Manar, I think accurately points out in his testimony that in order to solve the problem, you need to know exactly what the problem is. And I see a major discrepancy in some of the numbers and I want to help clarfiy that. In youre testimony in talking about the integrated disability evaluation system, you say, "We went from 240 day average in the legacy system to 56 days" and it goes on. And there's a definition of the backlog. The House Armed Services Committee staff and the House Veterans Affairs Committee staff on July 13 of this year which was not too long ago gave a briefing to these two Committees. It says in here that the current monthly average completion time is 408 days. You say it's 56 days -- 54 days -- yeah, 56 days -- and they say it's 408 days. Can you help clarify that for me please?

Allison Hickey: Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz for your question. First of all, allow me to clarify by stating a few basic definitions so also, as I say things, you can understand what words I'm using and their context We have, in the inventory and pending an overall number of 854000. That's not backlog. Those are claims that even as we've been sitting here for the last ten to fifteen minutes, more claims have come into us from veteran service members and

Chair Jason Chaffetz: Okay, let me stop you -- let me stop you right there. Let me stop you right there. On July 16th, which is not very long ago, the Monday morning workload report says there are 919,461 claims. You say that number is -- what did you say that number is? 860,000 something?

Allison Hickey: The numbers I'm using are 854,000 --

Chair Jason Chaffetz: Okay, so we're off by about 50 or 60 thousand. And we're talking about something that is just couple of days old. Why the discrepancy on those number?

Allison Hickey: Chairman Chaffetz, our backlog -- I mean our inventory is a dynamic inventory.

Chair Jason Chaffetz: I know but that's less than ten days so --

Allison Hickey: Chairman, I'm happy to answer the questions if I'm allowed an opportunity.

Chair Jason Chaffetz: Sure I want to know. You're saying that that number is 800 and something thousand and I'm just saying that the VA's report says it's 919,461. That's of July 16th --

Allison Hickey: Chairman, I'm happy to answer the question if I'm allowed an opportunity.

Chair Jason Chaffetz: Ma'am, just answer the question. Yes.

Allison Hickey: Thank you very much.

Chair Jason Chaffetz: -- That's why I asked the question.

Allison Hickey: Thank you very much, Chairman. The numbers that I'm using are from the endpoint of a month. Probably the end of May. So you probably are using the end of this week's report. I chose not use a floating number that continues to change over time and over dates and over weeks. So I used an end of month number to be able to to talk to you, to be able to have a solid number to hvae a discussion around.

US House Rep and Subcommittee Chair Jason Chaffetz had the correct number. Notice the disregard on VA's part. They could have used a number only a few days old. Didn't want to do that. And Allison Hickey, who is offering the number, can't even state what the numbers from: "Probably the end of May." Probably? You're testifying that the backlog is X and you can't tell the Subcomittee when that number was generated? Can't or won't? There's no one in the VA that should be running for public office. Everyone of them should instead be begging veterans for forgiveness.

And if Mitt Romney had any brains at all, he'd unearth the story the press buried, where Eric Shinseki, VA Secretary, admits in an open session of Congress that he knew nearly nine months before the start of the fall 2009 college semester that the GI bill checks would not be ready. For those who've forgotten, VA's idiocy and refusal to do its job left many veterans forced to take out short term loans, left them without apartments and some didn't get checks until after Christmas 2009, which meant their children did without Christmas. Tammy Duckworth was a part of the VA during that, she has a lot of nerve trying to run for office on her 'record.'

If you missed that moment -- the press buried it to protect Shinseki and the White House, we covered it -- you can drop back to October 14, 2009, when Shinseki told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs:

Secretary Eric Shinseki: I'm looking at the certificates of eligibility uh being processed on 1 May and enrollments 6 July, checks having to flow through August. A very compressed timeframe. And in order to do that, we essentially began as I arrived in January, uh, putting together the plan -- reviewing the plan that was there and trying to validate it. I'll be frank, when I arrived, uh, there were a number of people telling me this was simply not executable. It wasn't going to happen. Three August was going to be here before we could have everything in place. Uh, to the credit of the folks in uh VA, I, uh, I consulted an outside consultant, brought in an independent view, same kind of assessment. 'Unless you do some big things here, this is not possible.' To the credit of the folks, the good folks in VBA, they took it on and they went at it hard. We hired 530 people to do this and had to train them. We had a manual system that was computer assisted. Not very helpful but that's what they inherited. And we realized in about May that the 530 were probably a little short so we went and hired 230 more people. So in excess of 700 people were trained to use the tools that were coming together even as certificates were being executed. Uhm, we were short on the assumption of how many people it would take.

He was told the plan wasn't executable. He brought in independent consultants. They told him the same thing. Congress was never, ever informed of this problem nor were veterans. And when fall 2009 rolled around, veterans didn't have their checks.

This wasn't a surprise as the press has apparently agreed to pretend. By Shinseki's own testimony, early in his term, he was told the plan couldn't be executed, he even brought in independent consultants who told the same thing.

He refused to inform Congress. Veterans suffered as a result. He should have been fired but Barack Obama's provided no oversight of the VA and that's why the VA backlog has grown and grown and grown.

There's no excuse for it and Tammy Duckworth is the last person to finger point at anyone else.

The ridiculous Ruth Conniff claimed, "A full-throated defense of labor and of keeping American jobs at home was also a rousing theme, with many, many references to Obama's rescue of the auto industry." Who got rescued, you idiot? The managers, the owners? Yeah. The workers? No, they got screwed in the bail-out. All those dollars tossed at Big Auto which then wants to tell the workers that they'll have to give us this benefit and that cost of living . . . As Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) observes today, "Frankly, who wants to be the one to point out, in the middle of the festivities, that Michelle Obama was just a Chicago Daley machine hack lawyer who was rewarded with a quarter million dollar a year job of neutralizing community complaints against the omnivorous University of Chicago Hospitals? She resigned from her $50,000 seat on the board of directors of Tree-House Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, early in her husband's presidential campaign. But, once in the White House, the First Lady quickly returned to flaking for Wal-Mart, praising the anti-union "death star" behemoth's inner city groceries offensive as part of her White House healthy foods booster duties. "

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The real point of ObamaCare

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAS EMBRACED THE NAME OBAMACARE AND DECLARED IT HERE TO STAY.

HIS EMBRACE COMES JUST AS PETER ORSZAG, DONALD BERWICK, NEERA TANDEN AND OTHERS WHO WORKED AT THE WHITE HOUSE ON OBAMACARE PUBLISH A PAPER EXPLAINING HOW TO RATION HEALTH CARE.

YES, THAT WAS THE POINT OF OBAMACARE. AND YOU CAN READ ALL ABOUT IT IN THE PAPER THEY WROTE AND JUST PUBLISHED ON HOW TO RATION HEALTH CARE -- YEAH, GRANNY IS GOING TO BE DOING WITHOUT.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting with the US and the presidential race there. A surprise announcement was made today when Cindy Sheehan issued a statement at her website. Sheehan was Roseanne Barr's running mate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. Due to health reasons, Cindy has stepped down and also due to personal reasons: "As to the personal reasons, Candidate Barr and I have irreconcilable differences on how best to serve the Peace and Freedom Party." Cindy goes on to off her "hope that the Party/Campaign would take my suggestion to replace me with the worthy and talented Ms. Cynthia McKinney." Former US House Rep Cynthia McKinney was the Green Party's presidential nominee in 2008.

I can't speak for Cindy Sheehan. I can repeat what I noted last week which is one person was doing work and one person was Tweeting. Cindy was the vice presidential candidate. She was going to the media, being interviewed. At her site, she and Jon Gold had upped the publishing so that new content was coming from the campaign.

And Roseanne was playing like the stereotype of a pajama blogger. Roseanne being Roseanne was supposed to be a good thing. She was supposed to bring extra attention to the race which is why the Peace and Freedom Party gave her the nomination -- they had people running for that nomination, Roseanne showed up at the last minute like a Bush trying to for admission for Harvard and grabbed the nomination. That was fine because the Peace and Freedom Party is trying to build their party ("Because of changes in election law, Peace and Freedom must almost double its registration by the end of 2014 to stay on the ballot. By registering Peace and Freedom, you are joining with tens of thousands of others who want to take control of our political system away from the ruling capitalist class.") and a big name could help them do that by getting the word out.

But, as I noted Friday, right now there is movement do dump Roseanne by some members of the Peace and Freedom Party ("How would it feel to be the first presidential candidate whose own party publicly rebukes them?").

Cindy worked her ass off -- Cindy and Jon Gold both did. And Roseanne Tweeted.

And Tweeted hateful Tweets that led to complaints from the Peace and Freedom Party which led Roseanne to say 'This is my personal Tweet feed and this is my campaign Tweet feed.' Yeah, let's pretend like you can draw that line and run for public office. Roseanne's ticket was the ticket to cover because it is so f**ked up. I'm glad Cindy's off the ticket for that reason. I'm sad she's off the ticket because she really using the platform in a way that spotlighted issues and that raised the profile of the Peace and Freedom Party.

I like Roseanne as a person and as an artist but months ago I said I wouldn't vote for her and that's why: The crazy. She's governed by fear and can't let go of the hate. We've had more than enough fear and hate the White House. In fact, we've had so much for so long that there are elements on the left that see the country in terms of Hatfields and McCoys. (The right has seen it that way for some time. I never thought we on the left would fall victim to that as well.) And we want to demonize Republicans as a result of that view.

Republicans are your friends, your lovers, your co-workers. They're not the enemy. They may have different ideas and an exchange about those ideas might make both sides stronger but no exchange ever takes place when people demonize. If there are politicians you do not care for, call them out in any tone you want. But politicians don't necessarily represent the people -- if the Green Party or the Peace and Freedom Party honestly thought politicians represented the people, they wouldn't be working to build a political party, they'd just join one of the two dominant ones.

If 15 Republicans nationwide switched to the Peace and Freedom Party this cycle, the party would consider it a success and should. They wouldn't say, "Ew, former Republicans? We don't want them!" But it's unlikely that they'll recruit from that group or many groups when Roseanne can't stop Tweeting hate which, yes, does include wishing cancer on people. When you're crossing those lines as a comedian, you're in trouble. When you're doing it as a political candidate, your campaign's dead.

I don't think, my opinion, Cynthia McKinney could revive it. If she were asked, I would hope she would say no. What would be the point? Cynthia's an elected politician who served in Congress. She ran last cycle for president and knows the hard work involved. So now she's going to join on to Roseanne's campaign and bust her ass -- but not so much that she steals attention -- to keep the campaign in the news? How does that help Cynthia in any way? It doesn't.

In Roseanne's art, she is caring and loving and embracing. It's a shame she did not bring that side into her campaign.

As Roseanne's campaign falls apart (maybe this will allow her to rise from the ashes and be a better candidate, who knows), Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein announces a victory. Google TV was refusing to show the Stein campaign's ad. This was a violation of federal law. This afternoon, the campaign updated their announcement to note that the "ad are now running on TV, cable, and satellite nationally. Thanks for your support."

Robert Mackey (New York Times) reports that Google relented and notes that Ben Manski, Jill's campaign manager , states that the "ad was primarily intended to be shown on cable and satellite channels, like MSNBC and Comedy Central, which, like the Internet, are not subject to government regulation of objectionable language in the way that words and images broadcast over the airwaves still are." The word in question was "bulls**t" -- according to Mackey, it was partially bleeped for the TV ad -- and you can stream the commercial -- unbleeped -- at the Times' report.

Yesterday, Dr. Jill Stein spoke with John Hockenberry on PRI's The Takeaway.

John Hockenberry: So we've got a little time here and I want to do a couple of things. First, I want to give you your chance to lay out your platform, if you can relatively briefly. What is the Green Party's message in 2012?

Jill Stein: The message is we need an economy that works for every day people -- not for the bankers who control not only the economy but certainly our political system as well. So as the only political party that does not accept corporate money, we actually have the unique ability to reflect the urgent needs and desires of the American people. And we are not bought and paid for, we can actually call for the real solutions that the American people are clamoring for. And I would add to this that several polls recently have showed that between 50 and 60% of the American electorate is actually calling for a third party and saying they would seriously consider voting for one. So why is it? Number one, we're calling for jobs -- not simply tax breaks or corporate tax breaks or favors for the so-called job creators who are creating jobs in India and China. We're calling for 25 million jobs here in this country through a Green New Deal. We know how to do this. It got us out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. It can get us out of this Great Recession right now. And we're calling for a Green version of this New Deal because it would also jump start the Green economy that could spell an end to climate change and make wars for oil obsolete. That's number one. Number two, health care as a human right. Through Medicare for all -- basically simply extending the elegibility of Medicare to start at the moment of conception so that everybody is covered comprehensively. It puts you back in charge of making your health care decisions, not a profiteering CEO and it saves us trillions of dollars. A well kept secret: It doesn't cost us, it saves us because it eliminates the massive, wasteful health insurance bureaucracy. Number three, tuition-free public, higher education. We have a generation of students who are locked out of a future. They are endentured servants under the current system. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are promising they will stay the course on student debt. That's not what we need. We've bailed out the bankers who caused this problem through waste, fraud and abuse on Wall Street. We can bail out the students who've been the victim of that problem and provide free, public higher education that is tuition-free. We know that it pays for itself. We did this through the GI Bill after WWII. We know for every dollar we tax payers invest, we get seven dollars back in benefits to the economy.

John Hockenberry: Okay. We're talking with Jill Stein, Green Party nominee for President of the United States. Students are victims of the bank crisis because they're holders of this debt and their interest rate reflects some of the consequences of the financial crisis, is that what you're saying there?

Jill Stein: Well, it's not only the debt -- the sky rocketing of tuition so that state legislators have been able to provide big tax breaks to the wealthy. The burden has fallen on the students because the public support for higher education isn't there --

John Hockenberry: Right.

Jill Stein: Add to that the unemployment crisis which falls hardest on their backs with 50% unemployment and underemployment for students. That really locks them into endentured servant status.

John Hockenberry: It was a miserable summer for college students, absolutely, as you point out, Dr. Jill Stein. Alright, how come climate change is almost no part of the debate in 2012 between the Republicans and the Democrats where it seemed to be on both party platforms in 2008?

Jill Stein: Yeah, well I think, you know, it's no secret our parties have been bought and paid for by Wall Street and multi-national corporate interests and, of course, oil, fossel fuel, nuclear -- nuclear power, etc., you know, all the dirty energy stands to benefit from staying the course. So you see de-regulation of energy, the continuation of the current crisis which is not only causing drought, heat waves, the melting of the Artic and beyond, rising prices of food, fires, etc. You know, we have a disaster that is really beginning to hit the American people. The American people are calling for real solutions to climate change. They are told, over and over, that it's a choice between your job or your climate and, in fact, that's not true at all.

It's a very lively segment and The Takeaway deserves credit for doing it -- not just the interview with Jill, the segment is also about political conventions, American voters and other issues with various people sounding off.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Demcorats have kiced off their national convention. And on the subject of the implosion of Roseanne's campaign (a) it is news, (b) I'm glad we made time for the campaign (again, it was news), (c) Roseanne may pull herself out of her spiral, (d) if she doesn't that might make for an even more interesting story -- meaning no one ever had an excuse not to cover the Roseanne campaign. They made excuses. They ignored her and they ignored Jill. It's their loss.

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