Hey, When is Congress Going to Do Something About Santa Flooding the Market with Free Stocking Stuffer Mercedes Benz's...

...He's killing Detroit.

Rep. Dan Lungren Sides with Non-Union Foreign Car Companies, Propping Up Their Economies at our Expense

I've got to hand it to the Republicans, they've got BALLS. No matter what they say, and no matter how wrong headed and nasty, they get away with their point blank stupidity and flawed thought process by the mere strength of their conviction. For example:

Rep. Dan Lungren was oblivious to Chris Matthews comment: "You're rooting here for the non-union worker, working for the foreign auto companies..."

His response: "Not necessarily. You've got a joint venture in California between GM and one of the foreign manufacturers."

Rep. Lungren apparently believes U.S. auto makers can only make it if they team up with foreign car makers. So yes, he is rooting for the non-union foreign auto companies, again. Or am I missing something?

Rep. Frank Nails Republicans on Health Care and Contempt for Blue Collar Americans

Rachel Maddow got more than she planned when her guest, Rep. Barney Frank, basically got everything off his chest when it comes to a bridge loan for the auto makers. What impressed me was Maddow's ability to let her guest talk, something rare now in radio and television interviews, getting the guests point of view instead of being the sounding board of the interviewer.

Here Frank talk about the obvious problems health care has caused employers in the U.S., and the revelation that there is a white vs blue collar double standard by Republicans. Strange, didn't the Republicans say they were standing up for the poor working stiff out there? Their contempt for blue collar middle class workers is something new to the dialog, and should be pointed out often.

Unfair Taxation: Citizens Pay State, Sales and Property Taxes, Freeloading Corporations Plunder States Desperate Incentives

When I recently came across this story, “Google Turns Down Some of NC's Tax Incentives,” I wondered if it might be snowing in hell right now. We all know that states compete by giving away huge tax breaks to corporations and shift the burden to its citizens. When it’s time to be re-elected, Republicans tout the fact that they created jobs in the state by bringing in freeloading corporate giants. Surprisingly, people love hearing that.

The reason I’m bring this story to your attention is the court case brought against corporations (not specifally Google) that get these tax breaks. Is it constitutionally legal to favor one party over the other when it comes to taxes? According to the NY Times:

Tough economic conditions could slow expansion at Google Inc.'s server farm in the North Carolina foothills, the company said in declining a sliver of a $260 million state incentive package that would recoup up to $4.8 million in state taxes if it met job-creation and other targets at the Lenoir facility. A company attorney told a state incentives committee that it no longer wants the money or the commitments… economic conditions make it too difficult to be sure the $600 million data center complex will expand as fast as previously thought.

What’s stunning is that Google, unlike many other corporations, didn’t just take the money and run all the while knowing it probably couldn’t meet its state jobs creation commitment. But here’s a wrinkle Democrats should look into when it comes to shifting the tax burden from corporations to people.

The North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law is pursuing a lawsuit which alleges special breaks for the corporations violate the state constitution's requirement of fair and equitable tax treatment. A judge dismissed the group's case last month, but the institute's executive director, Bob Orr, said the group is considering whether to appeal.

For many of us it just seemed wrong for states to give away their taxpayer supported benefits, the commons, to corporations simply because they might provide employment. I wonder how many other state constitutions mandate “fair and equitable tax treatment?”

Like the Republican assault on our courts with conservative activist judges, maybe Democrats have a reason to “use the courts” to provide a firewall against the move to a more corporate government to a nationwide fair tax policy.

I know. But I can dream.

Will Consumers Shop For Doctors and Hospitals Like Republicans Say We Would? Studies say NO!

Here’s something from healthbeatblog.org that blows a giant hole in the argument that a consumer driven health care system, where you get to shop for doctors and hospitals, is not the answer Republican promise it would be. After the last 12 years, why would we take their advice anyway? Will Democrats use this information to argue for universal health care coverage? Probably not.

Why Patients Don’t Use Rating Systems That Compare Health Care Providers
The following tidbit was buried within the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report a few days ago: “Fewer Patients Using Health Care Provider Quality Ratings Web Sites To Make Decisions.” The headline could just have easily read: “More Bad News for Consumer-Driven Medicine.”

One of the most persistent dogmas of the consumerist crowd is that patients are eager to comparison shop for health care—and that, if they aren’t doing so today, it’s only because they don’t have the necessary information. But according to an October survey from Kaiser, people just don’t comparison shop for health care. In fact, only one in seven (14 percent) of Americans “say they have seen and used information comparing the quality among different health insurance plans, doctors, or hospitals in the past year.” At the same time, 30 percent of Americans say that they came across comparative quality information over the course of this year—which means less than half of patients who come across comparative data on health care providers actually use it.

These numbers stand in stark contrast to the consumerist creed, which insists that, as time marches on, more health care ranking resources will improve patients’ exposure to, and appreciation for, comparative data. Perhaps even more damning is the fact that the proportion of people who actually use such resources has dropped over the past few years: in 2006, 20 percent of Americans had seen and used comparative information, versus 14 percent in 2008.

Clearly, comparative rankings in health care are not catching on. Kaiser’s lackluster results were seconded in a survey from the California Healthcare Foundation, which found that “virtually no patients” look at health care rating sites in order to make medical decisions (the actual data point was a measly onepercent). "The basic problem of these kinds of ranking systems is that patients do not [really] choose [doctors] on the basis of scores,” said Dr. Bryan Liang of the California Western School of Law to the Press-Enterprise, a Southern California paper. “They choose on the basis of personal familiarity and experience with the health care entity or provider."

Administrative Costs Alone By Insurers Would Pay For Universal Health Care

In Fridays New York Times article “Why Does U.S. Health Care Cost So Much? (Part II: Indefensible Administrative Costs),” it's revealed that universal health care in the U.S. would cost just about as much as the administrative costs of insurance companies. Wanna make a bet not one Democrat will mention this important point to argue for health care change?

In my previous blog post, I showed that America suffers from “excess spending” (in this context refers to the difference between what a country spends per person on health care, and what the country’s gross domestic product per person should predict that that country would spend) in its health care system. Here I will discuss one factor that drives up that spending: indefensibly high administrative costs.

The United States spends nearly 40 percent more on health care per capita than its G.D.P. per capita would predict. This excess spending amounted to $570 billion in 2006 and about $650 billion in 2008. The latter figure is over five times the estimated $125 billion or so in additional health spending that would be needed to attain truly universal health insurance coverage in this country.

One thing Americans do buy with this extra spending is an administrative overhead load that is huge by international standards. The McKinsey Global Institute estimated that excess spending on “health administration and insurance” accounted for as much as 21 percent of the estimated total excess spending ($477 billion in 2003). Brought forward, that 21 percent of excess spending on administration would amount to about $120 billion in 2006 and about $150 billion in 2008. It would have been more than enough to finance universal health insurance this year.

The McKinsey team estimated that about 85 percent of this excess administrative
overhead can be attributed to the highly complex private health insurance system
in the United States. Product design, underwriting and marketing account for about two-thirds of that total.

A more recent study of administrative costs in the American and Canadian health systems … in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2003. These authors estimated that in 1999, Americans spent $1,059 per capita on administration compared with only $307 in purchasing power parity dollars (PPP $) spent in Canada.

Republican Mandates, Revisionist History and Optimism: Rosa Brooks Tells All

Rachel Maddow's guest, Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks, must have been reading my mind when she expounded on a whole list of pronouncements from Republicans about election mandates, revisionist history and party optimism.

It's both funny and sad, if by now people have caught on to this madness, to see the GOP embrace a more "fringe" agenda. Despite calling their positions mainstream, and reinforcing that in their right wing media echo chamber, it's impossible to change the fact they are moving even further to the wacko stage of irrelevance. Brooks points out the conservative contradictions.

Give Auto Makers the Money Says Daily Shows Jon Stewart

Why is it always the Daily Show that manages to mine the back file of news clips to present a case the major news networks should be doing themselves? As I recall, the Fed Reserve didn't want any strings, or any accountability for that matter, doling out the money to Wall Street. There wasn't a plan, there wasn't a clue.

But the auto makers, representing workers and dealerships all over America, are being asked to come up with a bullet proof plan for success. At least the Daily Shows Jon Stewart laid out the case so simply, that even Congress might have gotten the message. I did say "might."

No Wonder the Detroit Auto Makers are in Trouble: Santa Motors

Boy, the auto makers thought they had trouble before. Here comes the Santa Claus Motor Company, with labor at the right price, free. Is this ad really that magical?

"It Doesn't Matter If We Have An American Brand Auto" According to Heritage Foundation. So This Is the Face of Capitalism?

Here's more insanity from the Heritage Foundation's James Gattuso. For people like Gattuso, American's should be happy they have a job, regardless of foreign employer, all the while seeing no problem sending corporate profits overseas benefiting their home countries economy. The days when America manufactured its own goods are long gone. And this insane philosophy is coming from the truely patriotic, flag waving, hard working, salt of the earth free marketeers.

Prop 8 the Musical

Jack Black is Jesus Christ.

Clueless Gov. Mark Sanford's Plan For America: Entrepreneur Renaissance. Krugman and Pearlstein Rain on his Parade

Steven Pearlstein and Paul Krugman do a great job of holding back their anger after South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, just as clueless as most free market Republicans, says he'd like to wait for America's entrepreneurs to recreate the new economic renaissance as opposed to bailing out wall street or the auto companies. Heck, we've got all the time in the world. And if it doesn't work out, well, they haven't planned that far ahead. But did they ever. Remember Katrina?

Bush Passes Buck, Reveals His Contempt For Government. Big Surprise.

Charlie Gibson again gets another ideologue, George Bush, to open up and reveal more than they'll ever know. Howard Fineman and The Nation's Chris Hayes make some great observations. I will let them do the talkin'.

Saxby Won, America Looks Forward to More Filibusters and Obstruction

Republicans can celebrated a resounding win by Sen. Saxby Chambliss as a win for the Senate "filibuster," a ploy the Republicans vilified when the Democrats threatened to use it to block their crazy legislation. Now conservatives have a chance to prevent the country from moving forward and progressing out of they hole they put us in. That preventive measure will prove the Democrats can't pass legislation or govern, and believe it or not, the public will again fall for it hook line and sinker.

Chambliss portrayed himself as a firewall against Democrats in Washington getting a blank check. Chambliss seems to think the overwhelming win by Obama was a vote for obstruction and economic tinkering, leaving alone the free market freefall and crisis to work itself out.

"You have delivered a message that a balance in government in Washington is necessary and that's not only what the people of Georgia want, it's what the people of America want."

That’s right, the people of American voted in, a majority of Democrats to Congress and the White House because they wanted more of the same roadblocks and filibusters to get in the way of digging us out of the hole the party of carnival barkers have got us into.



You've got to be tired of the same old rhetoric...

Chambliss: "What you're gonna see is a lot of liberal judges, activist judges goin on the bench.."

Like that's any worse than having conservative activist judges "goin'" on the bench.

Chambliss: "I think you're gonna see a universal health care plan that'll take away the right of people to choose their physician, that they'll want to go to get treatment from..."

Think about it for a second; we're talking UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, meaning you've got coverage everywhere you go in the country, any doctor you choose in your plan or any doctor nationwide in a government plan. How can you NOT choose your doctor? How can they say you won't be able to choose your doctor when most insurance plans already tell you who you can or cannot see? I AM TIRED OF THE BULLS**T!

It's time we move past the party of partisan dinosaurs.

Last minute chaos from Bush

Taking a page from Bill Maher’s “new rules” bit, Bush has decided to make the Obama administration spin its wheels for sometime to come with regulations so irresponsible, it would be hard for any normal human being not to be appalled. If Democrats were smart, they would summarize the following list into a talking point and marketing plan to forever keep the Republican Party back on its heels. According to the Washington Post:

In a burst of activity meant to leave a lasting stamp on the federal government, the Bush White House in the past month has approved 61 new regulations … will have an economic impact exceeding $1.9 billion annually.

A new rule would ease constraints on environmentally damaging oil shale development throughout the West.

Regulation inhibiting the ability of Congress to halt logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction on public lands.

The White House on Tuesday approved a final rule that will make it easier for coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys.

Another rule would allow federal agencies to proceed with development projects without undergoing independent scientific review under the Endangered Species Act.

A new Health and Human Services rule cuts an estimated $2 billion in state Medicaid reimbursements for outpatient services. State officials had complained that it would jeopardize dental care for children, certain lab tests and speech and occupational therapy.

A controversial Justice Department rule approved Nov. 19 orders accelerated judicial review for death sentences. Legal groups had argued that speeding up executions makes errors more likely.

L.A. Times-

A broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortionin addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments. It will protect doctors who do not wish to prescribe birth control or to provide artificial insemination. Critics of the rule say it will sacrifice patients' health to the religious beliefs of providers.

Thinkprogress.org-

New Source Review changes. The rule would change the Environmental Protection Agency’s New Source Review program, which requires new facilities or renovating facilities to install better pollution-control technology, by making fewer facilities subject to its requirements.

NY TImes-Factory farms could let their runoff pollute waterways without a permit. (The rule circumvents the Clean Water Act, allowing for self-regulation.)

Another rule would exempt factory farms from reporting air pollution emissions from animal waste.

A new rule that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job. The rule…has strong support from business groups.

Rules that didn’t make it (but the intent was there): ordered the Energy Department to kill new regulations that would have forced the federal government to buy more-energy-efficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling systems.

The White House also ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw a new regulation mandating that truck manufacturers install equipment to monitor vehicle pollution.

It blocked the Department of Veterans Affairs from issuing new promised "user-friendly" guidance on burial and survivors benefits.

Great Wienerschnitzel Hot Dog Ad. Did They Actually Play the Ad on TV?

This ad for the hot dog restaurant Wienerschnitzel may stir up some interesting teenage fantasies. But there's one problem...

...good luck finding an animated talking hot dog. To catch a predator take-off and at work harassment ads follow.

Obama Foreign Con Man? Republicans Were Right

I was wrong. My wacky born again conservative friend in Milwaukee warned me about Barack Obama’s citizenship, and I laughed in his face. It looks like he’s having... the last laugh. According to reliable sources at the Onion:

International Con Man Barack Obama Leaves U.S. With $85 Million In Campaign Fundraising. In a devastating blow to millions of unsuspecting Americans, newly elected president and international con man Barack Obama fled the country Wednesday with nearly $85 million in campaign funds. In addition, three unconscious Secret Service agents were discovered at the scene, along with two lit cigarettes still burning in an ashtray, and Obama's daughters, who authorities now believe were taken from an Alabama foster home six years ago.

The only item found inside the metal safe was a letter, handwritten with a fountain pen and titled "An Explanation, My Dears."

"To my tender little pawns, the all-too-trusting people of America," said FBI lead investigator Ray Hilland, quoting the letter at a press conference Wednesday. "If you are reading this, then I have already left your silly country in my private jet, and am right now sipping fine champagne with my lovely associate, a woman you have come to know as 'Michelle.'" "I assure you, this was the most pleasurable and fulfilling con I have ever pulled off," the note continued. "Not since the Moroccan elections in 1984 have I taken so much joy in raising, and then crushing, the hopes and dreams of so many pathetic, disenfranchised, and downtrodden people."

Everyday Americans, whom Obama referred to as "so many unwitting chess pieces in my elaborate game," also expressed shock Wednesday. "I'm devastated," Pennsylvania resident and Obama donor Denise Bell told reporters. "I just hope he comes back soon so he can be our president."

We can only hope.

Finally, Economic Braniacs finally Admit, It's the Recession Stupid.

CNBC discussed the revelation that we’ve been in a recession since December 2007.

I've also included part of Ben Bernanke speech to business leaders in Austin, Tex., where he admits there is still a problem with companies being too big to fail. He suggests regulation as a possible solution and one he thinks "might" be enough to manage their size. Below the video is a NY Times piece dealing with the recession, throwing in a few more of the gory details.



The United States economy officially sank into a recession last December, which means that the downturn is already longer than the average for all recessions since World War II, according to the committee of economists responsible for dating the nation’s business cycles. In declaring that the economy has been in a downturn for almost 12 months, the National Bureau of Economic Research confirmed what many Americans had already been feeling in their bones.

But private forecasters warned that this downturn was likely to set a new postwar record for length and likely to be more painful than any recession since 1980 and 1981.

“We will rewrite the record book on length for this recession,” said Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics in Lexington, Mass. the Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 680 points,

Bush Ideologues Ignored Wall Street Warnings. Remember When they Ignored the Presidential Daily Briefing...

I’m not going to throw my two cents in on the following story, except to say it defines the last eight years of conservative ideology. When you read the responses of Wall Street know-it-alls, is it any wonder we are in the economic crisis of our lifetimes. When you see the Grover Norquist’s of the world continue to push their failed philosophy without the slightest adjustment to many of its shortcomings, that should tell you something. MSNBC’s “Bush administration ignored clear warnings” says it all:

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job. "These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages," David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way. The proposal reads like a list of what-ifs:

Regulators told bankers exotic mortgages were often inappropriate for buyers with bad credit.

Banks would have been required to increase efforts to verify that buyers actually had jobs and could afford houses.

Regulators proposed a cap on risky mortgages so a string of defaults wouldn't be crippling. Banks that bundled and sold mortgages were told to be sure investors knew exactly what they were buying.

Those proposals all were stripped from the final rules. None required congressional approval or the president's signature.

The administration's blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s. Many of the banks that fought to undermine the proposals by some regulators are now either out of business or accepting billions in federal aid to recover from a mortgage crisis they insisted would never come. Many executives remain in high-paying jobs, even after their assurances were proved false.

Federal regulators were especially concerned about mortgages known as "option ARMs," which allow borrowers to make payments so low that mortgage debt actually increases every month. But banking executives accused the government of overreacting. Bankers said such loans might be risky when approved with no money down or without ensuring buyers have jobs but such risk could be managed without government intervention.

"An open market will mean that different institutions will develop different methodologies for achieving this goal," Joseph Polizzotto, counsel to now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, told U.S. regulators in a March 2006. Countrywide Financial Corp., at the time the nation's largest mortgage lender, agreed. The proposal "appears excessive and will inhibit future innovation in the marketplace," said Mary Jane Seebach, managing director of public affairs.

One of the most contested rules said that before banks purchase mortgages from brokers, they should verify the process to ensure buyers could afford their homes. Some bankers now blame much of the housing crisis on brokers who wrote fraudulent, predatory loans. But in 2006, banks said they shouldn't have to double-check the brokers.

"It is not our role to be the regulator for the third-party lenders," wrote Ruthann Melbourne, chief risk officer of IndyMac Bank. California-based IndyMac also criticized regulators for not recognizing the track record of interest-only loans and option ARMs, which accounted for 70 percent of IndyMac's 2005 mortgage portfolio. This summer, the government seized IndyMac and will pay an estimated $9 billion to ensure customers don't lose their deposits.

Last week, Downey Savings joined the growing list of failed banks. The problem: About 52 percent of its mortgage portfolio was tied up in risky option ARMs, which in 2006 Downey insisted were safe — maybe even safer than traditional 30-year mortgages. "To conclude that 'nontraditional' equates to higher risk does not appropriately balance risk and compensating factors of these products," said Lillian Gavin, the bank's chief credit officer.

Congress is considering further tightening, including some of the same proposals abandoned years ago.

A Look Back: Jonathan Turley and John Dean Weighing in on Bush and the Republicans

Here are two interesting views of the Bush presidency and Republican Congress.

Jonathan Turley was beside himself after Bush deep sixed Habeas Corpus, and who could blame him.



Keith Olberman let John Dean, author of Broken Government, take off on his own party for its authoritarian way of governing. He's one of the few to state unequivocally the Republican Congress failed to check the Bush administration, allowing it to go off the tracks, even aiding and abetting one disastrous policy after the next.