Chester County Democrats

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By Bill Moyers - Mat Taibbi - Robert Kuttner
Bill Moyers’ Journal, 12/18/09
[Just a few excerpts here from a very interesting and far-ranging conversation; read all at pbs.org, also see video.]

Bill Moyers: “One year after the great collapse of our financial system, Wall Street is back on top while our politicians dither. As for health care reform, you’re about to be forced to buy insurance from companies whose stock is soaring, and that’s just dandy with the White House….

“Some of the big insurance companies, Well Point, Cigna, United Health, all surged to a 52 week high in their share prices this week when it was clear there’d be no public option in the health care bill going through Congress right now. …”

Matt Taibbi (journalist): “I think what most people should take away from this is that the massive subsidies for health insurance companies have been preserved while it’s also expanded their customer base because there’s an individual mandate in the bill that’s going to provide all these companies with the, you know, 25 or 30 million new people who are going to be paying for health insurance. So, it’s, obviously, a huge boon to that industry….”

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

“Once the White House made this deal with the insurance companies, the public option was never going to be anything more than a fig leaf. And over the summer and the fall, it got whittled down, whittled down, whittled down to almost nothing and now it’s really nothing….”

Matt Taibbi: “…a lot of what the Democrats are doing, they don’t make sense if you look at it from an objective point of view, but if you look at it as a business strategy- if you look at the Democratic Party as a business, and their job is basically to raise campaign funds and to stay in power, what they do makes a lot of sense. They have a consistent strategy which involves negotiating a fine line between sentiment on the left and the interests of the industries that they’re out there to protect….

“The Democrats are in exactly the same position that the Republicans were in once the Iraq War turned bad. All the Republicans have to do now is sit back and watch the Democrats make a disaster out of this health care effort. And they’re going to gain political capital whether they’re in the right or not….”

read all at pbs.org

For source and earlier wars, see World History at KMLA

Wars of Afghanistan 1919-1979

1924-1925 Khost Rebellion
1928-1929 Afghan Civil War
1953 Coup d’Etat
1955-1957 Pakhtunistan Crisis
1961-1963 Pakhtunistan Crisis; Border Conflict with Pakistan
1973 Coup d’Etat; Abolition of Monarchy
1978 Coup d’Etat

Wars of Afghanistan since 1979

1979-1991 Soviet Occupation, Afghan Resistance
1991-1995 Civil War, country partitioned among a number of warlords
1995 Taliban brought most of Afghanistan under their control; warlords held out in the north
2001
International coalition, Afghan allies ousted Taliban
2001- Resistance against Occupation forces, Democratic Regime

from Bankster

On the one-year anniversary of the Banksters blowing a hole in the global economy, no employee of a major American bank or financial institution is behind bars. Compare this to what happened after the Savings and Loan heist almost 20 years ago. No less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 were jailed. Over 500 CEOs and top officers were indicted. What is going on here? Don’t we believe in holding people accountable anymore? Tell the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to get cracking! Our motto? TOO BIG TO FAIL, BUT NOT TOO BIG TO GO TO JAIL!

Tell the Justice Department to Book the Crooks!

[This measure's sponsors are planning to introduce it at the Republican National Committee meeting in January. For text and commentary, see "A GOP Purity Test?" at MSN.com.]

RNC RESOLUTION ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF CANDIDATES

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of
Candidates

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; Continue Reading »