First, there was Barack's lawyerly parsi-pology on LikeitkeepitGate. What he meant to say was that if you liked the policy you stupidly bought after the political sleazoids delayed and delayed and delayed actual implementation of the ACA to make it "deficit neutral" and to hell with desperate people trying to hold on for dear life, you could keep it until the insurance predators kicked you to the curb. Unfortunately, this convoluted explanation was not conducive to a TV sound-bite. His numbers are in the toilet.
Second, Lara Logan writhed out her breathy canned Benghazi bathos in a dress tight enough to gain immunity from getting canned. Digby has her pegged -- mediocre and Manichean. On the few occasions that I still tune in to 60 Minutes and see that Lara Logan is doing a story, I immediately turn the channel. I don't think there was ever a Logan piece glorifying war that did not include a provocative shot of her khaki-clad butt entering a Blackhawk. This woman is the epitome of war porn.
Number Three: a bankster bigwig named Andrew Huszar, no doubt hoping to save his own skin from the Elizabeth Warren Flay-a-Thon, finally says Sorry to America. He admits that Quantitative Easing is nothing but corporate welfare for financial predators. The rich are robbing the poor. Nothing is trickling down to Main Street and nothing was ever meant to trickle down to Main Street. The swollen prostate of the Plutocracy continues to hamper the flow while paradoxically flushing regular people down the toilet.
Last but not least of the Feckless Four: Lloyd Blankfein. Now that he's been dubbed a "thought leader" by the corporate media, and now that his pals Bill and Hill need to re-establish some populist cred, the Goldman Sachs CEO is also compelled to enter the gold-plated confessional. From doing "God's work" in crashing the economy in 2008, Blankfein now grudgingly regrets how his firm handled the peddling of toxic collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. Mind you, his is definitely the most minimalist minima culpa among today's quartet of obsequiousness. The only thing Blankfein rues is that he didn't control the narrative enough, resulting in a bad rap to his rep. Truly, the man is physically incapable of giving a shit about all the people whose lives he helped ruin:
And, post-crisis, I wish I had gotten off - a little quicker off the mark in describing who we were and what we did as a firm and how we looked to the world before everybody defined us for us," he continued. "We were competing against an existing narrative - it's very hard to get out of (that)."Blankfein is still getting off, wouldn't you say? No truth, no consequences, no penance.
These Four Frauds of the Apocalypse see the populist handwriting on the wall, every last sorry one of them, and they're scrambling to feel our pain to the best of their sociopathic abilities. The trouble is, they're only good at propaganda and raking in the dough.
Their pathetic attempts to display any vestige of humanity are falling flat. The more that they half-heartedly beg forgiveness from their victims, the more they stand exposed in all their jingoism and greed and venality. The centrism of neoliberalism is not holding, thank goodness. Let's just hope that their collapse is not our collapse.
Karen, a heads up to this public editor post:
ReplyDeleteNovember 13, 2013, 12:12 pm
Roundup: Staff Departures, an ‘Incorrect Promise’ and More
By MARGARET SULLIVAN
She buries a trans pacific partnership editorial discussion in there as if it's the same importance as the rest, and quotes andrew rosenthal defending the editorial on tpp.
this was my comment...what do you say?
Meredith
New York
First, I'm surprised you put the important TPP deal discussion in with a variety of other issues, with the headline staff departures and more.
And that TPP editorial certainly does seem to approve it. Quote--it would "help all of our economies and strengthen relations between the US and several important Asian allies. But hard bargaining lies ahead. "
I'm surprised to read this positive editorial after getting repeated strong impression from TV commentary of the negatives. I found this quote---
" On MSNBC's The Ed Show, CWA President Larry Cohen spotlighted how service sector jobs, as well as manufacturing jobs, will be sent overseas if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is approved.
"How do we expect to revive an economy if we send those kinds of jobs out of this country? No other nation does it. Only this country is doing it. That's not growth," he said. "
Well,editorial board--is this true?
My God--send more jobs out of the country? Unbelievable. That's the crucial issue the editorial board must address, since job off shoring is the most important factor causing the downward spiral of the US middle/working class,
The TPP editorial needs a separate public editor commentary, with a headline alerting readers to it properly.
Thanks, Meredith, I went over and rec'd your comment. FDL now has the lowdown on the Wikileak, and Naked Capitalism (see my blogroll for both) also has a good synopsis of the latest. I notice that the Times has now walked backed its original story stating that up to half the House is against the TPP, revising it to state that up to half the House is only against the secrecy/fast-tracking aspect of it. For all we know, the righteous reps are getting bribed to be for it even as we speak.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/13/business/international/house-stalls-trade-pact-momentum.html
This is also well worth reading - 'Progressive Sheepdogs, Democrat Sheep: Broken Promises and the Minimum Wage' from the Black Agenda Report.
ReplyDeletehttp://blackagendareport.com/content/progressive-sheepdogs-democrat-sheep-broken-promises-minimum-wage
Karen, 'New Economics' the blog on the right and it's topic, 'Irish Fish rot at the head etc.', fit in nicely, in a horrific way, with your last two blogs. Things are coming undone globally. The verbal gymnastics used by its perpetrators to justify The Greatest Scam are becoming increasingly unreal. The pandemonium before the fall? Can revolution be far away? Or a general nervous breakdown? Zee is already in a fetal crouch, mumbling away in two corners at the same time. We are increasingly undone, disheveled, desperate.
ReplyDelete" President Obama bowed to mounting political pressure from across the
ReplyDeletecountry and on Capitol Hill on Thursday, announcing new rules that will let insurance companies keep people on health care plans that would not have been allowed under the Affordable Care Act."
This report in the news today leads me to believe (correct me if I am wrong)that he was sold a bill of goods by the private health groups to be allowed to organize and arrange the ACA and 'new' Obamacare changes. His deer in the headlight reactions indicate that he was indeed a deer caught in the headlights and had not followed or checked out the machinations of the for profit groups which he is deservedly getting Hell for. There was probably disorganization behind the scenes with the various leeches in the medical system which is evidenced by the lack of real information about what went wrong. This also explains Sebelius' vague comments and apparent confusion about what has been happening.
As they say, if you lie lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. His
inability to be involved and be directly responsible for this disaster reveals his ineffectual Presidential mode of behavior that has involved many other areas of decision making. As you said in your excellent response to Blow's column,"Obamacare and Character" - ' It's scary stuff. Read it and weep ' -.
Please add your comment to our
site.
By request, my comment on Charles Blow's column about Obamacare "misstatements" and Obama's character. My point is that Likeit-KeepIt is nothing compared to the other crap the prez has pulled. I only had room (1500 characters) for the TPP:
ReplyDeleteWhile the White House is going on its apology tour, and politicians are signaling that they're more worried about their re-election chances than they are about the well-being of their struggling constituents, the real scandal is the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Wikileaks just posted some damning details on Obama's wheeling and dealing on behalf of multinationals. While he may not deserve all the partisan grief he's getting on Glitchgate, he definitely does need to be called out for planning a global corporate coup.
Having already made one deal from hell with Big Pharma, by agreeing not to negotiate lower drug prices as part of the ACA, Obama is still doing their bidding as regards the TPP, which would restrict sales of life-saving drugs to third world countries. (and that includes the Banana Republic of America, of course.)
According to Public Citizen's Peter Maybarduk, "the Obama administration’s shameful bullying on behalf of the giant drug companies would lead to preventable suffering and death in Asia-Pacific countries. And soon the administration is expected to propose additional TPP terms that would lock Americans into high prices for cancer drugs for years to come.”
Also leaked was the plan to allow corporations control of the Internet, and by extension, free speech. And plans for corporate courts to take precedence over domestic ones. It's scary stuff. Read it and weep. Then get mad, and call your congressperson.
http://wikileaks.org/tpp/pressrelease.html
(P.S. Thanks to Obama's character problem, it looks like TPP might be dead anyway. There is a bipartisan congressional revolt against it.)
@Pearl--
ReplyDeletePlease don't think that I'm excusing Obama for the disaster that ObamaCare has become, because the buck is supposed to stop at his desk, deny it though he might.
But Obama was totally detached from the creation of ObamaCare, just as he is from so many other things.
He left its “crafting” entirely to the House and Senate Democratic Party leadership who have long been in the pockets of many “industries,” including the health care insurance industry. They made sure that Big Insurance and Big Pharma were happy with the final, 2000+pp bill, and the consumer be damned. Obama, himself bought and paid for by Wall Street, told himself that if the House, Senate and the Plutocracy were happy, well, then, by God, he was happy too: “Just show me where to sign!”
I don't think that Obama (despite his alleged, “off the charts” IQ), or any of his advisors had the smarts to really “check out[...] the machinations of the for profit groups what Obama was signing into law.” The simple proof of that is in seeing the Epic Mess that ObamaCare has become.
Nancy Pelosi famously said “We have to pass the bill so you can see what's in the bill,” or words to that effect. Well, we've passed the bill, and now, clearly, neither Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid nor Barack Obama—or a whole raft of Democratic party legislators/spear-carriers—knew what was in the bill at all. Most of what they are now seeing, clearly, they don't like very much; they ALL look like “deer in the headlights.” Well, “Goody goody!”
Despite my despair over the huge number of ObummerCare/Obamapologists who keep hoping that if they just repeat the Big Lie often enough it will all, somehow, turn out alright, I'm loving the Democratic Party Panic of Late 2013. I don't know if this will benefit either the Republican party or Third Parties in 2014—I'm rooting for the latter—but as long as the ObamaBots take a huge hit in the gut followed by a roundhouse uppercut for a knockout, I'll be happy.